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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35226-8.txt b/35226-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0e23a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9247 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, +June, 1863, 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 11, No. 68, June, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2011 [EBook #35226] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XI.--JUNE, 1863.--NO. LXVIII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by TICHNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + + + +WEAK LUNGS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG. + + +The highest medical authorities of this century have expressed the +opinion that tubercular disease of the various tissues is justly +chargeable with one-third of the deaths among the youth and adults of +the civilized world. The seat of this tubercular disease is, in great +part, in the lungs. + +Before the taint is localized, it is comparatively easy to remove it. If +in regard to most other maladies it may be said that "an ounce of +prevention is worth a pound of cure," in reference to tubercular +consumption it may be truly declared that an ounce of prevention is +worth tons of cure. + +Had the talent and time which have been given to the treatment of +consumption been bestowed upon its causes and prevention, the percentage +of mortality from this dreaded disease would have been greatly reduced. + + +NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. + +Genuine consumption does not originate in a cold, an inflammation, or a +hemorrhage, but in tubercles. And these tubercles are only secondary +causes. The primary cause is a certain morbid condition of the organism, +known as the tubercular or scrofulous diathesis. This morbid condition +of the general system is sometimes hereditary, but much more frequently +the result of unphysiological habits. Those cases to which our own +errors give rise may be prevented, and a large proportion of those who +have inherited consumptive taint may by wise hygiene be saved. + +_Consumption is not a Local Disease._--It is thought to be a malady of +the lungs. This notion has led to most of the mistakes in its treatment. + +Salt rheum appears on the hand. Some ignorant physician says, "It is a +disease of the skin." An ointment is applied; the eruption disappears. +Soon, perchance, the same scrofulous taint appears in the lungs in the +form of tubercles. The doctor cannot get at it there with his ointment, +and resorts to inhalation. He is still determined to apply his drug to +the local manifestation. + +Salt rheum is not a disease of the skin. It is a disease of the system, +showing itself at the skin. Consumption is not a disease of the lungs. +It is a disease of the system, showing itself in the lungs. + +A ship's crew is seized with some fearful malady. They hang out a flag +of distress. Another ship passes near the infected vessel. Its captain +discovers the flag of distress. A boat's crew is sent to cut it down. +The captain turns to his passengers with the triumphant exclamation, "We +have saved them! All signs of distress have disappeared!" + +A human body is diseased in every part. A flag of distress is hung out +in the form of some malady at the surface. Some physician whose thinking +is on the surface of things applies an ointment, which compels the +malady to go back within the body again. Then he cries, "I have cured +him; see, it is all gone!" + +It may be said, that, when the disease attacks the lungs, it must be +driven from that vital organ at any sacrifice. I reply, if the drug +vapors which are inhaled could disperse the tuberculous deposit,--which +is impossible,--the tubercle could not be transferred to any other +internal organ where it would do less harm. No other internal organ can +bear tuberculous deposit or ulceration with less danger to life. + +In 1847, two brothers, bank-officers, afflicted with chronic +inflammation of the eyes, came under my care. I repeatedly prescribed +for them, but their eyes got no better. Indeed, they had little hope of +relief; for, during their years of suffering, many physicians had +treated them without avail. At length I told them there was no hope but +in absence from their business, and such recreation as would elevate the +general tone. A few months of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment in the +country sufficed to remove the redness and weakness from their eyes. As +I have argued, the disease was not one of the eyes, but of the entire +system, which had assumed a local expression. + +This dependence of particular upon general disease is a common idea with +the people. A young man begins business with a large capital. He falls +into dissipation. In ten years it exhausts his fortune. When at last we +see him begging for bread, we do not say this exhibition of his poverty +is his financial disease. His financial _constitution_ has been ruined. +The begging is only an unpleasant exhibition of that ruin. During this +course of dissipation, the young man, in addition to the exhaustion of +his fortune, ruins his health. His lungs fall into consumption. Some +doctor may tell you it is disease of the lungs. But it is no more +disease of the lungs than was begging the man's financial malady. In +either case, the apparent disease is only an exhibition of the +constitutional malady. + +In brief, a local disease is an impossibility. Every disease must be +systemic before it can assume any local expression. Or, in other words, +every local pathological manifestation is an expression of systemic +pathological conditions. + +Now what is the practical value of this argument? I reply: So long as +people believe bronchitis to be a disease of the throat, or consumption +a disease of the lungs, so long will they labor under the hallucination +that a cure is to be found in applications to these parts. But when they +are convinced that these diseases are local expressions of morbid +conditions pervading the whole organism, then whatever will invigorate +their general health, as Nature's hygienic agents, will receive their +constant and earnest attention. + + +CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION. + +Sir James Clarke says,--"It may be fairly questioned whether the +proportion of cures of confirmed consumption is greater at the present +day than in the time of Hippocrates: and although the public may +continue to be the dupes of boasting charlatans, I am persuaded that no +essential progress has been made or _can be made_ in the cure of +consumption, until the disease has been treated upon different +principles from what it hitherto has been. If the labor and ingenuity +which have been misapplied in fruitless efforts to cure an irremediable +condition of the lungs had been rightly directed to the investigation of +the causes and nature of tuberculous disease, the subject of our inquiry +would have been regarded in a very different light from that in which it +is at the present period." + +While I shall not attempt a discussion of all the causes of _phthisis +pulmonalis_, I shall, in a brief and familiar way, consider the more +obvious sources of this terrible malady, and particularly those which +all classes may remove or avoid. + +_Impure Air a Cause of Consumption._--In discussing the causes of a +disease whose principal expression is in the lungs, nothing can be more +legitimate than a consideration of the air we breathe. In full +respiration, it penetrates every one of the many millions of air-cells. + +_Dust._--Every species of dust must prove injurious. Workers in those +factories where tools are ground and polished soon die of pulmonary +disease. The dust of cotton and woollen factories, that of the street, +and that which is constantly rising from our carpets, are all +mischievous. M. Benoiston found among cotton-spinners the annual +mortality from consumption to be 18 in a thousand; among coal-men, 41; +among those breathing an atmosphere charged with mineral dust, 30, and +with dust from animal matter, as hair, wool, bristles, feathers, 54 per +thousand: of these last the greatest mortality was among workers in +feathers; least among workers in wool. The average liability to +consumption among persons breathing the kinds of dust named was 24 per +thousand, or 2.40 per cent. In a community where many flints were made, +there was great mortality from consumption, the average length of life +being only 19 years. + +_Gases._--Among the poisonous gases which infest our atmosphere, +carbonic acid deserves special consideration. The principal result of +all respiration and combustion, it exists in minute quantities +everywhere, but when it accumulates to the extent of one or two per +cent, it seriously compromises health. I have seen the last half of an +eloquent sermon entirely lost upon the congregation; carbonic acid had +so accumulated that it operated like a moderate dose of opium. No +peroration would arouse them. Nothing but open windows could start +life's currents. In lectures before lyceums, I often have a quarrel with +the managers about ventilation. There is, even among the more +intelligent, a strange indifference to the subject. + +The following fact graphically illustrates the influence of carbonic +acid on human life. + +A young Frenchman, M. Deal, finding his hopes of cutting a figure in the +world rather dubious, resolved to commit suicide; but that he might not +leave the world without producing a sensation and flourishing in the +newspapers, he resolved to kill himself with carbonic acid. So, shutting +himself up in a close room, he succeeded in his purpose, leaving to the +world the following account, which was found near his dead body, the +next morning. + +"I have thought it useful, in the interest of science, to make known the +effects of charcoal upon man. I place a lamp, a candle, and a watch on +my table, and commence the ceremony. + +"It is a quarter past ten. I have just lighted the stove; the charcoal +burns feebly. + +"Twenty minutes past ten. The pulse is calm, and beats at its usual +rate. + +"Thirty minutes past ten. A thick vapor gradually fills the room; the +candle is nearly extinguished; I begin to feel a violent headache; my +eyes fill with tears; I feel a general sense of discomfort; the pulse is +agitated. + +"Forty minutes past ten. My candle has gone out; the lamp still burns; +the veins at my temple throb as if they would burst; I feel very sleepy; +I suffer horribly in the stomach; my pulse is at eighty. + +"Fifty minutes past ten. I am almost stifled; strange ideas assail +me.... I can scarcely breathe.... I shall not go far.... There are +symptoms of madness.... + +"Eleven o'clock. I can scarcely write.... My sight is troubled.... My +lamp is going out.... I did not think it would be such agony to die.... +Ten...." + +Here followed some quite illegible characters. Life had ebbed. The +following morning he was found on the floor. + +The steamer Londonderry left Liverpool for Sligo, on Friday, December +2d, 1848, with two hundred passengers, mostly emigrants. A storm soon +came on. The captain ordered the passengers into the steerage cabin, +which was eighteen feet long, eleven wide, and seven high. The hatches +were closed, and a tarpaulin fastened over this only entrance to the +cabin. + +The poor creatures were now condemned to breathe the same air over and +over again. Then followed a dreadful scene. The groans of the dying, the +curses and shrieks of those not yet in the agonies of death, must have +been inconceivably horrible. The struggling mass at length burst open +the hatches, and the mate was called to gaze at the fearful spectacle. +Seventy-two were already dead, many were dying, their bodies convulsed, +the blood starting from their nostrils, eyes, and ears. + +It does not appear that the captain designed to suffocate his +passengers, but that he was simply ignorant of the fact that air which +has passed to and fro in the lungs becomes a deadly poison. + +The victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta and of the Steamer +Londonderry, with the thousand other instances in which immediate death +has resulted from carbonic acid, are terrible examples in the history of +human suffering; but these cases are all as nothing, compared with those +of the millions who nightly sleep in unventilated rooms, from which they +escape with life, but not without serious injury. As a medical man, I +have visited thousands of sick persons, and have not found one hundred +of them in a pure atmosphere. I have often returned from church +seriously doubting whether I had not committed a sin in exposing myself +to its poisonous air. There are in our great cities churches costing +fifty thousand dollars, in the construction of which not fifty dollars +were expended in providing means for ventilation. Ten thousand dollars +for ornament, but not ten dollars for pure air! Parlors with +furnace-heat and a number of gas-burners (each of which consumes as much +oxygen as several men) are made as close as possible, and a party of +ladies and gentlemen spend half the night in them. In 1861 I visited a +legislative hall. The legislature was in session. I remained half an +hour in the most impure air I ever attempted to breathe. If the laws +which emanated from such an atmosphere were good, it is a remarkable +instance of the mental and moral rising above a depraved physical. Our +school-houses are, some of them, so vile in this respect that I would +prefer to have my son remain in utter ignorance of books, rather than +breathe, during six hours of every day, so poisonous an atmosphere. +Theatres and concert-rooms are so foul that only reckless people can +continue to visit them. Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not +because of the sitting, but because of the devitalized air. While +crossing the ocean in the Cunard steamer Africa, and again in the +Collins steamer Baltic, I was constantly amazed that men who knew enough +to construct such noble ships did not know enough to furnish air to the +passengers. The distresses of sea-sickness are greatly intensified by +the sickening atmosphere which pervades the ship. Were carbonic acid +black, what a contrast would be presented between the air of our hotels +and their elaborate ornamentation! + +It is hardly necessary to say that every place I have mentioned might be +cheaply and completely ventilated. + +Consumption originates in the tubercular diathesis. This diathesis is +produced by those agencies which deprave the blood and waste vitality. +Of these agencies none is so universal and potent as impure air. When we +consider, that, besides mingling momentarily with the blood of the +entire system, it is in direct and constant contact with every part of +the lungs, we cannot fail to infer that foul air must play a most +important part in that local expression of the tubercular taint known as +pulmonary consumption. + +The author of an excellent work on consumption declares,-- + +"Wholesome air is equally essential with wholesome food; hence it is +that crowding individuals together in close, ill-ventilated apartments, +as is often the case in boarding-schools, manufactories, and +work-houses, is extremely prejudicial, both as a predisposing and +exciting cause of tubercular disease." + +The great Baudeloque considers impure air the only real cause of +scrofula, other causes assisting. He thinks that no scrofula could be +developed without this cause, whatever others might be in operation. + +An English writer who was physician to the Princess Victoria +says,--"There can be no doubt that the confined air of gloomy alleys, +manufactories, work-houses, and schools, and of our nurseries and very +sitting-rooms, is a powerful means of augmenting the hereditary +predisposition to scrofula, and of inducing such a disposition _de +novo_." + +To drink from the same tumbler, to eat from the same plate, to wear the +same under-clothes, to wash in the same water, even with the cleanest of +friends, would offend most people. But these are as alabaster whiteness +and absolute purity, compared with the common practice of crowding into +unventilated rooms, and thus sucking into the innermost parts of our +vital organs the foulest secretions from each other's skins and lungs. I +wish it were possible for these vile exhalations to be imbued with some +dark color, if but temporarily. Then decency would join with reason in +demanding a pure atmosphere. + + +NIGHT AIR. + +Consumptives, and all invalids, and indeed persons in health, are +cautioned to avoid the night air. Do those who offer this advice forget +that there is no other air at night but "night air"? Certainly we cannot +breathe day air during the night. Do they mean that we should shut +ourselves up in air-tight rooms, and breathe over and over again, +through half the twenty-four hours, the atmosphere we have already +poisoned? We have only the choice between night air pure and night air +poisoned with the exhalations from our skins and lungs, perhaps from +lungs already diseased. A writer pertinently speaks on this point after +the following fashion:-- + +"Man acts strangely. Although a current of fresh air is the very life of +his lungs, he seems indefatigable in the exercise of his inventive +powers to deprive himself of this heavenly blessing. Thus, he carefully +closes his bed-chamber against its entrance, and prefers that his lungs +should receive the mixed effluvia from his cellar and larder, and from a +patent little modern aquarius, in lieu of it. Why should man be so +terrified at the admission of night air into any of his apartments? It +is Nature's ever-flowing current, and never carries the destroying angel +with it. See how soundly the delicate little wren and tender robin sleep +under its full and immediate influence, and how fresh and vigorous and +joyous they rise amid the surrounding dew-drops of the morning. Although +exposed all night long to the heaven, their lungs are never out of +order; and this we know by daily repetition of the song. Look at the +new-born hare, without any nest to go to. It lives and thrives and +becomes strong and playful under the unmitigated inclemency of the +falling dews of night. I have a turkey full eight years old that has not +passed a single night in shelter. He roosts in a cherry-tree, and is in +primest health the year through. Three fowls, preferring this to the +warm perches in the hen-house, took up their quarters with him early in +October, and have never gone to any other roosting-place. The cow and +the horse sleep safely on the ground, and the roebuck lies down to rest +on the dewy mountain-top. I myself can sleep all night long, bareheaded, +under the full moon's watery beams, without any fear of danger, and pass +the day in wet shoes without catching cold. Coughs and colds are +generally caught in the transition from an over-heated room to a cold +apartment; but there would be no danger in this movement, if ventilation +were properly attended to,--a precaution little thought of nowadays." + +Dr. James Blake advises the consumptive to join with several friends, +procure horses and wagons, and set off upon a long journey, sleeping in +the open air, no matter what the weather. He seems to think this the +only way in which it is possible to induce the consumptive to sleep in +the fresh air. Doctor Jackson gives the case of a consumptive young man +(he does not state the condition of his lungs) who was cured by sleeping +in the open air on a hay-stack. This advice and experience do not quite +harmonize with the common terror of night air. + +But while I believe that breathing the pure out-door air all night is an +important curative means in this disease, I do not believe that sleeping +in the open fields of a stormy night is the _best means_ for securing +pure night air, in the case of a feeble woman; on the contrary, I think +it might be more pleasantly, and quite as effectually, secured in a +comfortable house, with open windows and an open fire. + +No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their +houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;--not because +houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows +are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended +against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more +corrupts the air, which has done duty already--to how many lungs, for +how many hours? + +Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him +use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient +put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors +and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his +lungs and system were famishing! + +I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an +out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this +class,--but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon +abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains, +in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts. + + +MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE. + +It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the +consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is, +nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the +cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much +less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the +western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown. + +Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable +part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of +facts, we might, _a priori_, argue, that excessive dryness of the air +would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time +immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and +inflammation of the respiratory organs. + +A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the +wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has +not injured them,--that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant +days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more +moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs. + +There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for +keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet +carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind. +Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands. + +That point of temperature at which the moisture of the air first becomes +visible is known as the dew-point. According to one authority, the mean +dew-point of England, from the first of November to the last of March, +is about 35°; that of our Northern States about 16°. Now suppose a house +in England is kept at a temperature of 70°, the drying power would there +be represented by 35. A house with the same temperature in Albany, for +example, would possess a drying power of 54. This great contrast in the +atmosphere of the two countries is strikingly illustrated by the +difference between the plump body and smooth skin of the Englishman, and +the lean, juiceless body, and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is +also shown by the well-known difference in the influence of house-heat +upon furniture. Our chairs and sofas and wood-work warp and shrink, +while nothing of the sort occurs in England. + +As we cannot increase the amount of moisture in the atmosphere of our +continent, we must limit our practical efforts to the air of our houses. +If we use a stove, its entire-upper surface may be made a reservoir for +water; ornamental work, of but little cost, may be used to conceal it. +The furnace may be made to send up, with its heat, many gallons of water +daily, in the form of vapor. In justice to stoves and furnaces, I must +say here, that, in the opportunity to do this, they possess one +advantage over open fire-places. + +By adding artificial moisture in this way to the air of our houses, we +not only save our furniture from drying and shrinking, but protect our +skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs from undue dryness, and from the +affections to which it would give rise. It is found necessary, in our +cloth-manufactories, to maintain a moist atmosphere in order to +successful spinning. Intelligent managers have assured me that coughs +and throat difficulties are comparatively rare in the spinning +department. + +We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is +comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove, +is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its +boiling kettles moistens the air. + +Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years +without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your +parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of +that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that +the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. The dry heat of the +parlor produced headache, irritability, and perhaps a sense of stricture +in the chest. If we would avoid these, a dry chapped skin, an irritable +nervous system, and a dry hacking cough, we must add the needed humidity +by artificial means. + + +CLIMATE + +The influence of climate in the production of tuberculosis was formerly +much exaggerated. Removal to a warm latitude, so generally prescribed +some years ago, is now rarely advised. Although the bland atmosphere and +out-of-door life of the tropics may often check the progress of the +malady, yet the constitution is generally so enervated that the return +to home and friends involves often not only a return of the malady, but +its more rapid progress. At present, a winter at Lake Superior, or other +region where the cold is intense and uniform, is the popular +prescription. I do not doubt the value of the expedient in many cases. +But the consumptive who can afford a winter neither in the Mediterranean +nor at the frigid North may comfort himself that the value of such trips +has been greatly overrated. Advice to the phthisical to spend a season a +thousand miles from home is, to a large majority of them, not unlike +that of the whimsical London doctor to the rag-picker he found coughing +in the streets:--"That's a bad cough, a bad cough, you have. I advise +you to make a journey on the Continent; and, in order to secure all the +advantages, you had better travel in your own carriage." Happily for +those with short purses, health in this, as in most other cases, is more +easily found at home. + +I do not believe that the prejudice against our New-England climate, +entertained by consumptives, is well-founded. The slight percentage of +difference against us, as compared with the people of other parts of the +country, in the number of deaths from consumption, is to be traced, I +believe, not so much to our climate as to our manufactories. New England +contains nearly all the great factories, labor in which is so +prejudicial to health,--as well as a greater number of furnaces, +air-tight stoves, and close houses. + +I do not believe that the sudden changes of the New-England climate are +disastrous to the consumptive who is well protected. While it is true +that our climate provokes a greater number of colds than that of +Florida, it is not less true that our atmosphere is more invigorating. + +"The Climate of the United States," by Dr. Samuel Forry, of the United +States Army, one of the best works of the kind ever published, gives a +great number of facts, interesting in this connection. His statistics +are gathered exclusively from the army. The men of the army are, in +great part, of the same age, from the same rank in life, of the same +habits, and have the same clothing, food, and labor, and when sick the +same treatment. The influence of climate upon human health may, +therefore, be ascertained with more accuracy from careful observations +among this class of men than from any other source. In comparing the +populations of New York and New Orleans, for instance, it is almost +impossible to make accurate allowance for the manifold differences in +habits, diet, occupation, etc. + +Dr. Forry shows conclusively, that, while colds and influenzas are more +common in the northern branches of the regular army, as 552 to 271, +consumption is more common in the southern, in the proportion of 10-1/2 +to 7-2/3. In the southern divisions there are 708 cases of fever of +various sorts to 192 in the northern. "We may safely infer," he says, +"that whatever tends to impair the constitution, as fevers, tends to +develop consumption in every class which is predisposed, and in all +climates and countries." Dr. Forry's tables present some curious facts. +One which will most impress the general reader is, that rheumatism is +more common at Key West than on the coast of New England. But it will +not surprise the reflecting, that a change of 5° at Key West is felt as +much as one of 20° at Boston. The slight changes, however, do not +equally purify the atmosphere and invigorate the body. + + +DRESS + +No subject is so intimately connected with the health of the respiratory +apparatus as dress. And, as bearing upon pulmonary consumption, there +are certain errors in the dress of children which must be noticed. I +believe I echo the voice of my profession, when I declare that the seeds +of consumption are planted in thousands by these mistakes in dress +during infancy and childhood. To correct these, permit me a few +practical suggestions. + +The skirt-bands must be left very loose. If you would give the baby's +lungs and heart the best chance for development, the dress about the +chest and waist should be so loose, that, if the child be held up by the +shoulders, its entire dress, except as sustained by the shoulders, will +fall to the floor. With such a dress the blood is so much sooner +oxygenated, that, other things being equal, the characteristic dark red +color of the skin will disappear much sooner than with a close dress. + +The bones surrounding the small, feeble lungs, now for the first time +beginning to move, are so soft and pliable, that, under the slightest +pressure, they will yield, and the capacity of the lungs be reduced. Yet +I have seen the nurse use the entire strength of her fingers in the +first application of the skirt-bands. No thoughtful person, acquainted +with the anatomy of the thorax in a new-born babe, can escape the +conclusion that its vitality is seriously compromised by this pressure +upon the principal organs of that vitality. In many instances I have +seen the character of the little one's respiration and pulse decidedly +affected by enlarging the skirt-bands. + +Mothers, if you think all this pressure necessary to give your babes a +form, as I have heard some of you say, you forget that the Creator of +your child has all wisdom and skill, and that any changes in the baby's +form and proportions must prove only mischievous. And perhaps you may +not feel your pride hurt by the suggestion, that His taste is quite +equal to yours. That a corset or other machine is needed to give a human +being a form, as is so often suggested, is an imputation on the Creator +which no thoughtful and conscientious person can indulge. + +_Dress of Children's Arms._--Prominent among the errors in the dress of +children is the custom of leaving their arms nude. + +I speak of the dress for the damp and cold seasons. It should be added, +that during the cool summer evenings too much care cannot be exercised +in protecting the baby's arms and shoulders. If the mother desires to +exhibit her darling's beautiful skin, let her cut out a bit of the dress +near its heart, and when the neighbors come in, let her show the skin +thus exposed to the company. This is so near the central furnace of the +body that it has no chance to get cold; but in the case of the arms and +legs, we have parts far removed from the furnace, and such parts require +special protection. + +Take the glass tube of the thermometer out of the frame, and put the +bulb in your baby's mouth. The mercury-rises to 98°. Now, on a cool +evening, place the same bulb in its little hand; (I am supposing it has +naked arms;) the mercury will sink to 60° or less. Need I say that all +the blood which has to make its way through the diminutive and tortuous +vessels of those cold arms must become nearly as cold as the arms and +hands themselves? And need I add, that, as the cold currents of blood +come from both arms back into the vital organs, they play the mischief +there? + +If you would preserve your child from croup, pneumonia, and a score of +other grave affections, you should keep its arms warm. Thick woollen +sleeves, fitting the little dimpled arms down to the hands, at least, +constitute the true covering. + +A distinguished physician of Paris declared just before his death,--"I +believe that during the twenty-six years that I have practised my +profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne to the +cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms." + +When in Harvard College, many years ago, I heard the eminent Dr. Warren +say,--"Boston sacrifices hundreds of babes every year by not clothing +their arms." + +What has been said of the dress of children is none the less applicable +to the dress of adults. One of the gravest mistakes in the dress of +women is the very thin covering of their arms and legs. A young lady +once asked me what she could do for her very thin arms. She said she was +ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and +found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make +muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly,--but exercise makes them +grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise +will do less to give those cold, naked arms circulation than would a +single month, were they warmly clad. + +The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A +cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty +and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know our +servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise, +acquire large, fine arms, in spite of their nakedness; and if our young +ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful +classes, they may have as fine arms; but even then it is doubtful if +they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach, +without more dress upon the arms and legs. + +Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that +has the latter has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your +body. Now place it upon your arm. If you find the temperature of the +body over 90° and that of your arm under 60°, you have lost the +equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing +headache; or the chest too much, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain +in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach too much, +producing indigestion. Any or all these difficulties are temporarily +relieved by immersion of the hands or feet in hot water, and permanently +relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the +derivation permanent. + +The most earnest efforts looking towards dress-reform have had reference +to the length of the skirt. I think it is one of woman's first duties to +make herself beautiful. The long skirt, the trail even, is in fine +taste. Among the dress features of the stage none is so beautiful. The +artist is ever delighted to introduce it in his pictures of woman. For +the drawing-room, it is superb. When we meet on dress occasions, I +cannot see why we may not introduce this exquisite feature. If it is +said that expense and inconvenience are involved, I reply, so they are +in paintings and statuary. + +For church and afternoon-sittings, skirts that nearly touch the floor +seem to me in good taste; but for the street, when snowy or muddy, for +the active duties of house-keeping, for the gymnasium, and for +mountain-trips, it need not be argued, with those whose brains are not +befogged by fashion, that the skirts should fall to about the knee. + +Dr. Clarke says,--"Since the free expansion of the chest, or, in other +words, the unimpeded action of the respiratory organs, is essential to +health, the employment of tight stays and those forms of dress which +interfere with these natural actions must be injurious, and cannot +therefore be too strongly censured." + +The celebrated Dr. James Johnson declares,--"The growth of the whole +body and the freedom of all its functions so much depend upon perfect +digestion, that every impediment to that digestion, such as compression +of the middle of the body, must inevitably derange the whole +constitution. Although the evils of tight lacing are as patent as the +sun at noonday, I have never known its commission to be acknowledged by +any fair dame. It is considered essential to a fine figure, yet I never +could discover any marks of stays in the statues of the Medicean Venus, +or the Apollo. And I venture to aver that the Cyprian goddess was not in +the habit of drawing her zone as tight as the modern fair ones, else the +sculptor would have recorded the cincture in marble. The comfort and +motions of the foot are not more abridged and cramped by the Chinese +shoe than are respiration and digestion by the stay." Thus wrote the +physician to the father of the present queen of England. + +A former professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the +university of Vermont says,--"Undue confinement of the chest must at all +periods of life be prejudicial; hence the practice of tight lacing we +almost always find classed among the causes of phthisis, as well as of +numerous other ills." And he adds,--"It is surely an erroneous notion +that women need the support of stays." + + +BEST MATERIAL FOR DRESS. + +In all seasons of the year, and in all climates, the best material for +dress, for old and young, for strong and weak, is woollen. It is the +poorest conductor of heat, and therefore secures the most equable +temperature. This is the principal object of dress. The superiority of +woollen clothing for babes is even greater in July than in January. In +the warmest days a single thickness of soft flannel will suffice. But if +linen or cotton be worn, the garment is soon moistened by perspiration, +and two or three additional thicknesses are needed to protect the child +against the ill-effects of a draught. + +In warm weather we find it necessary to wear woollen garments in the +gymnasium, as a protection against a chill from draughts while +perspiring. Our soldiers in the South find flannel their best friend, +securing them against the extremes and exposures of their camp and field +life. Blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-men, and others exposed to the +highest temperatures, find woollen indispensable. + +Few practices will do so much to secure the comfort and protect the +health of young children as dressing them in flannel night and day, the +year round. It may be objected that flannel irritates a delicate skin. +This is often so, as the skin is now treated. But there is no baby's +skin so thin and delicate that daily bathing and faithful friction may +not remove this extreme susceptibility. And as the skin is the organ +upon which the outer world makes its impressions, nothing is more +important than that all morbid susceptibility should be removed. + +An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its +mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one +of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react +upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of +the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially +need a vigorous treatment of the skin. + +Professor Dunglison says,--"The best clothing to protect us from +external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one +that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case +with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over +them when they expose themselves to the sun. + +Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most +precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much +to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the +vicissitudes of weather." + +Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the +Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool." + +Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in +preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and +drains. + +Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the +icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return +to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and +while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the +loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of +flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had +every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his +flannels. + +A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and +those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of +flannel. + +Dr. Willich says,--"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the +covering of those animals most resembling man in structure." + +Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all +seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to +which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness. + +The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous, +those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all +invalids. + +Another writer says that desperate diseases would be prevented, and many +valuable lives saved, by its more universal use. + +A distinguished American physician says that flannel next the skin is of +service to the consumptive by the irritation it produces, as well as +the defence it affords against the cold. + +An English authority says,--"Experience has so fully evinced the utility +of covering the skin with flannel, that no person habituated to its use, +in our damp climate, can be persuaded to dispense with it at any season +of the year." + + +EXERCISE + +Motion is the great law of the universe. It is the first instinct of +animal life. When it ceases, life ceases. The degree of life may be +measured by the amount of normal motion. When the life-forces run low, +the natural and most effectual method of invigorating those forces is +found in motion. + +The popular education of our children is a lamentable violation of this +law. The young child, left in freedom, keeps its nurse on the _qui vive_ +during every waking hour by its uncontrollable activity. The effort +which our school-system makes to crush out this instinct, by compelling +children to sit on hard chairs, bent over desks, motionless six hours a +day, is, considered in its influence upon the vitality of the nation, +the saddest of all possible mistakes. + +A radical change in this respect is imperatively demanded by the growing +intelligence of the people. The Germans,--God bless them!--having given +more faithful study to the various problems of human development, have +devised better modes. The Kindergarten, one of the many beautiful +blossoms of the genius of that noble people, is being transplanted to +this country. Wise parents, thank Heaven, and take heart. Miss Peabody's +Kindergarten, in Boston, should be visited by the friends of education. + +Nothing at this hour is so much needed in the development of the young +as some system of physical training, which, under competent masters, may +be introduced as a part of the daily drill into all our schools, public +and private. The routine should be so arranged that study and physical +exercise should alternate in periods not longer than half an hour +throughout the day. For example: the school opens at 9 o'clock. The +first half-hour is devoted to study and recitation. Let the second be +given to vigorous training in the gymnasium under a drill-master, and to +music. The third to study and recitation. The fourth to drill, in which +those with weak stomachs form a class by themselves, with special +exercises; those with weak chests another; those with weak spines still +another: all classified and treated according to their several needs. +The fifth half-hour to study and recitation. The sixth to declamation, +singing, or culture of the vocal organs, in general and special ways. +The seventh and eighth half-hours to study, conversation, etc. And again +in the afternoon an alternation of intellectual and physical exercises, +the latter so ordered as to bring into play every muscle, and thus +secure the symmetrical development of the body. Who can doubt that under +this system greater progress would be made in intellectual culture than +at present? The mind would find more effective tools for its work. But, +with an incredulous shake of the head, the people say, "Yes, this is all +very fine, but quite impracticable," If by this they mean that it is not +practicable until the public conscience is better enlightened, I grant +the force of the objection. But if they mean to say, that, with a due +appreciation of physical culture, such a school is an impracticability, +I am confident they are mistaken. The order I suggest could be +introduced in a week in any existing school, did the parents and +teachers so will. I am happy to be able to say that such a school as I +have described, possessing all the best facilities for classical and +scientific instruction, and under the management of eminent educators, +will be opened in an American city within the present year. The school +has been determined upon from the conviction that only in beginning with +the rising generation can the results of physical culture, or the system +combining both physical and intellectual culture, in their natural +relations, be thorough and satisfactory, and that the results of this +experiment would do more than all that can be said or written to arouse +public attention. + +Sweetser says,--"Were I required to name the remedy which promises most +aid in the onset of consumption, I should say, daily gentle and +protracted exercise in a mild and equable atmosphere.... Exercise, +moreover, determines the blood to the surface of the body, rendering the +cutaneous functions more active and healthful, and may in this way also +contribute to the advantage of the lungs." + +Dr. Parrish says that "vigorous and free exposure to the air is by far +the most efficient remedy in pulmonary consumption." + +Dr. Pitcher states that "the consumptive Indians of the Osage tribe have +their symptoms suspended during their semi-annual buffalo-hunts, but +that these soon return on becoming again inactive in their towns." + +Dr. Rush informs us that he saw three persons who had been cured of +consumption by the hardships of military life in the Revolutionary War. +The same distinguished authority affirms that "the remedy for +consumption must be sought in those exercises and employments which give +the greatest vigor to the constitution." + +Dr. Chambers, physician to St. Mary's Hospital, says,--"If we examine +the history of those who have lived longest with consumption, we shall +not find them to have been those who have lived in-doors, hanging their +lives on their thermometers." He gives the case of a friend of his "who +from his youth has had tubercular disease, but has kept hounds, +contested elections, sat in Parliament, but never allows any one to +doctor his chest." + +Lord Bacon asserted that "there was no disease among pupils that +gymnastics and calisthenics could not cure." And Galen declared "him to +be the best physician who was the best teacher of gymnastics." While +Dryden, long ago, sang,-- + + "The wise for cure on _exercise_ depend." + +Consumptives are advised to ride on horseback, to make long journeys in +the saddle. This is doubtless one of the most valuable exercises. There +are numerous well-authenticated instances of cures by its means, even in +the advanced stages of the disease. But many persons cannot avail +themselves of its advantages. In our cities, not one phthisical invalid +in ten, especially among women, can command facilities for daily +horseback-riding, still less can they take long journeys. + +Hunting, fishing, and mountain-air are advised. But how can many who +reside in towns and cities, and who most need muscular training, secure +such recreations? + +Walking is very generally prescribed, and is doubtless the most +available of the exercises named. But in the case of women, the present +mode of dress seriously interferes with the ease and physiological +benefits of this exercise; and few would exchange the long skirt for the +short one with pantalets or Turkish trousers. And yet this change is +indispensable to the best results. + +While I would encourage all out-door exercises and amusements, it is +evident that exercises which can be introduced into every house, which +may be practised by persons of both sexes, all ages and degrees of +strength, and which possess such fascination as shall make them +permanently attractive, are greatly to be desired, to meet wants not +otherwise supplied. + +Many exercises have been advised with reference to general health and +strength. I submit a series possessing peculiar virtues for the +consumptive. To him all exercises are not equally profitable. Ten +movements of a sort adapted to his special needs are worth a hundred not +so adapted. He has a narrow chest and drooping shoulders. This +distortion results in displacement of the lungs. And yet he may have +legs and hips comparatively vigorous. Ten movements concentrated upon +those muscles whose deficiency permits the drooping of the shoulders +will be more valuable than a hundred for the legs. There are several +hundred muscles in the human body. In every case of consumption certain +groups of these muscles are defective. Restoration of the lost symmetry +calls for those exercises which will develop the defective groups. +Prescribing a walk for a patient whose legs are already vigorous, but +whose arms and shoulders are contracted and weak, is like prescribing a +medicine because it _is a medicine_, without regard to the nature of the +malady. + +A blister applied to the chest relieves pain within. It accomplishes +this by drawing the blood to the surface, and thus subtracting from the +congestion at the point of disease. If the blister were applied to the +foot or leg, it would not sensibly relieve the congestion in the chest. + +If, instead of applying a blister, we use exercise as the remedial +measure, and by drawing blood into the muscles we would relieve the +congestion within, the importance of subtracting from the vessels which +bear the blood to the diseased part is not less than in the case of the +blister. For the relief or cure of disease in any of the chest organs a +few well-directed movements of those muscles about the chest which lack +circulation will accomplish more than hours of walking. + +The intelligent physician, in prescribing muscular training, will not +say, simply and generally, "I advise you to exercise," but he will +indicate the particular exercises applicable to the case. He will first +thoughtfully ask, "What group of muscles is defective?" When he has +answered this question accurately, he is prepared for a second,--"What +exercises will bring into direct training the defective group?" When +these points are settled, he can direct the training wisely. To +recommend horseback-riding--good as it is--for _all_ consumptives, is +not a whit more discriminating than to prescribe a particular variety of +food for all invalids. The medical man who has a general formula for a +certain class of patients is hardly more thoughtful than the vender of +the "all-healing ointment." + +Little or no attention has been given to the vital subject of exercise +as a curative means. In many cases treated by Ling's methods, when +skilfully applied, the results have been so marvellous that medical men +who had not studied the philosophy of the Movement Cure have attributed +the rapid improvement to Animal Magnetism. They could not conceive that +muscular exercise alone could produce such wonderful results. + +Symmetry of body and mind is vital to health. Its loss in the mind leads +not unfrequently to insanity,--its loss in the body to numberless +maladies. The great defect in our system of education lies just here. +There is no discrimination between the members of a class, part of which +needs one kind of culture to produce symmetry and health, while another +part needs quite another. The gymnasium, where all perform the same +exercises, may be charged with the same radical defect. In a school for +thorough mental or physical training, pupils must be classified and +trained with reference to their individual needs. This principle +underlies the successful treatment of consumption. He who would +contribute to its cure by exercise--the most efficient of all possible +remedies--must not say to his patients simply, "Exercise, exercise, +exercise," but he must distinctly mark out those exercises which are +precisely adapted to the case of each. + +As an additional reason for discrimination in prescribing physical +exercises for consumptives, it may be mentioned that in almost every +patient belonging to this class there are complications with other +diseases each of which requires consideration. + + +EXERCISES POSSESSING PECULIAR VALUE FOR CONSUMPTIVES. + +Most consumptive invalids are indisposed to exercise, and particularly +indisposed to employ their arms. Many attempt training of the shoulders +and chest, and abandon it in disgust. But if in the systematic +performance of the exercises other persons are interested, the patient +cannot withdraw. Besides, those exercises in which others participate +have social attractions, to which consumptives, as a class, are +peculiarly susceptible. + +For example, a consumptive young lady has brothers who assist her in +certain prescribed exercises. These are to be executed twice a day, at +hours when the brothers are at home. There is an affectionate interest +in the group with reference to the pleasant duty. It is not forgotten. +Suppose the brother is the patient, the sisters or mother will act as +assistants. In every family such exercises are sure of the proper +attention. I need scarcely say, that, if the patient undertake to +exercise alone, with dumb-bells or some similar means, it will soon grow +tiresome, and be abandoned. + +Moreover, it is a matter of no small moment that other members of the +family--who are not unlikely to be predisposed to the same malady--will +thus secure a series of profitable exercises. I must add my conviction, +that by no other variety of training can the efforts be so accurately +directed to the muscles whose weakness permits the distortion of chest +which is often the exciting cause of the malady. + +With a good-sized room, and open windows, the air may be pure, while the +exercise will prove the occasion of a thorough ventilation of the house. + +I am indebted to Friedrich Robert Nitzsche of Dresden for the drawings +of the accompanying cuts. His works are invaluable. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +Fig. 1. Assistant, standing behind the patient, grasps his hands. +Patient draws up the hands, as shown in the dotted lines, assistant +resisting. Patient forces his hands back again to the first position, +assistant resisting. Repeat five times. + +In this, as in the other exercises advised, _the resistance should be +adapted to the patient's strength_. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +Fig. 2. Assistant, standing behind the patient, who is seated, grasps +his uplifted hands. Patient draws down the hands, as shown by the dotted +lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces the hands back to the first +position, assistant resisting. Repeat three times. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +Fig. 3 shows an improvement on Fig. 2 for those cases in which, either +from the strength of the patient or the weakness of the assistant, it +might prove more agreeable to employ two assistants. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + +Figs. 4 and 5 represent an exercise which hardly needs description. The +patient should exert the positive force in both directions, the +assistants resisting. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 7.] + +Fig. 6 or 7 may be used next in order. + +[Illustration: Fig. 8] + +[Illustration: Fig. 9] + +Fig. 8 shows an exercise valuable in the treatment of drooping +shoulders. When the patient has raised his arms, as in the dotted lines, +he may bring them back to the horizontal in front, without the +interference of the assistant. + +Fig. 9 illustrates an exercise which may be used twenty or thirty times, +if managed with gentleness. + +I cannot here undertake to say how often these exercises should be +employed, nor in what cases; they are given merely as suggestive. A +complete series of "Mutual Help Exercises," adapted to the treatment of +the consumptive, includes a large number, many of which are not only +valuable, but cannot fail to deeply interest all concerned. + +If to the Mutual Help Exercises it is desired to add those in which the +health-seeker can work alone, I would suggest the new exercises with the +wooden dumbbell, wand, and club, and the one hundred and seven exercises +with Schreber's Pangymnastikon. + +Consumption--genuine tuberculous consumption--can be cured, even in the +stage of softening or abscess. Dr. J. Hughes Bennett, Professor Calkins, +Dr. Parrish, Dr. Carswell, Laennec, Professor Lee, Dr. Abernethy, Sir +James Clarke, and fifty other distinguished authors, declare their faith +in its curability. + +In not less than a thousand _post-mortem_ examinations, the lungs have +exhibited scars, concretions, or other indubitable evidences of recovery +from genuine consumption. I have cured many cases with exercise and +other hygienic agents. + + + + +VIOLET-PLANTING. + + + The heavy apple-trees + Are shaking off their snow in breezy play; + The frail anemones + Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May; + Lanterned with white the chestnut-branches wave, + And all the woods are gay. + Come, children, come away, + And we will make a flower-bed to-day + About our dear one's grave! + Oh, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where + Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair, + So noble and so fair, + How would they haste to bloom and weep above + The heart that loved them with so fond a love! + + Come, children, come! + From the sweet, ferny meads, + Wherein he used to walk in days of yore,-- + From the green path that leads, + Where the long dusty road seems wearisome, + Up to his father's door,-- + Gather the tender shoots + Of budding promise, fragrance, and delight, + Fresh-sprouting violet-roots, + That, when the first June night + Shall draw about his bed its fragrant gloom, + This grave-mound may be bathed in balmy bloom, + With loving memories eloquently dumb. + Come, children, come! + + No more, alas, alas! + O fairest blossoms which the wild bee sips, + Along your pleasant places shall he pass, + Ere from your freshened leaves the night-dew drips, + Culling your blooms in handfuls from the grass, + Pressing your tender faces to his lips,-- + Ah, never any more! + Yet I recall, a little while before + He passed behind this mystery of death, + How, bringing home great handfuls, won away + From the dark wood-haunts where he loved to stray + Until his dewy garments were replete + With wafts of odorous breath, + With sods all mossy-sweet + And all awake and purple with new bloom + He filled and crowded every window-seat, + Until each pleasant room + Was fragrant with your mystical perfume: + Now vainly do I watch beside the door,-- + Ah, never any more! + + Alas, how could I know + That I so soon should strew + Your blossoms, warm with tears, above his head? + That your wet roots would cling + About the hand that wears his bridal ring, + When he who placed it there lay cold and dead? + + O violets, live and grow, + That, ere the bright days go, + This turf may be with rarest beauty crowned!-- + Nay, shrink not from my touch, + For these are careful and most loving hands, + Fearing and hoping much, + Which thus disturb your fair and wondering bands, + But to transfer them to more holy ground. + + Dear violets, bloom and live! + To this beloved tomb + Your beauty and your bloom + Are the most precious tribute we can give. + And, oh, if your sweet soul of odor goes, + Blended with the clear trills of singing-birds, + Farther than my poor speech + Or wailing cry can reach + Into that realm of shadowy repose + Toward which I blindly yearn, + Praying in silence, "Oh, my love, return!" + Yet dare not try to touch with groping words, + So far it seems, and sweet,-- + That realm wherein I may not hope to be + Until my wayworn feet + Put off the shoes of this mortality,-- + Oh, let your incense-breath, + Laden with all this weight of love and woe + For him who went away so long ago, + Bridge for me Time and Death! + + Blow, violets, blow! + And tell him in your blooming, o'er and o'er, + How in the places which he used to know + His name is still breathed fondly as of yore; + Tell him how often, in the dear old ways + Where bloomed our yesterdays, + The radiant days which I shall find no more, + My lingering footsteps shake + The dew-drops from your leaves, for his dear sake. + Wake, blue eyes, wake! + + The earliest breath of June + Blows the white tassels from the cherry-boughs, + And in the deepest shadow of the noon + The mild-eyed oxen browse. + How tranquilly he sleeps, + He, whom so bitterly we mourn as dead!-- + Although the new month sweeps + The over-blossomed spring-flower from his bed, + Giving fresh buds therefor,-- + Although beside him still Love waits and weeps, + And yonder goes the war. + + Wake, violets, wake! + Open your blue eyes wide! + Watch faithfully his lonely pillow here; + Let no rude foot-fall break + Your slender stems, nor crush your leaves aside; + See that no harm comes near + The dust to me so dear;-- + O violets, hear! + The clouds hang low and heavy with warm rain,-- + And when I come again, + Lo, with your blossoms his loved grave shall be + Blue as the marvellous sea + Laving the borders of his Italy! + + + + +PAUL BLECKER. + +PART II. + + +You do not like this Lizzy Gurney? I know. There are a dozen healthy +girls in that country-town whose histories would have been pleasanter to +write and to read. I chose hers purposely. I chose a bilious, morbid +woman to talk to you of, because American women are bilious and morbid. +Men all cling desperately to the old book-type of women, delicate, +sunny, helpless. I confess to even a man's hungry partiality for +them,--these roses of humanity, their genus and species emphasized by +but the faintest differing pungency of temper and common sense,--mere +crumpling of the rose-leaves. But how many of them do you meet on the +street? + +McKinstry (with most men) kept this ideal in his brain, and bestowed it +on every woman in a street-car possessed of soft eyes, gaiter-boots, and +a blush. Dr. Blecker (with all women) saw through that mask, and knew +them as they are. He knew there was no more prurient sign of the age of +groping and essay in which we live than the unrest and diseased brains +of its women. + +Lizzy Gurney was but like nine-tenths of the unmarried young girls of +the Northern States; there was some inactive, dumb power within,--she +called it genius; there was a consciousness that with a man's body she +would have been more of a man than her brother; there was, stronger than +all, the unconquerable craving of Nature for a husband's and child's +love,--she, powerless. So it found vent in this girl, as in the others, +in perpetual self-analyzing, in an hysteric clinging to one creed after +another,--in embracing the chimera of the Woman's-Rights prophets with +her brain, and thrusting it aside with her heart: after a while, to +lapse all into a marriage, made in heaven or hell, as the case might be. + +Dr. Blecker used no delicate euphuism in talking of women, which, maybe, +was as well. He knew, that, more than men, though quietly, they are +facing the problem of their lives, their unused powers, their sham +marriages, and speak of these things to their own souls with strong, +plebeian words. So much his Northern education opened his eyes to see, +but he stopped there; if he had been a clear-sighted truth-seeker, he +would have known that some day the problem would be solved, and by no +foul Free Love-ism. But Paul was enough Southerner by birth to shrink +from all inquiry or disquiet in women. If there were any problem of life +for them, Grey Gurney held it solved in her nature: that was all he +cared to know. Did she? + +After the regiment was gone, she went into the old work,--cooking, +sewing, nursing Pen. Very little of her brain or heart was needed for +that; the heavy surplus lay dormant. No matter; God knew. Jesus waited +thirty years in a carpenter's shop before He began His work,--to teach +_us_ to wait: hardest lesson of all. Grey understood that well. Not only +at night or morning, but through the day, at the machine, or singing +songs to Pen, she used to tell her story over and over to this Jesus, +her Elder Brother, as she loved to call Him: _He_ would not be tired of +hearing it, how happy she was,--she knew. She did not often speak of the +war to Him,--knowing how stupid she was, near-sighted, apt to be +prejudiced,--afraid to pray for one side or the other, there was such +bitter wrong on both; she knew it all lay in His hand, though; so she +was dumb, only saying, "_He_ knows." But for herself, out of the need of +her woman's nature, she used to say, "I can do more than I do here. Give +me room, Lord. Let me be Paul Blecker's wife, for I love him." She +blushed, when even praying that silently in her heart. Then she used to +sing gayer songs, and have a good romp with the children and Pen in the +evenings, being so sure it would all come right. How, nobody could see: +who could keep this house up, with the ten hungry mouths, if she were +gone? But she only changed the song to an earnest hearty hymn, with the +thought of that. It would come at last: _He_ knew. + +Was the problem solved in her? + +It being so sure a thing to her that this was one day to be, she began +in a shy way to prepare for it,--after the day's work was done to the +last stitch, taking from the bottom of her work-basket certain pieces of +muslin that fitted herself, and sewing on them in the quiet of her own +room. She did not sing when she worked at these; her cheeks burned, +though, and there was a happy shining in her eyes bright enough for +tears. + +Sitting, sewing there, when that July night came, she had no prescience +that her trial day was at hand: for to stoop-shouldered women over +machines, as well as to Job, a trial day does come, when Satan obtains +leave in heaven to work his will on them, straining the fibre they are +made of, that God may see what work they are fit for in the lives to +come. This was the way it came to the girl. That morning, when she was +stretching out some muslin to bleach in a light summer shower, there was +a skirmish down yonder in among some of the low coal-hills along the +Shenandoah, and half a dozen men were brought wounded in to Harper's +Ferry. There was no hospital there then; one of the half-burnt +Government offices was used for the purpose; and as the surgeon at that +post, Dr. Blecker, was one of the wounded, young Dr. Nott came over from +the next camp to see to them. His first cases: he had opened an office +only for six months, out in Portage, Ohio, before he got into the army; +in those six months he played chess principally, and did the poetry for +the weekly paper,--his tastes being innocent: the war has been a grand +outlet into a career for doctors and chaplains of that calibre. Dr. +Nott, coming into the low arsenal-room that night, stopped to brush the +clay off his trousers before going his rounds, and to whisk the attar of +rose from his handkerchief. "No fever? All wounds?" of the orderly who +carried the flaring tallow candle. + +All wounds: few of them, but those desperate. Even the vapid eyes of +Nott grew grave before he was through, and he ceased tipping on his +toes, and tittering: he was a good-hearted fellow, at bottom, growing +silent altogether when he came to operate on the surgeon, who had waited +until the last. "The ball is out, Dr. Blecker,"--looking up at length, +but not meeting the wounded man's eye. + +"I know. Cross the bandage now. You'll send a despatch for me, Nott? +There is some one I want to see, before----I'll hold out two or three +days?" + +"Pooh, pooh! Not so bad as that. We'll hope at least, Dr. Blecker, not +so bad as that. I've paper and pencil here." So Dr. Blecker sent the +despatch. + +It was a hot July night, soon after the seven days' slaughter at +Richmond. You remember how the air for weeks after that lay torpid with +a suppressed heat,--as though the very earth held her breath to hear the +sharp tidings of death. It never was fully told aloud,--whispered +only,--and even that hoarse whisper soon died out. We were growing used +to the taste of blood by that time, in North and South, like bulls in a +Spanish arena. This night, and in one or two following it, the ashy +sultriness overhead was hint of some latent storm. It is one of the vats +of the world where storms are brewed,--Harper's Ferry: stagnant +mountain-air shut in by circling peaks whose edges cut into the sky; the +sun looking straight down with a torrid compelling eye into the water +all the day long, until at evening it goes wearily up to him in a pale +sigh of mist, lingering to rest and say good-bye among the wooded sides +of the hills. Our hill-storms are generally bred there: it was not +without a certain meaning that the political cloud took its rise in this +town, whose thunder has shaken the continent with its bruit. + +Paul Blecker lay by a window: he could see the tempest gathering for +days: it was a stimulus that pleased him well. Death, or that nearness +to it which his wound had brought, fired his brain with a rare life, +like some wine of the old gods. The earth-life cleared to him, so tired +he grew then of paltry words and thoughts, standing closer to the inner +real truth of things. So, when he had said to the only creature who +cared for him, "They say I will not live, come and stay with me," he +never had doubted, as a more vulgar man might have done, that she would +come,--never doubted either, that, if it were true that he should die, +she would come again after him some day, to work and love yonder with +him,--his wife. Nature sends this calmness, quiet reliance on the real +verities of life, down there into that border-ground of death,--kind, as +is her wont to be. When the third day was near its close, he knew she +would come that night; half smiling to himself, as he thought of what an +ignorant, scared traveller she would be; wishing he could have seen her +bear down all difficulties in that turbulent house with her child-like +"He wants me,--I must go." How kind people would be to her on the road, +hearing her uncertain timid voice! Why, that woman might pass through +the whole army, even Blenker's division, unscathed: no roughness could +touch her, remembering the loving trust in her little freckled face, and +how innocently her soul looked out of her hazel eyes. He used to call +her Una sometimes: it was the only pet name he gave her. She was in the +Virginia mountains now. If he could but have been with her when she +first saw them! She would understand there why God took his prophets up +into the heights when He would talk to them. + +So thinking vaguely, but always of her, not of the fate that waited him, +if he should die. Literally, the woman was dearer to him than his own +soul. + +The room was low-ceiled, but broad, with windows opening on each side. +Overhead the light broke in through broken chinks in the rafters,--the +house being, in fact, but a ruin. + +A dozen low cots were scattered about the bare floor: on one a man lay +dead, ready for burial in the morning; on the others the men who were +wounded with him, bearing trouble cheerfully enough, trying, some of +them, to hum a chorus to "We're marching along," which the sentry sang +below. + +The room was dark: he was glad of that; when she came, she could not see +his altered face: only a dull sconce spattered at one end, under which +an orderly nodded over a dirty game of solitaire. + +Outside, he could see the reddish shadow of the sky on the mountains: a +dark shadow, making the unending forests look like dusky battalions of +giants scaling the heights. Below, the great tide of water swelled and +frothed angrily, trying to bury and hide the traces of the battles +fought on its shore: ruined bridges, masses of masonry, blackened beams +of cars and engines. One might fancy that Nature, in her grand +temperance, was ashamed of man's petty rage, and was striving to hide it +even from himself. Laurel and sumach bushes were thrusting green foliage +and maroon velvet flowers over the sand ledges on the rock where the +Confederate cannon had been placed; and even over the great masses of +burnt brick and granite that choked the valley, the delicate moss, +undaunted and indefatigable, was beginning to work its veiling way. Near +him he saw a small square building, uninjured,--the one in which John +Brown had been held prisoner: the Federal troops used it as a +guard-house now for captured Confederates. + +One of these men, a guerrilla, being sick, had been brought in to the +hospital, and lay in the bed next to Blecker's,--a raw-boned, +wooden-faced man, with oiled yellow whiskers, and cold, gray, sensual +eye: complaining incessantly in a whining voice,--a treacherous humbug +of a voice, Blecker fancied: it irritated him. + +"Move that man's bed away from mine to-morrow," he said to the nurse +that evening. "If I must die, let me hear something at the last that has +grit in it." + +He heard the man curse him; but even that was softly done. + +The storm was gathering slowly. Low, sharp gusts of wind crept along the +ground at intervals, curdling the surface of the water, shivering the +grass: far-off moans in the mountain-passes, beyond the Maryland +Heights, heard in the dead silence: abrupt frightened tremors in the +near bushes and tree-tops, then the endless forests swaying with a +sullen roar. The valley darkened quickly into night; a pale greenish +light, faint and fierce, began to flash in the north. + +"Thunder-storm coming," said the sleepy orderly, Sam, coming closer to +fasten the window. + +"Let it be open," said Blecker, trying nervously to rise on one arm. "It +is ten o'clock. I must hear the train come in." + +The man turned away, stopping by the bed of the prisoner to gossip +awhile before going down to camp. He thought, as they talked in a +desultory way, as men do, thrown together in the army, of who and what +they had been, that the Yankee doctor listened attentively, starting +forward, and throwing off the bed-clothes. + +"But he was an uneasy chap always, always," thought Sam, "as my old +woman would say,--in a kippage about somethin' or other. But darned ef +this a'n't somethin' more 'n usual,"--catching a glimpse of Blecker's +face turned toward the prisoner, a curious tigerish look in his +half-closed eyes. + +The whistle of the train was heard that moment far-off in the gorge. +Blecker did not heed it, beckoning silently to the orderly. + +"Go for the Colonel, for Sheppard," in a breathless way; "bring some +men, stout fellows that can lift. Quick, Sam, for God's sake!" + +The man obeyed, glancing at the prisoner, who lay with his eyes closed +as though asleep. + +"Blecker glowers at him as though he were the Devil,"--stopping outside +to light a cigar at the oil-lamp. "That little doctor has murder writ in +his face plain as print this minute." + +Sam may not have been wrong. Paul Blecker was virulent in hates, loves, +or opinions: in this sudden madness of a moment that possessed him, if +his feet would have dragged him to that bed yonder, and his wrists been +strong enough, he would have wrung the soul out of the man's body, and +flung him from his way. Looking at the limbs stretched out under the +sheet, the face, an obscene face, even with the eyes closed, as at a +deadly something that had suddenly reared itself between him and his +chance of heaven. The man was Grey Gurney's husband. She was coming: in +a moment, it might be, would be here. She thought that man dead. She +always should think him dead. He held back his breath in his clinched +teeth: that was all the sign of passion; his brain was never cooler, +more alert. + +Sheppard, the colonel of the regiment, a thick-set, burly little fellow, +with stubbly black whiskers and honest eyes, came stumping down the +room. + +"What is it, hey? Life and death, Blecker?" + +"More, to me," with a smile. "Make your men remove that man Gurney into +the lower ward. Don't stop to question, Colonel: I'll explain +afterwards. I'm surgeon of this post." + +"You're crotchety as a woman, Paul," laughed the other, as he gave the +order. + +"What d' ye mean to do, old fellow, with this wound of yours? Go under +for it, as you said at first?" + +"This morning I would have told you yes. I don't know now. I can't +afford to leave the world just yet. I'll fight death to the last +breath." Watching the removal of the prisoner as he spoke; when the door +closed on him, letting his head fall on the pillow with a sigh of +relief. "Sheppard, there was another matter I wished to see you about. +Your mother came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our +broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"---- + +"Very good;--but there was another favor I wished to ask." + +"Well?"--staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor +crotchety Blecker's face grew. + +"By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you +told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I +believe." + +The redness grew hotter. + +"It was that I meant to ask of her,--you knew?" + +"Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good +and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate +it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for +mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? +Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow +already!" + +Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long +hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his +very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the +prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him +dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for +that crime, he took it on his own soul,--now. And so turned with a smile +to meet her. + +"Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, +hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs +shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of +nursing; 's got no notion of dying." + +"I knew he wouldn't die," she said, half to herself, not speaking to +Paul,--only he held both her hands in his, and looked in her eyes. + +Sheppard, after the first glance over the little brown figure and the +face under the Shaker hood, had stood, hat in hand, with something of +the same home-trusty smile he gave his wife on his mouth. The little +square-built body in black seeded silk and widow's cap, that had +convoyed the girl in, touched the Colonel's elbow, and they turned their +backs to the bed,--talking of hot coffee and sandwiches. Paul drew her +down. + +"My wife, Grey? _Mine?_" his breath thin and cold,--because no oath now +could make that sure. + +"Yes, Paul." + +He shut his eyes. She wondered that he did not smile when she put her +timorous fingers in his tangled hair. He thought he would die, maybe. He +could not die. Her feet seemed to take firmer root into the ground. A +clammy damp broke out over her body. He did not know how she had +wrestled in prayer; he did not believe in prayer. He could not die. That +which a believer asked of God, believing He would grant, was granted. +She held him in life by her hand on Christ's arm. + +"Were you afraid to travel alone, eh?" + +Grey looked up. The little figure facing her had a body that somehow put +you in mind of unraised dough: and there was nothing spongy or porous or +delusive in the solid little soul either, inside of the body,--that was +plain. She looked as if Kentucky had sent her out, a tight, right, +compact drill-sergeant, an embodiment of Western reason, to try by +herself at drum-head court-martial the whole rank and file of +Northernisms, airy and intangible illusions. Nothing about her that did +not summon you to stand and deliver common sense; the faint down on her +upper-lip, the clog-soled shoes, the stiff dress, the rope of a gold +watch-chain, the single pure diamond blazing on one chubby white hand, +the general effect of a lager-bier keg, unmovable, self-poised, the +round black eyes, the two black puffs of hair on each temple, said with +one voice, "No fooling now; no chance for humbug here." Why should there +be? One of the Shelbys; well-built in bone and blood, honest, +educated,--mule-raisers; courted by General Sheppard according to form, +a modest, industrious girl, a dignified, eminently sensible wife, a +blindly loving mother, a shrewd business-woman as a widow. Her son was a +Christian, her slaves were fat and contented, her mules the best stock +imported. She hated the Abolitionists, lank, uncombed, ill-bred +fanatics; despised the Secessionists as disappointed Democrats; clung +desperately to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the +laws, not knowing she was holding to the most airy and illusive nothings +of all. So she was here with Pratt, her son, at Harper's Ferry, nursing +the sick, keeping a sharp eye on the stock her overseer sold to +Government, looking into the face of every Rebel prisoner brought in, +with a very woman's sick heart, but colder growing eyes. For Buckner, +you know, had induced Harry to go into the Southern army. Harry Clay, +(they lived near Ashland,)--Harry was his mother's pet, before this, the +youngest. If he was wounded, like to die, not all their guerrillas or +pickets should keep her back; though, when he was well, she would leave +him without a word. He had gone, like the prodigal son, to fill his +belly with the husks the swine did eat,--and not until he came back, +like the prodigal son, would she forgive him. But if he was wounded--If +Grey had stopped one hour before coming to this man she loved, she would +have despised her. + +"Were you afraid to travel alone?" + +"Yes; but I brought Pen for company, Paul. You did not see that I +brought Pen." + +But Pen shied from the outstretched hand, and had recourse to a vial of +spirituous-looking liquorice-water. + +It was raining now, heavily. By some occult influence, Mrs. Sheppard had +caused a table to spring up beside the bed, whereon a cozy +round-stomached oil-lamp burned and flared in the wind, in a jolly, +drunken fashion, and a coffee-pot sent out mellow whiffs of brown steam. + +"It's Mocha, my dear,--not rye. I mean to support my Government, and +I'll not shirk the duty when it comes to taxes on coffee. So you were +afraid? It's the great glory of our country that a woman can travel +unprotected from one end to----Well. But you are young and silly yet." + +And she handed Grey a cup with a relaxing mouth, which showed, that, +though she were a woman herself, capable of swallowing pills without +jelly, she did not hope for as much from weaker human nature. + +Paul Blecker had not heard the thunder the first hour Grey was there, +nor seen the livid flashes lighting up those savagest heights in the +mountains: his eye was fixed on that yellow door yonder in the +flickering darkness of the room, and on the possibility that lay beyond +it. + +Now, while Grey, growing used to her new home, talked to Pen and her +hostess, Paul's thoughts came in cheerier and warmer: noting how the +rain plashed like a wide sweep of loneliness outside, forcing all +brightness and comfort in,--how the red lamp-light glowed, how even the +pale faces of the men, in the cold beds yonder, grew less dour and +rigid, looking at them; hearing the low chirp of Grey's voice now and +then,--her eyes turned always on him, watchful, still. It was like home, +that broad, half-burnt arsenal-room. Even the comfortable little black +figure, sturdily clicking steel needles through an uncompromising pair +of gray socks, fitted well and with meaning into the picture, and burly +Pratt Sheppard holding little Pen on his knee, his grizzly black brows +knitted. Because Mary, down at home there, was nursing his baby boy now, +most likely, just as he held this one. His baby was only a few months +old: he had never seen it: perhaps he might never see it. + +"She looks like Mary, a bit, mother, eh?"--nodding to Grey, and +steadying one foot on the rung of his chair. + +Mrs. Sheppard shot a sharp glance. + +"About the nose? Mary's is sharper." + +"The forehead, _I_ think. Hair has the same curly twist." + +Grey, hearing the whisper, colored, and laughed, and presently took off +the Shaker hood. + +"'Pon my soul, mother, it's a remarkable likeness.--You're _not_ related +to the Furnesses, Miss Gurney,--Furnesses of Tennessee?" + +"Pratt sees his wife in every woman he meets," said his mother, toeing +off her sock. + +She had not much patience with Pratt's wife-worship: some of these days +he'd be sold to those Furnesses, soul and body. They were a mawkish, +"genteel" set: from genteel people might the Lord deliver her! + +"Does the boy look like this one at all, mother?--I never saw my boy, +Miss Gurney,"--explaining. "Fellows are shirking so now, I won't ask for +a furlough." + +"The child's a Shelby, out and out,"--angrily enough. "Look here, Dr. +Blecker,"--pulling up her skirt, to come at an enormous pocket in her +petticoat. "Here's the daguerreotype, taken when he was just four weeks +old, and there's Pratt's eyes and chin to a T. D'ye see? Pratt _was_ a +fine child,--weighed fourteen pounds. But he was colicky to the last +degree. And as for croup----Does your Pen have croup, Miss Grey? Sit +here. These men won't care to hear our talk." + +They did care to hear it. It was not altogether because Blecker was +weakened by sickness that he lay there listening and talking so +earnestly about their home and Grey's, the boy and Mary,--telling +trifles, too, which he remembered, of his own childhood. It was such a +new, cordial, heartsome life which this bit of innocent gossip opened to +him. What a happy fellow old Pratt was, with his wife and child! Good +fighter, too. Well, some day, maybe, he, too---- + +They were all quiet that night, coming closer together, maybe because +they heard the rain rushing down the gorges, and knew what ruin and +grief and slaughter waited without. Looking back at that night often +through the vacancy of coming days, Paul used to say, "I was at home +then," and after that try to whistle its thought off in a tune. He never +had been at home before. + +So, after that night, the summer days crept on, and out of sight: the +sea of air in which the earth lay coloring and massing the sunlight down +into its thin ether, until it ebbed slowly away again in yellow glows, +tinctured with smells of harvest-fields and forests, clear and pungent, +more rare than that of flowers. Here and there a harvest-field in the +States was made foul with powder, mud,--the grain flat under broken +artillery-wheels, canteens, out of which oozed the few drops of whiskey, +torn rags of flesh, and beyond, heaped in some unploughed furrow, a +dozen, a hundred, thousands, it may be, of useless bodies, dead to no +end. Up yonder in New England, or down in some sugar-plantation, or +along the Lakes, some woman's heart let the fresh life slip out of it, +to go down into the grave with that dead flesh, to grovel there, while +she dragged her tired feet the rest of the way through the world. Her +pain was blind; but that was all that was blind. The wind, touching the +crimson moccasin-flower in the ditch, and the shining red drops beside +it, said only, "It is the same color; God wills they shall be there," +and went unsaddened on its appointed way. The white flesh, the curly +hair, (every ring of that hair the woman yonder knew by heart,) gave +back their color cheerily in the sunlight, and sank into the earth to +begin their new work of roots and blossoming, and the soul passed as +quietly into the next wider range of labor and of rest. And God's +eternal laws of sequence and order worked calmly, and remained under +all. + +This world without the valley grew widely vague to Blecker, as he lay +there for weeks. These battles he read of every morning subserved no +end: the cause stood motionless; only so many blue-coated machines +rendered useless: but behind the machines--what? That was what touched +him now: every hour some touch of Grey's, some word of the home-loving +Kentuckians, even Pen's giant-stories, told as he sat perched on +Blecker's bolster, made him think of this, when he read of a battle. So +many thousand somethings dead, who pulled a trigger well or ill, for +money or otherwise; so much brute force lost; behind that, a home +somewhere, clinging little hands, a man's aspirations, millions of fears +and hopes, religion, chances of a better foothold in the next life. It +was that background, after all, the home-life, the notions of purity, +honor, bravery absorbed there, that made the man a man in the +battle-field. + +So, lying on the straw mattress there, this man, who had been making +himself from the first, got into the core of the matter at last, into +his own soul-life, brought himself up face to face with God and the +Devil, letting the outside world, the great war, drift out of sight for +the time. His battle-field was here in this ruined plat of houses, +prisoned by peaks that touched the sky. The issues of the great +struggles without were not in his hands; this was. What should he do +with this woman, with himself? + +He gained strength day by day. They did not know it, he was so grave and +still, not joining in the hearty, cheery life of the arsenal-room; for +Mrs. Sheppard had swept the half-drunken Dutch nurses out of the +hospital, and she and Grey took charge of the dozen wounded men (many +dainty modiste-made ladies find that they are God-made women in this +war). So the room had whitened and brightened every day; the red, +unshaved faces slept sounder on their clean pillows; the men ate with a +relish; and Grey, being the best of listeners, had carried from every +bed a story of some home in Iowa or Georgia or the North. Only behind +the yellow door yonder she never went. Blecker had ordered that, and +she obeyed like a child in everything. + +So like a child, that Mrs. Sheppard, very tender of her, yet treated her +with as much deference as she might a mild kitten. That girl was just as +anxious that Bill Sanders's broth should be properly salted, and Pen's +pinafore white, as she was to know Banks's position. Pish! Yet Mrs. +Sheppard told Pen pages of "Mother Goose" in the evenings, that the girl +might have time to read to Doctor Blecker. She loved him as well as if +he were her husband; and a good wife she would be to him! Paul, looking +at the two, as they sat by his bedside, knew better than she; saw +clearly in which woman lay the spring of steel, that he never could +bend, if her sense of right touched it. He used to hold her freckled +little hands, growing yellow and rough with the hard work, in his, +wondering what God meant him to do. If they both could lie dead together +in that great grave-pit behind the Virginia Heights, it would have been +relief to him. If he should let her go blindfold into whatever hell lay +beyond death, it would be more merciful to her than to give her to her +husband yonder. For himself--No, he would think only of her, how she +could be pure and happy. Yet bigamy? No theory, no creed could put that +word out of his brain, when he looked into her eyes. Never were eyes so +genial or so pure. The man Gurney, he learned from Sheppard and Nott, +recovered but slowly; yet there was no time to lose; a trivial accident +might reveal all to her. Whatever struggle was in Blecker's mind came to +an end at last; he would go through with what he purposed; if there were +crime in it, he took it to his own soul's reckoning, as he said before. + +It was a cool morning in early August, when the Doctor first crept out +of bed; a nipping north-wind, with a breath of far-off frost in it, just +enough to redden the protruding cheek of the round gum-trees on the +mountain-ledges and make them burn and flame in among the swelling green +of the forests. He dragged himself slowly to the wooden steps and waited +in the sunshine. The day would be short, but the great work of his life +should be done in it. + +"Sheppard!" he called, seeing the two square, black figures of the +Colonel and his mother trotting across the sunny street. + +"Hillo! you'll report yourself ready for service soon, at this rate, +Doctor." + +"In a week. That man Gurney. When can he be removed?" + +"What interest can you have in that dirty log, Blecker? I've noticed the +man since you asked of him. He's only a Northern rogue weakened into a +Southern bully." + +"I know. But his family are known to me. I have an order for his +exchange: it came yesterday. He holds rank as captain in the other +service, I believe?" + +"Yes,--but he's in no hurry to leave his bed, Nott tells me." + +"This order may quicken his recovery, eh?" + +"Perhaps." + +Sheppard laughed. + +"You are anxious to restore him to his chances of promotion down yonder; +yet I fancied I saw no especial love for him in your eyes, heh? Maybe +you'd promote him to the front rank, as was done with Uriah,--what d' ye +say, Paul?" + +He went on laughing, without waiting for an answer. + +"As was done with Uriah?" Pah, what folly was this? He took out his +handkerchief, wiping his face and neck; he felt cold and damp,--from +weakness, it might be. + +"You will tell that man Gurney, Sam," beckoning to the orderly who was +loitering near, "that an order for his exchange is made out, when he is +able to avail himself of it." + +"Won't you see him yerself, Doctor?" insinuated Sam. "He's a weak +critter, an' 'll be monstrous thankful, I'm thinkin'." + +Blecker shook his head and turned off, waiting for Mrs. Sheppard. She +was on the sidewalk, laying down the law to the chaplain, who, with his +gilt-banded cap, looked amazingly like a footman. The lady's tones had +the Kentucky, loud, mellow ring; her foot tapped, and her nervous +fingers emphasized the words against her palm. + +"Ill-bred," thought the young man; but he bowed, smiling suavely. "If I +have been derelict in duty, Madam, I will be judged by a Higher Power." + +"But it's my way, young Sir, to go to the root of the matter, when I see +things rotting,--be it a potato-field or a church. We're plain-tongued +in my State. And I think the Higher Power needs a mouth-piece just now." + +And something nobler of mien than good-breeding gave to Sarah Sheppard's +earnest, pursy little figure meaning just then, before which the flimsy +student of the Thirty-Nine Articles stood silent. + +"I'm an old woman, young man; you're a boy, and the white cravat about +your neck gives me no more respect for you than the bit of down on your +chin, so long as you are unworthy to wear either. We Virginians and +Kentuckians may be shelled up yet in our old-fogy notions; it's likely, +as you say. We don't understand the rights of man, maybe, or know just +where Humanity has got to in its progress. But we've a grip on the +old-fashioned Christianity, and we mean to make it new again. And when I +see hundreds of young, penniless preachers, and old, placeless +preachers, shoving into the army for the fat salaries, drinking, +card-playing with the men, preaching murder instead of Christ's gospel +of peace, I'll speak, though I am a woman. I'll call them the Devil's +servants instead of the Lord's, and his best and helpfullest servants, +too, nowadays. If there's a time when a man's soul cries out to get a +clear sight of God, it's when he's standing up for what he thinks right, +with his face to the foe, and his country behind him. And it's not the +droning, slovenly prayers nor hashed-up political speeches of such men +as you, that will show Him to them. Oh, my son!" putting her hand on the +young man's arm, her voice unsteady, choking a minute, "I wish you'd be +earnest, a peace-teacher like your Master. It's no wonder the men +complain of the Federal chaplains as shams and humbugs. I don't know how +it is on the other side. I've a son there,--Harry. I'd like to think +he'd hear some live words of great truth before he goes into battle. Not +vapid gabbling over the stale, worn-out cant, nor abuse of the enemy. +When he's lying there, the blood coming from his heart on the sod, life +won't be stale to him, nor death, nor the helping blood of the cross. +And for his enemy, when he lies dead there, my Harry, would God love his +soul better because it came to Him filled with hate of his brother?" + +She was half talking to herself now, and the young man drew his +coat-sleeve out of her hold and slipped away. Afterwards he said that +old lady was half-Secesh, because she had a son in the Rebel army; but I +think her words left some meaning in his brain other than that. + +She met Blecker, her face redder, her eyebrows blacker than usual. + +"You up and out, Doctor Blecker? Very well! You'll pay for it in fever +to-morrow. But every young man is wiser in his own conceit, to-day, than +seven men that can render a reason. It was not so in my day. Young +people knew their age. I never sat down before my mother without +permission granted, nor had an opinion of my own." + +She stood silent a moment, cooling. + +"Pha, pha! I'm a foolish old body. Fretting and fuming to no purpose, +likely. There's Pratt, now, laughing, down the street. 'Mother, if +you're going to have one of your brigazoos with that young parson, I'm +off,' he says. He says,--'You're not in your own country, where the +Shelbys rule the roast.' What if I'm not, Doctor Blecker? Truth's truth. +I'm tired of cant, whether it belongs to the New-England new age of +reason, their Humanity and Fourierism and Broad-Church and Free-Love, +or what not, or our own Southern hard-bit, tight-reined men's creeds. +Not God's,--driving men headlong into one pit, all but a penned-up +dozen. I'm going back of all churches to the words of Jesus. There's my +platform. But you said you wanted to speak with me. What's _your_ +trouble?" + +Blecker hesitated,--not knowing how this sturdy interpreter of the words +of Jesus would look on his marriage with another man's wife, if she +understood the matter clearly. He fumbled his cravat a minute, feeling +alone, as if the earth and heaven were vacant,--no background for him to +lean against. Men usually do stand thus solitary, when they are left to +choose by God. + +"You're hard on the young fellow, Mrs. Sheppard. I wish for my own sake +he was a better specimen of his cloth. There's no one else here to marry +me." + +"Tut! no difference what _he_ is,"--growing graver, as she spoke. "God's +blessing comes pure, if the lips are not the cleanest that speak it. You +are resolved, then, on your course, as you spoke to me last night?" + +"Yes, I am, if Grey will listen to reason. You and the Colonel leave +to-morrow?" + +"Yes, and she cannot stay here behind me, to a certainty. Pratt is +ordered off, and I must go see to my three-year-olds. Morgan will have +them before I know what I'm about. I'll take the girl back to Wheeling, +so far on her way home. As to this marriage"---- + +She stopped, with her fingers on her chin. The Doctor laughed to +himself. She was deciding on Grey's fate and his, as if they were a pair +of her three-year-olds that Government wanted to buy. + +"It's unseemly, when the child's father is not here. That's how it seems +to me, Dr. Blecker. As for love, and that, it will keep. Pha, pha! +There's one suggestion of weight in favor of it. If you were killed in +battle, the girl would have some provision as your widow that she could +not have now. D'ye see?" + +Blecker laughed uneasily. + +"I see; you come at the bone of the matter, certainly. I have concluded, +Mrs. Sheppard, Grey must go with you; but she shall leave here as my +wife. If there is any evil consequence, it shall come to me." + +There was a moment's silence. He avoided the searching black eyes fixed +on his face. + +"It is not for me to judge in this matter," she said, with some reserve. +"The girl is a good girl, however, and I will try and take the place of +a mother to her. You have reasons for this haste unknown to me, +probably. When do you wish the ceremony, and where, Doctor? The church +up yonder," sliding into her easy, dogmatic tone again; "it's one of the +few whole roofs in the place. That is best,--yes. And for time, say +sunset. That will suit me. I must go write to that do nothing M'Key +about the trousers for Pratt's men. They're boxed up in New York yet: +and then I've to see to getting a supply of blue pills. If you'll only +give one to each man two nights before going into battle, just enough to +stir their livers up, you'll find it work like a charm in helping them +to fight. Sundown,--yes. I cannot attend to it possibly before." + +"It was the time I had fixed upon, if Grey consents." + +"Pah! she's a bit of linen rag, that child. You can turn her round your +finger, and you know it. You will find her down on the shore, I think. I +must go and tell my young parson he had better read over the ceremony +once or twice to be posted up in it." + +"To be sure, Pratt," she said, a few moments after, as she detailed the +intended programme to the Colonel, farther down the street,--"to be +sure, it's too hasty. I have not had time to give it consideration as I +ought. These wartimes, my brain is so thronged night and day. But I +think it's a good match. There's an honest, downright vein in young +Blecker that'll make a healthy life. Wants birth, to be sure. Girl's got +that. You needn't sneer, Pratt. It is only men and women that come of +the old rooted families, bad or good, that are self-poised. Made men +always have an unsteady flicker, a hitch in their brains +somewhere,--like your Doctor, eh? Grey's out of one of the solid old +Pennsylvania stocks. Better blooded the mule, the easier goer, fast or +not." + +She shut her porte-monnaie with a click, and repinned her little veil +that struck out behind her, stiff, pennant-wise, as she walked. + +"Well, I've no time now. I'm going to drop in and see that Gurney, and +tell him he's exchanged. And the sooner he's up and out, the better for +him. Dyspepsia's what ails _him_. I'll get him out for a walk to-day. 'S +cool and bracing." + +It was a bracing day, the current of wind coming in between the Maryland +Heights fresh and vigorous, driving rifts of gray cloud across the +transparent blue overhead. A healthy, growing day, the farmers called +it; one did fancy, too, that the late crops, sowed after the last +skirmish about the town, did thrust out their green blades more +hopefully to-day than before; the Indian corn fattened and yellowed +under its tresses of soft sun-burnt silk. Grey, going with Pen that +afternoon through a great field of it, caught the clean, damp perfume of +its husk; it put her in mind of long ago, somehow, when she was no older +than Pen. So she stopped to gather the scarlet poppies along the fence, +to make "court-ladies" out of them for him, as she used to do for +herself in those old times. + +"Make me some shawls for them," said Pen, presenting her some +lilac-leaves, which she proceeded to ornament by biting patterns with +her teeth. + +"Oth said, if I eat poppy-seeds, I'd sleep, an' never waken again. Is +that true, Sis?" + +"I believe it is. I don't know." + +Death and eternal sleeps were dim, far-off matters to Grey always,--very +trivial to-day. She was a healthy, strong-nerved woman, loving God and +her kin with every breath of her body, not likely to trouble herself +about death, or ever to take her life as a mean, stingy makeshift and +cheat, a mere rotten bridge to carry her over to something better, as +more spiritually-minded women do. It was altogether good and great; +every minute she wanted a firmer hold on it, to wring more work and +pleasure out of it. She was so glad to live. God was in this world. +Sure. She knew that, every moment she prayed. In the other? Yes; but +then that was shadowy, and there were no shadows nor affinity for them +in Grey. This was a certainty,--here. And to-day----So content to be +alive to-day, that a something dumb in her brown eyes made Pen, looking +up, laugh out loud. + +"Kiss me, Sis. You're a mighty good old Sis to-day. Let's go down to the +river." + +They went down by the upper road, leaving the town behind them. The road +was only a wide, rutted cow-path on the side of the hill. Here and there +a broken artillery-wheel, or bomb-shell, or a ragged soldier's jacket +lay among the purple iron-weed. She would not see them--to-day. Instead, +she saw how dark the maple-leaves were growing,--it was nearly time for +them to turn now; the air was clear and strong this morning, as if it +brought a new lease of life into the world; on the hill-banks, brown and +ash-colored lichen, and every shade of green, from pale apple-tint to +the blackish shadows like moss in October, caught the sunshine, in the +cheeriest fashion. Yellow butterflies chased each other about the grass, +tipsily; the underbrush was full of birds, chattering, chirping calls, +stopping now and then to thrill the air up to heaven with a sudden +shiver of delight,--so glad even they were to be alive. Mere flecks of +birds, some of them, bits of shining blue and scarlet and brown, +trembling in and out of the bushes: chippeys, for instance,--you +know?--so contemptibly little; it was ridiculous, in these sad times, +to see how much joy they made their small bodies hold. But it isn't +their fault that they only have instinct, and not reason. I'm afraid +Grey, with most women, was very near their predicament. That day was so +healthy, though, that the very bees got out of their drowsiness, and +made a sort of song of their everlasting hum; and that old coffin-maker +of a woodpecker in the hollow beech down by the bridge set to work at +his funereal "thud, thud," with such sudden vigor, it sounded like a +heartsome drum, actually, beating the reveille. Not much need of that: +Grey thought the whole world was quite awake: looking up to the +mountains, she did not feel their awful significance of rest, as Paul +Blecker might have done. They only looked to her like the arms this +world had to lift up to heaven its forests and flowers,--to say, "See +how glad and beautiful I am!" Why, up there in those barest peaks above +the clouds she had seen delicate little lakes nestling, brimming with +light and lilies. + +They came to the river, she and Pen, where it bends through the gorge, +and sat down there under a ledge of sandstone, one groping finger of the +sunshine coming in to hold her freckled cheek and soft reddish hair. +They say the sun does shine the same on just and unjust; but he likes +best to linger, I know, on things wholesome and pure like this girl. +When Pen began to play "jacks" with the smooth stones on the shore, she +spread out her skirt for him to sit on,--to keep him close, hugging him +now and then, with the tears coming to her eyes: because she had seen +Paul an hour before, and promised all he asked. And Pen was the only +thing there of home, you know. And on this her wedding-day she loved +them all with a hungry pain, somehow, as never before. She was going +back to-morrow; she could work and help them just as before; and yet a +gulf seemed opening between them forever. She had been selfish and +petulant,--she saw that now; sometimes impatient with her old father's +trumpery rocks, or Lizzy's discontent; in a rage, often, at Joseph. Now +she saw how hardly life had dealt with them, how poor and bare their +lives were. _She_ might have made them warmer and softer, if she had +chosen. Please God, she would try, when she went home again,--wiping the +hot tears off, and kissing Pen's dismal face, until he rebelled. The +shadows were lengthening, the rock above her threw a jagged, black +boundary about her feet. When the sun was behind yon farthest hill she +was going back, up to the little church, with Pen; then she would give +herself to her master, forever. + +Whatever feeling this brought into her soul, she kept it there silent, +not coming to her face as the other had done in blushes or tears. She +waited, her hands clutched together, watching the slow sinking of the +sun. Not even to Paul had she said what this hour was to her. She had +come a long journey; this was the end. + +"I would like to be alone until the time comes," she had said, and had +left him. He did not know what he was to the girl; she loved him, +moderately, he thought, with a temperate appreciation that taunted his +hot passion. She did not choose that even he should know with what +desperate abandonment of self she had absorbed his life into hers. She +chose to be alone, shrinking, with a sort of hatred, from the vulgar or +strange eyes that would follow her into the church. In this beginning of +her new life she wanted to be alone with God and this soul, only kinsman +of her own. If they could but go, Paul and she, up into one of these +mountain-peaks, with Him that made them very near, and there give +themselves to each other, before God, forever! + +She sat, her hands clasped about her knees, looking into the gurgling +water. The cool, ashen hue that precedes sunset in the mountains began +to creep through the air. The child had crouched down at her feet, and +fallen into a half doze. It was so still that she heard far down the +path a man's footsteps crushing the sand, coming close. She did not +turn her head,--only the sudden blood dyed her face and neck. + +"Paul!" + +She knew he was coming for her. No answer. She stood up then, and looked +around. It was the prisoner Gurney, leaning against the rock, +motionless, only that he twisted a silk handkerchief nervously in his +hand, looking down at it, and crunching tobacco vehemently in his teeth. + +"I've met you at last, Grey. I knew you were at the Ferry." + +The girl said nothing. Sudden death, or a mortal thrust of Fate, like +this, brings only dumb astonishment at first: no pain. She put her +fingers to her throat: there was a lump in it, choking her. He laughed, +uneasily. + +"It's a devilish cool welcome, considering you are my wife." + +Pen woke and began to cry. She patted his shoulder in a dazed way, her +eyes never leaving the man's face; then she went close, and caught him +by the arm. + +"It is flesh and blood,"--shaking her off. "I'm not dead. You thought I +was dead, did you? I got that letter written from Cuba,"--toying with +his whiskers, with a complacent smirk. "That was the sharpest dodge of +my life, Grey. Fact is, I was damnably in debt, and tied up with your +people, and I cut loose. So, eh? What d' ye think of it, Puss?" putting +his hand on her arm. "_Wife_, eh?" + +She drew back against the sandstone with a hoarse whisper of a cry such +as can leave a woman's lips but once or twice in a lifetime: an animal +tortured near its death utters something like it, trying to speak. + +"Well, well, I don't want to incommode you,"--shifting his feet +uncertainly. "I--it's not my will I came across you. Single life suits +me. And you too, heh? I've been rollicking round these four years,--Tom +Crane and I: you don't know Tom, though. Plains,--Valparaiso,--New +Orleans. Well, I'm going to see this shindy out in the States now. Tom's +in it, head-devil of a guerrilla-band. _I_ keep safe. Let Jack Gurney +alone for keeping a whole skin! But, eh, Grey?"--mounting a pair of +gold-rimmed eye-glasses over his thick nose. "You've grown. Different +woman, by George! Nothing but a puling, gawky girl, when I went away. +Your eyes and skin have got color,--luscious-looking: why, your eyes +flash like a young bison's we trapped out in Nevada. Come, kiss me, +Grey. Eh?"--looking in the brown eyes that met his, and stopping short +in his approach. + +Of the man and woman standing there face to face the woman's soul was +the more guilty, it may be, in God's eyes, that minute. She loathed him +with such intensity of hatred. The leer in his eyes was that of a fiend, +to her. In which she was wrong. There are no thorough-bred villains, out +of novels: even Judas had a redeeming trait (out of which he hanged +himself). This man Gurney had a weak, incomplete brain, strong sensual +instincts, and thick blood thirsty for excitement,--all, probably, you +could justly say of Nero. He did not care especially to torment the +woman,--would rather she were happy than not,--unless, indeed, he needed +her pain. So he stopped, regarding her. Enough of a true voluptuary, +too, to shun turmoil. + +"There! hush! For God's sake don't begin to cry out. I'm weak yet; can't +bear noise." + +"I'm not going to cry," her voice so low he had to stoop to hear. +Something, too, in her heart that made her push Pen from her, when he +fumbled to unclasp her clinched hands,--some feeling she knew to be so +foul she dared not touch him. + +"Do you mean to claim me as your wife, John?" + +He did not reply immediately; leisurely inspecting her from head to +foot, as she stood bent, her eyes lying like a dead weight on his, +patting and curling his yellow whiskers meanwhile. + +"Wife, heh? I don't know. Your face is getting gray. Where's that +pretty color gone you had a bit ago, Puss? By George!"--laughing,--"I +don't think it would need much more temptation to make a murderer out of +you. I did not expect you to remember the old days so well. I was hard +on you then,"--stopping, with a look of half admiration, half fear, to +criticize her again. "Well, well, I'll be serious. Will I claim you +again? N--o. On the whole, I believe not. I'll be candid, Grey,--I +always was a candid man, you know. I'd like well enough to have the +taming of you. It would keep a man alive to play Petruchio to such a +Kate, 'pon honor! But I do hate the trammels,--I've cut loose so long, +you see. You're not enough to tempt a fellow to hang out as family man +again. It's the cursedest slavery! So I think," poising his ringed +finders on his chin, thoughtfully, "we'd best settle it this way. I'll +take my exchange and go South, and we'll keep our own counsel. Nobody's +wiser. If it suits you to say I'm dead, why, I'm dead at your service. I +won't trouble you again. Or if you would rather, you can sue out a +divorce in some of the States,--wilful desertion, etc. I'm willing." + +She shook her head. + +"In any case you are free." + +She wrung her hands. + +"I am never free again! never again!"--sobs coming now, shaking her +body. She crouched down on the ground, burying her head out of sight. + +"Tut! tut! A scene, after all! I tell you, girl, I'll do what you wish." + +She raised her head. + +"If you were _dead_, John Gurney! That is all. I was going to be a pure, +good, happy woman, and now"---- + +Her eyes closed, her head fell slowly on her breast, her hands and face +gray with the mottled blood blued under the eyes. + +"Oh, damn it! Poor thing! She won't know anything for a bit," said +Gurney, laying her head back against the sandstone. "I'll be off. What a +devil she is, to be sure! Boy, you'd best put some water on your +sister's face in a minute or two,"--to the whimpering Pen. "If I was +safe out of this scrape, and off from the Ferry"---- + +And thrusting his eye-glass into his pocket, he went up the hill, still +chafing his whiskers. Near the town he met Paul Blecker. The sun was +nearly down. The Doctor stopped short, looking at the man's face +fixedly. He found nothing there, but a vapid self-complacency. + +"He has not seen her," said Paul, hurrying on. "Another hour, and I am +safe." + +But Gurney had a keen twinkle in his eye. + +"It's not the first time that fellow has looked as if he would like to +see my throat cut," he muttered. "I begin to understand, eh? If he has a +mind to the girl, I'm not safe. Jack Gurney, you'd best vamose this +ranch to-night. Sheppard will parole me to headquarters, and then for an +exchange." + + + + +THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER. + + "Every man's proper mansion-house and home, being the + Theater of his hospitality, the seate of selfe-fruition, the + comfortablest part of his own life, the noblest of his + sonne's inheritance, a kind of private princedome, nay, to + the possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, may + well deserve, by these attributes, according to the degree + of the master, to be decently and delightfully + adorned."--SIR HENRY WOTTON. + + +In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, _Ætatis suæ_ 60, took it +upon himself to publish a plan of "The _Town_ of BOSTON in New-England. +_Engraven_ and _printed_ by Fra: Dewing and Sold by _Capt. Bonner and +Will'm. Price_, against y'e Town House." From the explanation given +on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42, +Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near +12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the +Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary +grandeur,--the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and +far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of +Beacon Hill,--a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing +settlement. + +Fifteen years later, a great improvement began to be visible in this +hitherto neglected suburb. The whole southerly slope of the hill had +been purchased in 1735 by a citizen of renown, and soon a fair stone +mansion began to show its elegant proportions on the most eligible spot +near its centre. By this time, as we have it, on the authority of no +less reputable a chronicler than Mr. John Oldmixon, "the Conversation of +the Town of Boston is as polite as in most of the Cities and Towns of +England; many of their merchants having traded into Europe, and those +that stayed at home having the Advantage of Society with travellers" +(including, of course, Mr. Oldmixon himself). "So that a gentleman from +London would almost think himself at home at Boston," (this is in Mr. +Anthony Trollope's own vein,) "when he observes the numbers of people, +their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and +conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most +considerable tradesman in London." _Primus inter pares_, however, stood +the builder of the house on Beacon Hill, and there seems to be little +doubt that Mr. Hancock's doings on his fine estate created a great stir +of admiration, and that the new stone house was thought to be a very +grand and famous affair in the infant metropolis of New England, in the +year 1737. + +The precise period which brought Mr. Hancock to undertake the building +of the house in Beacon Street was one in which it might not have been +altogether uninteresting to have lived. The affairs of the mother +country had been carried on for nearly twenty years of comparative +peace, under the dexterous guidance of Sir Robert Walpole,--that +cleverest, if not most scrupulous, minister of the British crown,--while +my Lord Bolingbroke--permitted to return from France, but living under a +qualified attainder, and closely watched by the keen-sighted +minister--was occupying himself in writing his bitter and uncompromising +pamphlets against the government of the House of Hanover. The minister's +son Horace, an elegant, indolent youth, fresh from Cambridge, was +travelling on the Continent in company with a shy and sensitive man of +letters, not much known at the time,--by the name of Gray. This +gentleman gained no small credit, however, some ten or twelve years +afterwards, by the publication of "An Elegy written in a Country +Churchyard,"--a piece which, notwithstanding the remote date of its +appearance, it is possible that some of our readers may have chanced to +come across in the course of their literary researches. Giddiness, loss +of memory, and other alarming symptoms of mental disorder had begun to +attack the great intellect of Dr. Swift, and forced him to lay aside the +pen which for nearly half a century had been alternately the scourge and +the support of the perplexed cabinets of the time. His friend Mr. Pope, +however, was living quite snug and comfortable, on the profits of his +translations, at his pretty villa at Twickenham, and adding to his fame +and means by the publication of his "Correspondence" and his "Universal +Prayer." The learned Rector of Broughton, Dr. Warburton, encouraged by +the advice of friends, had just brought out his first volume of "The +Divine Legation of Moses"; the Bishop of Bristol had carried his great +"Analogy of Religion" through the press the year before; Dr. Watts was +getting old and infirm, but still engaged in his thirty years' visit to +his friend Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, of Abney Park, Stoke +Newington. That remarkable young Scotchman, David Hume, was paying his +respects to the sensational philosophy of Locke in a series of essays +which "spread consternation through every region of existing +speculation"; Adam Smith was a promising pupil under Hutcheson,--the +father of Scotch metaphysics,--at the University of Glasgow. General +Fielding's son Henry--but just married--was spending his charming young +wife's portion of fifteen hundred pounds in the careless hospitality of +his Derbyshire house-keeping,--three years' experience of which, +however, reduced him to the necessity of undertaking his first novel for +the booksellers, in the story of "Joseph Andrews." Captain Cook, at the +age of thirteen, was a restless apprentice to a haberdasher near Whitby. +And although "the age of steam" had certainly not then arrived, it must +yet be allowed--in the words of the Highland vagrant to Cameron of +Lochiel, not long after--that already + + "Coming events cast their shadows before,"-- + +since we find that there lay in his nursery, in the family of Town +Councillor Watt, the Bailie of Greenock, in the spring of the year 1736, +a quiet, delicate, little Scotch baby, complacently sucking the tiny +fist destined in after years to grasp and imprison that fearful vapory +demon whose struggle for escape from his life-long captivity now +furnishes the motive-power for the most mighty undertakings of man +throughout the civilized world. It would surely have been something, we +think,--the opportunity to have seen all these, from Bolingbroke in his +library to James Watt in his cradle. + +Turning to affairs somewhat nearer home, perhaps a slight glance at +"y'e conversation and way of living" of the good people of Boston, +during the years that Mr. Hancock was carrying on his building and +getting himself gradually settled in its comforts, may help us to +conceive a better idea of the form and pressure of the age. Well,--Mr. +Peter Faneuil was just then laboring to persuade the town that it might +not be the worst thing they could do to accept the gift of a handsome +new Town-Hall which he was very desirous to build for them,--an opinion +so furiously combated and opposed by the conservatives and practical men +of that day, that Mr. Faneuil succeeded in carrying his revolutionary +measure, at last, in the open town-meeting, by a majority of only seven +votes (a much larger majority, however, it is but fair to observe, than +that which adopted a decent City-Hall for the same municipality only +last year). Whitefield was preaching on the Common, in front of Mr. +Hancock's premises, to audiences of twenty thousand people, "as some +compute," "poor deluded souls," says the unemotional Dr. Douglass, +writing at the period, "whose time is their only Estate; called off to +these exhortations, to the private detriment of their families, and +great Damage to the Public: _thus perhaps every such exhortation of his +was about £1000 damage to Boston_." Governor Belcher, who came home from +England with the same instructions as Governor which he was sent out to +oppose as envoy, had been superseded in his high office by "William +Shirley, Esquire,--esteemed for his gentlemanly deportment." Watchmen +were required "_in a moderate tone_ to cry the time o' night, and give +an Account of the Weather as they walk't their rounds after twelve +o'clock." The men that had been raised in town for the ill-starred +expedition to Carthagena were being drilled on the Common,--and Hancock, +writing to a friend, tells him, "We have the pleasure of Seeing 'em +Disciplin'd every Day from 5 in morning to 8, & from 5 afternoon 'till +night, before our house,--many Gentle'n & others Daily fill y'e +Common,--& wee have not y'e Less Company for it, but a quicker draft +for Wine & Cider." Annually, on the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes, the +Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender were burned on the Common, amidst +much noise and rioting, often degenerating into the tapping of claret +and solid cracking of crowns between the North End and South End +champions,--who made this always their field-day, _par excellence_,--to +the great worriment of the Town Constables, and the infinite wrath and +disgust of the Select Men. And, finally, we remark, "the goodness of the +pavement in Boston might compare with most in London, for to gallop a +Horse on it is three Shillings and fourpence Forfeit!" + +Such were the curious and simple, but, withal, rather cozy and jolly old +years in which the Hancock House was planned and built and first +occupied. Always a really fine residence, it is now the sole relic of +the family mansions of the _old_ Town of Boston, as in many respects it +has long been the most noted and interesting of them all. One hundred +and twenty-seven years have passed away since its erection, and old +Captain Bonner's map now requires a pretty close study to enable our +modern eyes to recognize any clue to its present locality. It stands, in +fact, a solitary monumental pillar in the stream of time,--a link to +connect the present with the eventful past; and the prospect of its +expected removal--though not, we trust, of its demolition--may render +the present a fitting opportunity to call up some few of the quaint old +reminiscences with which it is connected. + +We have now before us, as we write, the original Contract or Indenture +for the freestone work of the venerable structure. It is a document +certainly not without a curious interest to those of us who have passed +and repassed so often in our daily walks the gray old relic of New +England's antiquity, to the very inception of which this faded paper +reverts. It is an agreement made between Mr. Thomas Hancock and one +"Thomas Johnson of Middleton in the County of Hartford and Colony of +Connecticut In New-England, Stone-Cutter." By this instrument the +Connecticut brown-stone man of that day binds himself to "Supply and +Furnish the said Thomas Hancock with as much Connecticut Stone as Shall +be Sufficient to Beatify and build Four Corners, One Large Front Door, +Nine Front Windows and a Facie for the Front and back Part Over the +Lower Story Windows of a certain Stone House which the Said Thomas +Hancock is about to Erect on a Certain Piece of Land Situate near Beacon +Hill in Boston aforesaid; as also So much of said Connecticut Stone as +shall be Sufficient to make a water Table round the Said House, which +Said Stone the Said Johnson Covenants and Agrees shall be well Cut, +fitted and polished, workmanlike and According to the Rules of Art every +way Agreeable, & to the Liking and Satisfaction of Mr. Hancock." The +stone is to be delivered to Mr. Hancock's order at Boston, all "In Good +Order and Condition, not Touched with the Salt Water, and at the proper +Cost, Charge and Risque of the s'd Johnson." The consideration paid to +Johnson is fixed at "the Sum of three hundred Pounds _in Goods_ as the +Said Stone Cutter's work is Carryed on." The latter stipulation as to +the payment would be curious enough at the present day, though it +appears to have been not uncommon at the time this contract was +executed. The perusal of Mr. Thomas Hancock's letter-book, however, now +also lying before us, will not leave one in any need of this additional +proof of the old Boston merchant's keen eye always to a business profit. + +The Indenture is written in a clear, round, mercantile hand,--evidently +Mr. Hancock's own, but his _best_, by comparison with the +letter-book,--the leading words of the principal paragraphs being +garnished with masterly flourishes, and the top of the paper "indented" +by cutting with a knife so as to fit or "tally," after the fashion of +those days, with the corresponding copy delivered to Johnson. It has +been indorsed and filed away with evident care, and is consequently now +in a state of absolute and perfect preservation. With the exception, +however, of that little matter of the _store-pay_, and of the wording of +the date of its execution, which is given as the "Tenth Year of the +Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God of +Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.," +the document differs but little in its phraseology--so conservative is +the letter of the law of real estate--from those in use for precisely +such contracts in the year 1863. + +"Thomas Hancock, of Boston in the County of Suffolk and Province of the +Massachusetts Bay in New England, Merchant," as he is named and +described in the paper before us, was the founder of the fortunes of the +family, and a man of the most considerable note and importance in his +day. He was the son of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, of Lexington, in +which town he was born on the 13th of July, 1703. He was sent to Boston +early in life to learn the business of a stationer,--with which calling +those of bookseller and bookbinder were then combined,--and served his +time accordingly with the leading provincial bibliopole of the day, "the +enterprising Bookseller Henchman," who died in 1761. Quick, active, +thrifty, young Hancock soon made his way in the world,--his famous +bookstore in Ann Street was known as the "Stationers' Arms" as early as +1729; the industrious apprentice in due course married his master's fair +daughter Lydia; and so our Thomas Hancock went on his way to credit and +fortune, and last and best of all to house-building after his own mind, +"the comfortablest part of his own life," with strides quite as easy and +certain as did his contemporary, the Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., +of London,--whose career was, at that very time, so impressing itself +upon the notice of that eminent hand, Mr. William Hogarth, of Leicester +Fields in the Parish of St. Martin's, as to lead him to depict its +events in the remarkable series of prints, "Industry and Idleness," in +which they are now handed down for the admiration of posterity. And what +the great painter tells us of his hero is equally true of ours,--that, +"by taking good courses, and pursuing those points for which he was put +apprentice, he became a valuable man, and an ornament to his country." + +The pursuits connected with book-making were not, however, without their +trials and troubles, even at that early day. From some of Hancock's +letters for the year 1736, we find that one Cox was a sad thorn in his +side, a grievous lion in his daily path. His chief correspondent among +the booksellers in London at this period was Mr. Thomas Longman,--the +founder of the renowned house of Longmans of our own time,--and to him +Hancock often pours out his trials and grievances in the quaint and +pointed style of the business letters of "The Spectator's" own day. +Under date of April 10, 1736, for instance, he writes,--"I cannot Think +of Doing much more in the Book way at present, unless Cox Recalls his +Agent, which I am Certain He never will if you give up this point," (_i. +e._ of making larger consignments to Hancock on his own account,) "as I +can Improve my Money In other Goods from Great Brittan to so much better +Advantage." Yet, he continues, "I am unwilling Quite to Quit The Book +branch of Trade, and you Can't but be Senceable that it was my Regard to +you has Occasioned it's being forced from me in this way." + +About the month of May, 1738, Cox appears to have become wellnigh +intolerable. On the 24th of that month our bookseller writes to +Longman,--"Cox has Sent some more Books here this Spring, & I Cannot +Learn that he's Called his man home Yet. I am a Great Sufferer by him, +as well as you, having above £250 Sterling in Books by me, before what +Came from you now." Sometimes, however, Cox makes a slight mistake, and +then our bookseller again takes heart of courage. Thus, under date of +October 29, 1739, he again writes to Longman,--"Cox's man Caine in +Hall's ship about a month Agoe, brought Eight Trunks and a Box or two of +Books, has opened his Shop, but makes no Great Figure & is but little +taken Notice off, _which is a a Good Symtom of a bad Sortment_,--his +Return here was Surprising to me; truly I did not Expect it. At present +I don't know how to Govern myself as to the Book Trade, _but am willing +to do the Needful to Discountenance him_, and will write you again in +little Time." But, alas! by the 10th of December following, Cox had +rallied bravely, and, accordingly, Hancock again writes in despair,--"I +know not how to Conduct my Affairs as to the Book Trade. Cox's Shop is +opened, & he has a pretty Good Collection of Books. He brought with him +8 Trunks, & 4 Came in y'e next Ship. His Coming is A Great Damage to +me, having many Books by me unsold for Years past, & most all which I +had of you this Year. I am Ready Sometimes to Give up that part of my +Business, & I think I should have done it ere now, were I not in hopes +of Serving you in that Branch of Trade. _Could you propose any Scheem to +discountenance our Common Enemy I will Gladly Joyn you_. I fear he will +have more Goods in the Next Ship. I have Nothing to Add at this time +only that I am with Great Esteem Your Assur'd Fr'd &c. T. H." + +We may remark, that, if Longman were not by this time brought to be +fully _Senceable_ of the sacrifices which had been made here for his +interest, it was assuredly through no fault of his Boston customer. In a +letter dated April 30, 1736, Hancock had felt emboldened to inform +him,-- + + "I have Occasion for Tillotson's Works, Rapine's History of + England, Chamber's Dictionary & Burkitt on N. Testament for + my own use, and as the Burthen of y'e two Last years Sale + of Books & Returns for them has mostly Laine on my Self, & + as I have rec'd no Commitions, Some Debts yet outstanding, + and many books by me now on Sold, which shall be glad to + Sell for what I allowed you & now have paid for,--I say if + you'l please make a Present to me of y'e above named, or + any part of 'em They will be very Acceptable to me. My Last + to you was of y'e 10th & 14th Instent, which hope you have + Rec'd ere This & I am + + "Your obliged Humb. Serv. + + "T. H." + +Once only, in the whole correspondence, are we able to find that this +interloping caitiff of Cox's was fairly circumvented. With what an +inward glow of satisfaction must our Boston bookseller have found +himself sufficiently master of the situation to be able to write to +Longman (under date of May 10th, 1739),-- + + "Pr. this Conveyance Messr's. Joseph Paine & Son of London + have Orders from this place to buy £50. Sterling worth of + Books; I have Engaged Mr. Cushing, who writes to Paine to + Order him to buy them of you, & that you would Use them + well, which I Desire you to Doe; it will be ready money & I + was Loth you should miss of it, (this is the Case,--_Cox's + man_ had Engaged to Send for them & let the Gentleman have + 'em at the Sterling Cost,) but the Gentleman being my + friend, I interposed, & So Strongly Sollicited on your + behalf that I fix't it right at last & you may Certainly + depend on the Comition, tho' it may be needful you See Mr. + Paine as Soon as this Comes to hand. Pray procure me such a + Bible as you think may suit me & Send when Oppertunity + offers. + + "I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H." + +Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just +published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an +acknowledgment of this letter about the _Comition_ in more ways than +one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the +absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority, +gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty +to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least, +as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be +allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three +different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very +little thought at any time,--taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and +really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the [Greek: +batrachomyomachia] and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how +grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."[1] That +such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we +freely admit,--nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to +maintain,--but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and +a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as +the generality of his neighbors. + +There is one most extraordinary _escapade_ of his, however, in this line +of performance, which we do not know how we _can_ undertake wholly to +defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of +Exchange, he writes,--"As to the £100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above +mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that +Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,--he being the +_Topinest_ merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra'y for +it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective _topping_, +our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of +the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"--rather too +much, indeed, even for 1739. + +That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the +cacography of his time, we give _verbatim_ the following letter from +Christopher Kilby,[2] a letter among many of the same sort found with +Mr. Hancock's papers. + + "_London, 15 February 1727._ + + "HONEST FR'D. This not only advises you of my arrival but + acknowledges the rec't of your favour. By your desire I + waited upon Mr. Cox, & have told him and every body else, + where it was necessary, as much as you desired, & account it + part of my Felicity that I have so worthy a friend as Mr. + Hancock. When you arrive here you'l find things vastly + beyond your imagination,--I shall give you no other + Character of England than this, that it is beyond + expression, greater and finer than any thing I could ever + form an Idea of. I wish you may arrive before I leave it, + that you may with me, gaze and Wonder at a place that wee + can neither of us give a good Discripsion of. Pray present + my Services to Mr. Wood, Mr. Cunnington, and if Mr. + Leverett be not so engaged at the Annual meeting in Choosing + Hogg Constables &c. that to mention it to him might be an + interruption in so important affairs, my Service to him + also,--but rather than he shou'd loose any part of his + Pleasure while you take up his Time in doing it, I begg + you'l wait till a more leisure opportunity, when you may + assure him that I am at his Service in anything but being + Bread Weigher, Hogg Constable or any of those honourable + posts of pleasure & profit. I have nothing more to add but + Service to all friends, & assurance of my being + + "Your sincere friend & very + + "humble Servant, + + "CHRIS'R. KILBY." + +There is a letter in another book--Mr. Hancock's letter-book from 1740 +to 1744--in which poetical justice to the arch-disturber of his peace is +feelingly recorded. Cox[3] comes to grief at last,--surely, though late. +Observe with what placid resignation Hancock regards his rival's mishap. +The letter is to Longman, and bears date April 21st, 1742. + + "----Thomas Cox has sent Orders to a Gentle'n here to + Receive from his man all his Effects,--the Shop is + Accordingly Shutt up, & I am told his man is absconded & has + Carried of all the money, I hear to the value of £500 + Sterling; of Consequence a very bad Acco'tt must be + rendered to his Master & no doubt 't will put a final Stop + to his unjust proceedings & Trade to New-Eng'd. _I pray + God it may have this long wished for Effect_, the Good + fruits of which, I hope you & we shall soon partake of." + +The correspondence with Longman is kept up with great activity through +the whole of the first third of the volume before us. Gradually, +however, Hancock had been growing into a larger way of business, and his +Bills of Exchange for £500 and £600, drawn generally by Mr. Peter +Faneuil,[4] begin to be of more frequent occurrence,--bills which he +writes his London correspondents "are Certainly very Good, & will meet +with Due Honour." We read here and there of ventures to _Medara_ and to +_Surranam_, and of certain consignments of "Geese and Hogges to y'e +New Found Land." "Be so Good," he says, in a letter of May 17th, 1740, +to a friend then staying in London, "as to Interist me in y'e half of +8 or 10 Ticketts when any Lottery's going on, you think may doe, and am +oblidged to you for mentioning your Kind intention herein. Please God +y'e Young Eagle, Philip Dumerisque Com'r comes well home, and I +believe I shall make no bad voyage." It is easy to see that the snug +little business of the "Stationers' Arms" is soon to be given up, for +what Drake[5] describes as "the more extensive field of mercantile +enterprise."[6] By this time, too, the signs of the French War began to +loom alarmingly upon the horizon of the little colony, and Hancock rose +with the occasion to the character of a man of large and grave affairs. +Cox's man, and his Trunks and Sortments of Books, appear, after this, to +have but little of his attention. There was need of raising troops, and +of fitting out vessels; and when the famous expedition against Louisburg +was determined on, Hancock had a large share in the matter of providing +its munitions and equipment. His correspondence with Sir William +Pepperell in these great affairs still lies preserved in good order in +boxes in the attic of the old mansion. + +Meanwhile, as he rose in the world, he had been laying out his grounds, +and building and furnishing his house; his first letter from which is +addressed to his "Dear Friend," Christopher Kilby, then in London, and +is dated, rather grandly, "At my house in Beacon Street, Boston y'e +22'd Mar. 1739-40." Let us look back, then, a little over the yellow, +time-stained record of the letter-book before us, and see what were the +experiences of a gentleman, in building and planting in Beacon Street, +so long before our grandfathers were born. + +Under date of the 5th of July, 1736, Hancock writes to his friend and +constant correspondent in London, "Mr. Francis Wilks Esq'r,"[7] +inclosing a letter to one James Glin at Stepney, with orders for some +trees, concerning which he tells Wilks, "I am advised to have 'em +bought,--but if you Can find any man Will Serve us Better I Leave it to +your Pleasure." He must have thought it a great pity, from the sequel of +this affair, that Mr. Wilks's Pleasure did not happen to lie in another +direction. "I am Recommended by Mr. Tho's. Hubbard of This Town," runs +the letter inclosed to Glin, "to you for A number of Fruit Trees,--be +pleased to waite on Mr. Wilks for the Inv'o of them & Let me have +y'e best Fruit, & pack't in y'e best manner, & All numbered, with +an Acco't of y'e Same. I pray you be very Carefull That y'e Trees +be Took up in y'e Right Season, and if these Answer my Expectations I +shall want more, & 't will Ly in my way to Recommend Some Friends to +you. I Intreat the Fruit may be the best of their Kind, the Trees +handsome Stock, well Pack't, All N'o'd & Tally'd, & particular Inv'o +of 'em. I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H." + +This careful order was evidently duly executed by the nurseryman, and at +first all appears to have gone smoothly enough, since, on the 20th of +December following, (1736,) we find another letter to Glin, as +follows:-- + + "SIR,--My Trees and Seeds pr. Cap't. Bennett Came Safe to + hand and I Like them very well. I Return you my hearty + Thanks for the Plumb Tree & Tulip Roots you were pleased to + make a Present off, which are very Acceptable to me. I have + Sent my friend Mr. Wilks a mem'o to procure for me 2 or 3 + Doz. Yew Trees Some Hollys & Jessamin Vines & if you have + any Particular Curious Things not of a high price will + Beautifie a flower Garden, Send a Sample with the price or a + Catalogue of 'em; pray Send me a Catalogue also of what + Fruit you have that are Dwarf Trees and Espaliers. I shall + want Some next Fall for a Garden I am Going to lay out next + Spring. My Gardens all Lye on the South Side of a hill, with + the most Beautifull Assent to the Top & it's Allowed on all + hands the Kingdom of England don't afford So Fine a Prospect + as I have both of Land and water. Neither do I intend to + Spare any Cost or Pains in making my Gardens Beautifull or + Profitable. If you have any Knowlidge of S'r John James he + has been on the Spott & is perfectly acquainted with its + Situation & I believe has as high an Opinion of it as myself + & will give it as Great a Carrictor. Let me know also what + you'l Take for 100 Small Yew Trees in the Rough, which I'd + Frame up here to my own Fancy. If I can Do you any Service + here I shall be Glad & be Assured I'll not forgett your + Favour,--which being y'e needful Concludes, + + "S'r. + + "Your most Ob'edt. Servant, + + "THO'S. HANCOCK." + +But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the +force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to +blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The +maxim, "_L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose_," was found to be as +inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true +that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of +arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of +Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the +grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock, +therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural +disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate +nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most +righteous indignation. + + "SIR,--I Rec'd. your Letter & your Baskett of flowers per. + Capt. Morris, & have Desired Francis Wilks Esq'r to pay + you £26 for them _Though they are Every one Dead_. The Trees + I Rec'd Last Year are above half Dead too,--the Hollys all + Dead but one, & worse than all is, the Garden Seeds and + Flower Seeds which you Sold Mr. Wilks for me Charged at £6. + 8's. 2'd. Sterling were not worth one farthing. Not one + of all the Seeds Came up Except the Asparrow Grass, So that + my Garden is Lost to me for this Year. I Tryed the Seeds + both in Town and Country & all proved alike bad. I Spared + Mr. Hubbard part of them _and they All Serv'd him the + Same_." (Rather an unlucky blow this for poor Glin, as Mr. + Hubbard had been his first sponsor and perhaps his only + friend in New England.) "I think Sir, you have not done well + by me in this thing, for me to send a 1000 Leagues and Lay + out my money & be so used & Disapointed is very hard to + Bare, & so I doubt not but you will Consider the matter & + Send me over Some more of the Same Sort of Seeds that are + Good & Charge me nothing for them,--if you don't I shall + think you have imposed upon me very much, & 't will + Discourage me from ever Sending again for Trees or Seeds + from you. I Conclude, + + "Your Humble Serv't. + + "T. H. + + "P. S. _The Tulip Roots you were pleased to make a present + off to me are all Dead as well._" + +The last paragraph is truly delicious,--a real Parthian arrow, of the +keenest, most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined +that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,--not in the matter of +the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had +had the effrontery to send him. + +After learning the opinion entertained by Mr. Hancock of his estate, its +situation, prospect, and capacities, and understanding his intentions in +regard to its improvement, as expressed in his first letter to Glin,--it +may naturally be expected that we shall come upon some further allusions +to the works he had thus taken in hand, in the antiquated volume before +us. In this respect, as we turn over its remaining pages, we shall find +that we are not to be disappointed. His letters on the subject, +addressed to persons on the other side of the water, and particularly to +the trusty Wilks, are, in fact, for the space of the next three or four +years, most refreshingly abundant. Some of these are so minute, +characteristic, and interesting, that we shall need no apology for +transcribing them, most literally, here. On June 24th, 1737, he had +written to Wilks,-- + + "This waites on you per M'r Francis Pelthro who has Taken + this Voyage to Lond'o. in order to be Cutt for y'e Stone + by D'r. Cheselden;[8] he Is my Friend & a Very honest + Gentleman. In case he needs your advise in any of his + affairs & _Calls on you for it_, I beg y'e fav'r of you + to do him what Service falls in your way, which Shall Take + as done to my Self, and as he's a Stranger, Should he have + occasion for Ten Guineas please to Let him have it & Charge + to my Acco't. I suppose he's sofficeint with him--Except + Some Extrordinary accidant happen. + + "I beg your particular Care about my Glass, that it be the + best, and Every Square Cutt Exactly to the Size, & not to + worp or wind in the Least, & Pack't up So that it may take + no Damage on the passage,--it's for my Own Use & would have + it Extrordinary. I am S'r + + "Your most oblid'gd obed. Sev't. + + "T. H." + +By one of those stupid accidents,--not, as we are sorry to record, +altogether unknown to the business of house-building in our own +day,--the memorandum previously sent for the glass turned out to be +entirely incorrect. In less than a fortnight after, Mr. Hancock +accordingly hastens to countermand his order, as follows:-- + + "_Boston, N.E. July 5'th. 1737._ + + FRANCIS WILKS, ESQ'R. + + "S'R,--Sheperdson's Stay being Longer than Expected Brings + me to the 5'th of July, and if you have not bought my + Glass According to the Demention per Cap't. Morris I Pray + you to have no regard to those, but the following viz. + + "380 Squares of best London Crown Glass all Cutt Exactly 18 + Inches Long & 11-1/2 Inches wide of a Suitable Thickness to + the Largness of the Glass free from Blisters and by all + means be Carefull it don't wind or worp.-- + + "100 Squares Ditto 12 Inches Long 8-1/2 wide of the Same + Goodness as above. + + "Our Friend Tylers Son William Comes per This Conveyance, I + only add what Service's you doe him will Assuredly be + Retaliated By his Father, & will Oblidge S'r + + "Your most Obedient Hum'e Serv't + + "T. H." + +The window-glass being fairly off his mind, Mr. Hancock next turns his +attention to the subject of wall-papers, on which head he comes out in +the most strong and even amazing manner. We doubt if the documentary +relics of the last century can show anything more truly _genre_ than the +following letter "To Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London," dated + + "_Boston, N. E. Jan. 23'd. 1737-8._ + + "Sir,--Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a + Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have + Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for + my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for + me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of + the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room + Lately Come over here, & it takes much in y'e Town & will + be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion + may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get + mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it + more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there, + with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let + the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & + Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would + have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks + Esq'r. had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much + handsomeer Sent over here for M'r Sam'l Waldon of this + place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he + or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts + of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of + Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers + &c, But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. + Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same + hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have + two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer & + Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your + particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the + pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods. + Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Tho's. Pike of Pool[9] to pay + you £10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by + Sam'll Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have + also Crist'o Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esq'r. for £10 + wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other + Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain S'r. Your + Assured Fr'd & Hum'e. Servt. + + "T. H." + +There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the +glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of +New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is +fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear +Kilby," dated + + "22'd Mar. 1739-40. + + "I Pray the favour of you to Enquire what a pr. of Capitolls + will Cost me to be Carved in London, of the Corinthian + Order, 16-1/2 Inches One Way and 9 y'e Other,--to be well + Done. Please to make my Compliments Acceptable to Mr. Wilks, + & believe me to be + + "S'r. + + "Your assu'd. Friend & very + + "Hum'e. Sev't. + + "T. H." + +One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr. +Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by +his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where +all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an +elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties +necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so +bountiful a _cuisine_, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th, +1738, inclosing an order in these terms:-- + +"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,--Good works, with Iron Barrell, +a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it." + +Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters, +certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on +the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not +without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable +admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a +postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,--"I Desire you also +to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a +letter to Captain Partington, master of one of his vessels, then in +Europe, he writes,--"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring +me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, & +Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of +those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost +Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter & +Rob't. Scott," as follows:--"I have the favour to ask of you, when +please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return +the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,--I don't Stand for any +Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in +Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my +own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he +orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6 +Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fash'd wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers, +Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses, +12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby, +not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill." + +There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which +takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate +and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no +doubt a most stately and learned lady,--she looks very splendid in her +royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of +Windsor; but can her pompous old _stylus_ bring back for us the +every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,--paint for us the +things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"--or show +us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times, +one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We +seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried +years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of +their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr. +Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the +earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to +the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers. +Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions +revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems +to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and +downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for +one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of +his time, and that is their _directness_. He is the very antipode to Don +Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he +draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his +argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to +his meaning by inferences,--_he comes to the point_. If he likes more +"Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,--if he +thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by +him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end. + + ----"He pours out all, as plain + As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." + +Perhaps the particular phase of change which the language itself was +going through at the time may assist in giving these letters, to us, +something of their air of genuine force and originality. But after +making due allowance for the freshness of a vocabulary as yet unimpeded +by any cumbrous burden of euphemism, we are still convinced that we must +recognize the source of much of the quality we have noted only in the +_naïve_ and outspoken nature of the writer. For, if ever there was a man +who knew just what he wanted and just how he wanted it, it was the T. H. +of the amusing correspondence before us. + +Thus lived, for some quarter of a century more, this cheery and +prosperous gentleman, growing into a manly opulence, and enjoying to the +full the pleasant "seate of self-fruition" which he had so carefully set +up for himself on Beacon Hill. Not much addressing himself, indeed, to +"looking abroad into universality," as Bacon calls it, but rather +honestly and heartily "doing his duty in that state of life unto which +it had pleased God to call him." He filled various posts of honor and +dignity meanwhile,--always prominent, and even conspicuous, in the +public eye,--and was "one of His Majesty's Council" at the commencement +of the troubles which led to the War of the Revolution. The full +development of this mighty drama, however, Thomas Hancock did not live +to see. He died of an apoplexy, on the first day of August, 1764, about +three of the clock in the afternoon, having been seized about noon of +the same day, just as he was entering the Council Chamber. He was then +in the sixty-second year of his age. By his will he gave one thousand +pounds sterling for the founding of a professorship of the Oriental +languages in Harvard College, one thousand pounds lawful money to the +Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, six hundred pounds +to the town of Boston, towards an Insane Hospital, and two hundred +pounds to the Society for carrying on the Linen Manufactory,--an +enterprise from which much appears, just then, to have been expected. +His property was valued, after his decease, at about eighty thousand +pounds sterling,--a very much larger sum for that time than its precise +money equivalent would represent at the present day. Having no issue of +his own, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John,--a gentleman +who, without a tithe of the nerve and pith and vigor of this our Thomas, +has yet happened, from the circumstances of the time in which he bore up +the family-fortunes, to have acquired a much more distinguished name and +filled a much larger space in the tablets of History than has ever +fallen to the share of his stout old uncle. + +The Hancock estate, as we have been accustomed to see it of late years, +is greatly reduced from its original dimensions, and shorn of much of +its ancient glory.[10] The property, in Mr. Thomas Hancock's time, +extended on the east to the bend in Mount Vernon Street, including, of +course, the whole of the grounds now occupied by the State +House,[11]--on the west to Joy Street, called Hancock Street on the +ancient plan of the estate now before us,--and in the rear about to what +is now Derne Street, on the north side of Beacon Hill, and comprising on +that side all the land through which Mount Vernon Street now runs, for +the whole distance from Joy Street to Beacon-Hill Place. Thus was +included a large part, too, of the site of the present reservoir on +Derne Street, a portion of which, being the last of the estate sold up +to the present year, was purchased by the city from the late John +Hancock, Esq., some ten or twelve years ago. The two large wings of the +house--the one on the east side containing an elegant ball-room, and +that on the west side comprising the kitchen and other domestic +offices--have long ago disappeared. The centre of the mansion, however, +remains nearly intact, and with its antique furniture, stately old +pictures, and the quaint, but comfortable appointments of the past +century, still suffices to bring up to the mind of the visitor the most +vivid and interesting reminiscences both of our Colonial and +Revolutionary history. + +The central and principal portion of the house, which remains entire, is +a very perfect and interesting specimen of the stateliest kind of our +provincial domestic architecture of the last century. There are several +other houses of a similar design still standing in the more important +sea-port towns of New England. The West House, on Essex Street, in +Salem, has but lately disappeared; but another in that neighborhood, the +Collins House in Danvers, (now the property of Mr. F. Peabody, of +Salem,) the Dalton House, on State Street, Newburyport, the Langdon +House, (now the residence of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burroughs,) in +Portsmouth, N. H., and the Gilman House, in Exeter, N. H., removed, not +long since, to make way for the new Town Hall, were all almost identical +with this in the leading features of their design. A broad front-door +opening from a handsome flight of stone steps, and garnished with +pillars and a highly ornamental door-head, a central window, also +somewhat ornamented, over it, and four other windows in each story, two +being on either side of the centre, a main roof-cornice enriched with +carved modillions, a high and double-pitched or "gambrel" roof with bold +projecting dormer-windows rising out of it, and a carved balcony-railing +inclosing the upper or flatter portion of the roof, are features common +to them all. The details of the Hancock House are all classical and +correct; they were doubtless executed by the master-builder of the day +with a scrupulous fidelity of adherence to the plates of some such work +as "Ware's Compleat Body of Architecture," or "Swan's Architect,"--books +of high repute and rare value at the time, and contemporary copies of +which are still sometimes to be found in ancient garrets. There is a +very perfect specimen of the former in the Athenæum Library, and another +at Cambridge, while of the latter an excellent copy is in the possession +of the writer,--and it is not difficult to trace, in the soiled and +well-thumbed condition of some of the plates, evidences of the bygone +popularity of some peculiarly apposite or useful design. + +The material of the walls is of squared and well-hammered granite +ashlar,--probably obtained by splitting up boulders lying on the surface +of the ground only, above the now extensive quarries in the town of +Quincy. We incline to this conjecture, because it bears an exact +resemblance to the stone of the King's Chapel, built in 1753, and which +is known to have been obtained in that way. In fact, the wardens and +vestry of the Chapel, in their report on the completion of the +building, congratulated themselves that they had had such good success +in getting all the stone they needed for that building, as it was +exceedingly doubtful, they remarked, whether the whole country could be +made to furnish stone for another structure of equal extent. + +The interior of the house is quite in keeping with the promise of its +exterior. The dimensions of the plan are fifty-six feet front by +thirty-eight feet in depth. A nobly panelled hall, containing a broad +staircase with carved and twisted balusters, divides the house in the +centre, and extends completely through on both stories from front to +rear. On the landing, somewhat more than half-way up the staircase, is a +circular headed window looking into the garden, and fitted with +deep-panelled shutters, and with a broad and capacious window-seat, on +which the active merchant of 1740 doubtless often sat down to cool +himself in the draught, after some particularly vexatious morning's work +with poor Glin's "Plumb Trees and Hollys." On this landing, too, stood +formerly a famous eight-day clock, which has now disappeared, no one +knows whither. But the order for its purchase is before us in the old +letter-book, and will serve to give a very graphic idea of its unusual +attractions. The order is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Wilks, and bears +date December 20th, 1738. As the safe reception of the time-piece is +acknowledged in a subsequent letter, there can be little doubt as to its +identity. + + "I Desire the favour of you to procure for me & Send with my + Spring Goods, a Handsome Chiming Clock of the newest + fashion,--the work neat & Good, with a Good black Walnutt + Tree Case, Veneer'd work, with Dark, lively branches,--on + the Top insteed of Balls let be three handsome Carv'd + figures, Gilt with burnished Gold. I'd have the Case without + the figures to be 10 foot Long, the price 15 not to Exceed + 20 Guineas, and as it's for my own use I beg your particular + Care in buying of it at the Cheapest Rate. I'm advised to + apply to one Mr. Marmaduke Storr at the foot of Lond'n + Bridge, but as you are best Judge I leave it to you to + purchase it where you think proper,--wh. being the needfull, + Concludes + + "Sir Your &c. T. H." + +On the right of the hall, as you enter, is the fine old drawing-room, +seventeen by twenty-five feet, also elaborately finished in moulded +panels from floor to ceiling. In this room the founder of the Hancock +name, as a man of note, and a merchant of established consequence, must +often have received the Shirleys, the Olivers, the Pownalls, and the +Hutchinsons of King George's colonial court; and here, too, some years +later, his stately nephew John dispensed his elegant hospitalities to +that serene Virginian, Mr. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the +Army of the Revolution, and to the ardent young French Marquis who +accompanied him. The room itself, hung with portraits from the honest, +if not flattering hand of Smibert, and the more courtly and elegant +pencil of Copley, still seems to bear witness in its very walls to the +reality of such bygone scenes. We enter the close front-gate from the +sunny and bustling promenade of Beacon Street, pass up the worn and gray +terrace of the steps, and in a moment more closes behind us the door +that seems to shut us out from the whirl and turmoil and strife of the +present, and, almost mysteriously, to transport us to the grave shadows +and the dignified silence of the past of American history. + +Over the chimney-piece, in this room, hangs the portrait of John +Hancock, by Copley,--masterly in drawing, and most characteristic in its +expression. It was painted apparently about ten or twelve years earlier +than the larger portrait in Faneuil Hall,--an excellent copy of which +latter picture, but by another hand, occupies the centre of the wall at +the end of the room opposite the windows. But by far the most +interesting works of this great artist are the two pictures on the long +side of the room opposite the chimney,--the portraits of Thomas Hancock +and his handsome wife Lydia Henchman, done in colored crayons or +_pastel_, and which still retain every whit of their original freshness. +These two pictures are believed to be unique specimens of their kind +from the hand of Copley,--and equally curious are the miniature copies +of them by himself, done in oil-color, and which hang in little oval +frames over the mantel. That of the lady, in particular, is exquisitely +lifelike and easy. On the same long side of the room with the pastel +drawings are the portraits of Thomas Hancock's father and mother,--the +minister of Lexington and his dignified-looking wife,--by Smibert. In +one of the letters to "Dear Kilby," of which we have already made +mention in this article, there is an allusion to this portrait of his +father which shows in what high estimation it was always held by Mr. +Hancock. "My Wife & I are Drinking your health this morning, 8 o' the +Clock, in a Dish of Coffee and under the Shade of your Picture which I +Rec'd not long Since of Mr. Smibert, in which am much Delighted, & have +Suited it with a Frame of the fashion of my other Pictures, & fix'd it +at the Right hand of all, in the Keeping-room. Every body that Sees it +thinks it to be Exceedingly Like you, as it really is. I am of Opinion +it's as Good a Piece as Mr. Smibert has done, and full as Like you as my +Father's is Like him, which all mankind allows to be a Compleat +Picture." It is to be regretted that the picture of Kilby has now +disappeared from this collection. We have called the pastel portraits of +Thomas Hancock and his wife unique specimens; we should add this +qualification, however, that there is a _copy_ of the former in this +room,--also by Copley, but differing in the costume, and perhaps even +more carefully finished than the one already mentioned. + +The chamber overhead, too, has echoed, in days long gone by, to the +footstep of many an illustrious guest. Washington never slept here, +though it is believed that he has several times been a temporary +occupant of the room; but Lafayette often lodged in this apartment, +while a visitor to John Hancock, during his earlier stay in America. +Here Lord Percy--the same + + "who, when a younger son, + Fought for King George at Lexington, + A Major of Dragoons"-- + +made himself as comfortable as he might, while "cooped up in Boston and +panting for an airing," through all the memorable siege of the town. It +was from the windows of this chamber, on the morning of the 5th of +March, 1776, that the officers[12] on the staff of Sir William Howe +first beheld, through Thomas Hancock's old telescope, the intrenchments +which had been thrown up the night before on the frozen ground of +Dorchester Heights,--works of such a character and location as to +satisfy them that thenceforth "neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax could +afford them worse shelter than Boston." And here, too, years after the +advent of more peaceful times, the stately old Governor, racked with +gout, and "swathed in flannel from head to foot," departed this life on +the night of the 8th of October, 1793. As President of the Continental +Congress of 1776, he left a name everywhere recognized as a household +word among us; while his noble sign-manual to the document of gravest +import in all our annals--that wonderful signature, so bold, defiant, +and decided in its every line and curve--has become, almost of itself, +his passport to the remembrance and his warrant to the admiration of +posterity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Religio Medici_, Part II., Sec. 3. + +[2] Christopher Kilby was one of the Representatives of the Town in the +General Court, (1739,) and was appointed by that body to go to England, +as an agent for the Province. He soon after embarked for London, where +he resided for several years. He was called the "Standing Agent" of the +Province, and was likewise the Special Agent of the Town. Five years +after this, we find a record of his election, at which he had 102 votes +out of 109. When the General Court passed an act granting the King an +excise on spirituous liquors, wines, limes, lemons, and oranges, the +Town "voted unanimously to employ him to appear on behalf of the Town, +and to use his utmost endeavour to prevent said Act's obtaining the +Royal Assent," and likewise to be its agent in other matters. This +action of the Town was June 3d, 1755.--See Drake's _History of Boston_, +p. 606. + +[3] It would be interesting to know, something more of Cox,--who he was, +and what was his standing in the trade. Did he take rank with Tonson, +Watts, Lintot, Strahan, Bathurst, and the rest,--publishers of Pope, +Gay, Swift, etc.? or was his an Ishmaelite of the Row?--and did all the +trade think so badly of him as Hancock did? + +[4] The following letter from Mr. Faneuil's own hand, found among Mr. +Hancock's papers, is sufficiently curious to warrant its insertion +here:-- + + "_Boston, February 3'd._ 1738. + + "CAPT. PETER BUCKLEY, + + "S'r,--Herewith you have Invoice of Six hh's. fish, & 8 + Barrells of Alewifes, amounting to £75. 9. 2--which when you + arrive at Antiguas be pleased to Sell for my best advantage, + & with the net produce of the Same purchase for me, for the + use of my house, as likely a Strait limbed Negro lad as + possible you can, about the Age of from 12 to fiveteen + years, & if to be done, one that has had the Small pox, who + being for my Own service, I must request the fav'r. you + would let him be one of as tractable a disposition as you + can find, w'ch. I leave to your prudent care & management, + desireing after you have purchased him you would send him to + me by the first good Opportunity, recommending him to a + Particular care from the Captain by whom you send him. Your + care in this will be an Obligation,--I wish you a good + Voyage, & am + + "S'r. your humble Servant + + "PETER FANEUIL. + + "P.S. Should there not be En'o to purchase the Boy desir'd + be pleased to Add, & if any Overplus, to Lay it out for my + Best Advantage in any thing you think proper. P. F." + +Truly, in confronting this ghost of departed manners, may we say with +the Clown in "Twelfth Night,"--"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his +revenges." The Hall which was the gift to the town of this merchant, who +proposes to trade codfish and _alewifes_ for a slave, afterward became +everywhere known to the world as the very "Cradle of Liberty." + +[5] _History of Boston_, p. 681. + +[6] Mr. Hancock, although a merchant "of the approved Gresham and +Whittington pattern," appears, for some reason or other, to have judged +no small degree of secrecy expedient in regard to some of his ventures. +Thus, under date of October 22d, 1736, he writes to Captain John +Checkering, then absent on a voyage on his account:-- + +"I hope ere this, you Safe arrived at Surranam, & your Cargo to a Good +Market. I Press you make the best dispatch possible, & doe all you can +to serve the Interist of y'e concerned, & Closely observe when you come +on our Coasts not to Speak with any Vessells, _nor let any of your men +write up to their wives_, when you arrive at our light house." + +[7] "At length wearied with the altercation and persuaded of the +justness of their cause," (in refusing to settle a fixed salary on Gov. +Burnet,) "the House resolved to apply to his Majesty for redress, and +Mr. Francis-Wilkes, a New-England merchant, then resident in London, was +selected as their agent."--Barry's _History of the Provincial Period of +Massachusetts_, p. 126. + +[8] + "I'll do what Mead and _Cheselden_ advise, + To keep these limbs and to preserve these eyes." + + POPE,--_Epistle to Bolingbroke._ + +[9] Liverpool. + +[10] In the "Massachusetts Magazine," Vol. I., No. 7, for July, 1789, +there is "A Description of the Seat of His Excellency John Hancock +Esq'r. Boston [Illustrated by a _Plate_, giving a View of it from the +_Hay-Market_]." The print is very well executed for the time, by Samuel +Hill, No. 50, Cornhill,--and the account of the estate is very curious +and interesting. It describes the house as "situated upon an elevated +ground fronting the south, and commanding a most beautiful prospect. The +principal building is of hewn stone, finished not altogether in the +modern stile, nor yet in the ancient Gothic taste. It is raised about 12 +feet above the street, the ascent to which is through a neat flower +garden bordered with small trees; but these do not impede the view of an +elegant front, terminating in two lofty stories. The east wing forms a +noble and spacious Hall. The west wing is appropriated to domestic +purposes. On the west of that is the coach-house, and adjoining are the +stables with other offices; the whole embracing an extent of 220 feet. +Behind the mansion is a delightful garden, ascending gradually to a +charming hill in the rear. This spot is handsomely laid out, embellished +with glacis, and adorned with a variety of excellent fruit trees. From +the Summer House opens a capital prospect," etc. + +"The respected character who now enjoys this earthly paradise, inherited +it from his worthy uncle, the Hon. Thomas Hancock Esq: who selected the +spot and completed the building, evincing a superiority of judgment and +taste.... In a word, if purity of air, extensive prospects, elegance and +convenience united, are allowed to have charms, this seat is scarcely +surpassed by any in the Union. Here the severe blasts of winter are +checked," etc. + +[11] In this connection, the subjoined document--the original of which +we have now at hand--may not be uninteresting, as showing the conditions +on which the heirs of Governor John Hancock consented to sell so large a +piece of the estate:-- + +"We the Subscribers, being a Committee of the town of Boston for the +purpose of purchasing a piece of Land for the erection of public +buildings, certify to all whom it may concern, that the Governor's +pasture purchased by us, shall be conveyed to the Commonwealth for that +use only, and that no private building shall be erected upon any part of +said pasture. Witness our hands this 9th day of April, 1795. + + WM. TUDOR, + JOHN C. JONES, + JOS. RUSSELL, + WILLIAM EUSTIS, + H. G. OTIS, + THOS. DAWES, + WILLIAM LITTLE, + PEREZ MORTON." + +[12] "Inclosed you have the dimensions of two Bed Chambers for each of +which I want Wilton Carpets,--do let them be neat. The British Officers +who possess'd my house totally defac'd & Ruined all my Carpets, & I must +Submit."--_Extract from a Letter of John Hancock, dated Nov. 14, 1783, +to Captain Scott, at Liverpool,--contained in Gov. Hancock's +Letter-Book._ + + + + +WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED. + + +Brant Beach is a long promontory of rock and sand, jutting out at an +acute angle from a barren portion of the coast. Its farthest extremity +is marked by a pile of many-colored, wave-washed boulders; its junction +with the main-land is the site of the Brant House, a watering-place of +excellent repute. + +The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all +along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The +fishing is fair; and in still weather, yachting is rather a favorite +amusement. Further than this, there is little to be said, save that the +hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally +select. + +But to the lover of Nature--and who has the courage to avow himself +aught else?--the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep +of ever-shifting waters,--the flying mist of foam breaking away into a +gray and ghostly distance down the beach,--the eternal drone of ocean, +mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in +the parlors by night,--all these are active sources of a passive +pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through +half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark-blue sky +wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the +sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some +fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or +older legends of love and romance,--tell me, my eater of the fashionable +lotos, is not this a diversion well worth your having? + +There is an air of easy sociality among the guests at the Brant House, a +disposition on the part of all to contribute to the general amusement, +that makes a summer sojourn on the beach far more agreeable than in +certain larger, more frequented watering-places, where one is always in +danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been +fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half fascinated +him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and +many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salisbury and Mr. +Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikahasset Station, with +trunks enough for two first-class belles, and a most unexceptionable +man-servant in gray livery, in charge of two beautiful setter-dogs. + +These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting +some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, "remote, +unfriended, melancholy, slow"; for they brought almost everything with +them that men of elegant leisure could require, as if the hotel were but +four walls and a roof, which they must furnish with their own chattels. +I am sure it took Thomas, the man-servant, a whole day to unpack the +awnings, the bootjacks, the game-bags, the cigar-boxes, the guns, the +camp-stools, the liquor-cases, the bathing-suits, and other +paraphernalia that these pleasure-seekers brought. It must be owned, +however, that their room, a large one in the Bachelor's Quarter, facing +the sea, wore a very comfortable, sportsmanlike look, when all was +arranged. + +Thus surrounded, the young men betook themselves to the deliberate +pursuit of idle pleasures. They arose at nine and went down the shore, +invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was +preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate, it took +them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid +in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of +green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all +game-birds were about to become extinct in that region. Their dogs, +even, recognized this great-cry-and-little-wool condition of things, and +bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, with an +air of canine humiliation that would have aroused Mr. Mayhew's tenderest +sympathies. + +After breakfasting, usually in their room, the friends enjoyed a long +and contemplative smoke upon the wide piazza in front of their windows, +listlessly regarding the ever-varied marine view that lay before them in +flashing breadth and beauty. Their next labor was to array themselves in +wonderful morning-costumes of very shaggy English cloth, shiny flasks +and field-glasses about their shoulders, and loiter down the beach, to +the point and back, making much unnecessary effort over the walk,--a +brief mile,--which they spoke of with importance, as their +"constitutional." This killed time till bathing-hour, and then came +another smoke on the piazza, and another toilet, for dinner. After +dinner, a siesta: in the room, when the weather was fresh; when +otherwise, in hammocks, hung from the rafters of the piazza. When they +had been domiciled a few days, they found it expedient to send home for +what they were pleased to term their "crabs" and "traps," and excited +the envy of less fortunate guests by driving up and down the beach at a +racing gait to dissipate the languor of the after-dinner sleep. + +This was their regular routine for the day,--varied, occasionally, when +the tide served, by a fishing-trip down the narrow bay inside the point. +For such emergencies, they provided themselves with a sail-boat and +skipper, hired for the whole season, and arrayed themselves in a highly +nautical rig. The results were, large quantities of sardines and pale +sherry consumed by the young men, and a reasonable number of sea-bass +and black-fish caught by their skipper. + +There were no regular "hops" at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet +way every evening, to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some +of the waiters. For a time, Burnham and Salisbury did not mingle much in +these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very +elegantly dressed and barbered, (Thomas was an unrivalled _coiffeur_,) +and apparently somewhat _ennuyé_. + +That two well-made, full-grown, intelligent, and healthy young men +should lead such a life as this for an entire summer might surprise one +of a more active temperament. The aimlessness and vacancy of an +existence devoted to no earthly purpose save one's own comfort must soon +weary any man who knows what is the meaning of real, earnest life,--life +with a battle to be fought and a victory to be won. But these elegant +young gentlemen comprehended nothing of all that: they had been born +with golden spoons in their mouths, and educated only to swallow the +delicately insipid lotos-honey that flows inexhaustibly from such +shining spoons. Clothes, complexions, polish of manner, and the +avoidance of any sort of shock, were the simple objects of their +solicitude. + +I do not know that I have any serious quarrel with such fellows, after +all. They have some strong virtues. They are always clean; and your +rough diamond, though manly and courageous as Coeur-de-Lion, is not +apt to be scrupulously nice in his habits. Affability is another virtue. +The Salisbury and Burnham kind of man bears malice toward no one, and is +disagreeable only when assailed by some hammer-and-tongs utilitarian. +All he asks is to be permitted to idle away his pleasant life +unmolested. Lastly, he is extremely ornamental. We all like to see +pretty things; and I am sure that Charley Burnham, in his fresh white +duck suit, with his fine, thorough-bred face--gentle as a girl's--shaded +by a snowy Panama, his blonde moustache carefully pointed, his golden +hair clustering in the most picturesque possible waves, his little red +neck-ribbon--the only bit of color in his dress--tied in a studiously +careless knot, and his pure, untainted gloves of pearl-gray or lavender, +was, if I may be allowed the expression, just as pretty as a picture. +And Ned Salisbury was not less "a joy forever," according to the dictum +of the late Mr. Keats. He was darker than Burnham, with very black hair, +and a moustache worn in the manner the French call _triste_, which +became him, and increased the air of pensive melancholy that +distinguished his dark eyes, thoughtful attitudes, and slender figure. +Not that he was in the least degree pensive or melancholy, or that he +had cause to be; quite the contrary; but it was his style, and he did it +well. + +These two butterflies sat, one afternoon, upon the piazza, smoking very +large cigars, lost, apparently, in profoundest meditation. Burnham, with +his graceful head resting upon one delicate hand, his clear blue eyes +full of a pleasant light, and his face warmed by a calm unconscious +smile, might have been revolving some splendid scheme of universal +philanthropy. The only utterance, however, forced from him by the +sublime thoughts that permeated his soul, was the emission of a white +rolling volume of fragrant smoke, accompanied by two words: + +"Doocèd hot!" + +Salisbury did not reply. He sat, leaning back, with his fingers +interlaced behind his head, and his shadowy eyes downcast, as in sad +remembrance of some long-lost love. So might a poet have looked, while +steeped in mournfully rapturous day-dreams of remembered passion and +severance. So might Tennyson's hero have mused, when he sang,-- + + "Oh, that 'twere possible, + After long grief and pain, + To find the arms of my true love + Round me once again!" + +But the poetic lips opened not to such numbers. Salisbury gazed, long +and earnestly, and finally gave vent to his emotions, indicating, with +the amber tip of his cigar-tube, the setter that slept in the sunshine +at his feet. + +"Shocking place, this, for dogs!"--I regret to say he pronounced it +"dawgs."--"Why, Carlo is as fat--as fat as--as a"---- + +His mind was unequal to a simile, even, and he terminated the sentence +in a murmur. + +More silence; more smoke; more profound meditation. Directly, Charley +Burnham looked around with some show of vitality. + +"There comes the stage," said he. + +The driver's bugle rang merrily among the drifted sand-hills that lay +warm and glowing in the orange light of the setting sun. The young men +leaned forward over the piazza-rail, and scrutinized the occupants of +the vehicle, as it appeared. + +"Old gentleman and lady, aw, and two children," said Ned Salisbury; "I +hoped there would be some nice girls." + +This, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and poetry, but with that odd, +tired little drawl, so epidemic in some of our universities. + +"Look there, by Jove!" cried Charley, with a real interest at last; "now +that's what I call the regular thing!" + +The "regular thing" was a low, four-wheeled pony-chaise of basket-work, +drawn by two jolly little fat ponies, black and shiny as vulcanite, +which jogged rapidly in, just far enough behind the stage to avoid its +dust. + +This vehicle was driven by a young lady of decided beauty, with a spice +of Amazonian spirit. She was rather slender and very straight, with a +jaunty little hat and feather perched coquettishly above her dark brown +hair, which was arranged in one heavy mass and confined in a silken net. +Her complexion was clear, without brilliancy; her eyes blue as the ocean +horizon, and spanned by sharp, characteristic brows; her mouth small and +decisive; and her whole cast of features indicative of quick talent and +independence. + +Upon the seat beside her sat another damsel, leaning indolently back in +the corner of the carriage. This one was a little fairer than the first, +having one of those beautiful English complexions of mingled rose and +snow, and a dash of gold-dust in her hair, where the sun touched it. Her +eyes, however, were dark hazel, and full of fire, shaded and +intensified by their long, sweeping lashes. Her mouth was a rosebud, and +her chin and throat faultless in the delicious curve of their lines. In +a word, she was somewhat of the Venus-di-Milo type: her companion was +more of a Diana. Both were neatly habited in plain travelling-dresses +and cloaks of black and white plaid, and both seemed utterly unconscious +of the battery of eyes and eye-glasses that enfiladed them from the +whole length of the piazza, as they passed. + +"Who are they?" asked Salisbury; "I don't know them." + +"Nor I," said Burnham; "but they look like people to know. They must be +somebody." + +Half an hour later, the hotel-office was besieged by a score of young +men, all anxious for a peep at the last names upon the register. It is +needless to say that our friends were not in the crowd. Ned Salisbury +was no more the man to exhibit curiosity than Charley Burnham was the +man to join in a scramble for anything under the sun. They had educated +their emotions clear down, out of sight, and piled upon them a mountain +of well-bred inertia. + +But, somehow or other, these fellows who take no trouble are always the +first to gain the end. A special Providence seems to aid the poor, +helpless creatures. So, while the crowd still pressed at the +office-desk, Jerry Swayne, the head clerk, happened to pass directly by +the piazza where the inert ones sat, and, raising a comical eye, saluted +them. + +"Heavy arrivals to-night. See the turn-out?" + +"Y-e-s," murmured Ned. + +"Old Chapman and family. His daughter drove the pony-phaëton, with her +friend, a Miss Thurston. Regular nobby ones. Chapman's the +steamship-man, you know. Worth thousands of millions! I'd like to be +connected with his family--by marriage, say!"--and Jerry went off, +rubbing his cropped head, and smiling all over, as was his wont. + +"I know who they are now," said Charley. "Met a cousin of theirs, Joe +Faulkner, abroad, two years ago. Doocèd fine fellow. Army." + +The manly art of wagoning is not pursued very vigorously at Brant Beach. +The roads are too heavy back from the water, and the drive is confined +to a narrow strip of wet sand along the shore; so carriages are few, and +the pony-chaise became a distinguished element at once. Salisbury and +Burnham whirled past it in their light trotting-wagons at a furious +pace, and looked hard at the two young ladies in passing, but without +eliciting even the smallest glance from them in return. + +"Confounded _distingué_-looking girls, and all that," owned Ned; "but, +aw, fearfully unconscious of a fellow!" + +This condition of matters continued until the young men were actually +driven to acknowledge to each other that they should not mind knowing +the occupants of the pony-carriage. It was a great concession, and was +rewarded duly. A bright, handsome boy of seventeen, Miss Thurston's +brother, came to pass a few days at the seaside, and fraternized with +everybody, but was especially delighted with Ned Salisbury, who took him +out sailing and shooting, and, I am afraid, gave him cigars stealthily, +when out of range of Miss Thurston's fine eyes. The result was, that the +first time the lad walked on the beach with the two girls, and met the +young men, introductions of an enthusiastic nature were instantly sprung +upon them. An attempt at conversation followed. + +"How do you like Brant Beach?" asked Ned. + +"Oh, it is a pretty place," said Miss Chapman, "but not lively enough." + +"Well, Burnham and I find it pleasant; aw, we have lots of fun." + +"Indeed! Why, what do you do?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Everything." + +"Is the shooting good? I saw you with your guns, yesterday." + +"Well, there isn't a great deal of game. There is some fishing, but we +haven't caught much." + +"How do you kill time, then?" + +Salisbury looked puzzled. + +"Aw--it is a first-rate air, you know. The table is good, and you can +sleep like a top. And then, you see, I like to smoke around, and do +nothing, on the sea-shore. It is real jolly to lie on the sand, aw, with +all sorts of little bugs running over you, and listen to the water +swashing about!" + +"Let's try it!" cried vivacious Miss Chapman; and down she sat on the +sand. The others followed her example, and in five minutes they were +picking up pretty pebbles and chatting away as sociably as could be. The +rumble of the warning gong surprised them. + +At dinner, Burnham and Salisbury took seats opposite the ladies, and +were honored with an introduction to papa and mamma, a very dignified, +heavy, rosy, old-school couple, who ate a good deal, and said very +little. That evening, when flute and viol wooed the lotos-eaters to +agitate the light fantastic toe, these young gentlemen found themselves +in dancing humor, and revolved themselves into a grievous condition of +glow and wilt, in various mystic and intoxicating measures with their +new-made friends. + +On retiring, somewhat after midnight, Miss Thurston paused, while "doing +her hair," and addressed Miss Chapman. + +"Did you observe, Hattie, how very handsome those gentlemen are? Mr. +Burnham looks like a prince of the _sang azur_, and Mr. Salisbury like +his poet-laureate." + +"Yes, dear," responded Hattie; "I have been considering those flowers of +the field and lilies of the valley." + +"Ned," said Charley, at about the same time, "we won't find anything +nicer here, this season, I think." + +"They're pretty well worth while," replied Ned; "and I'm rather pleased +with them." + +"Which do you like best?" + +"Oh, bother! I haven't thought of _that_ yet." + +The next day the young men delayed their "constitutional" until the +ladies were ready to walk, and the four strolled off together, mamma and +the children following in the pony-chaise. At the rocks on the end of +the point, Ned got his feet very wet, fishing up specimens of sea-weed +for the damsels; and Charley exerted himself superhumanly in assisting +them to a ledge which they considered favorable for sketching-purposes. + +In the afternoon a sail was arranged, and they took dinner on board the +boat, with any amount of hilarity and a good deal of discomfort. In the +evening, more dancing, and vigorous attentions to both the young ladies, +but without a shadow of partiality being shown by either of the four. + +This was very nearly the history of many days. It does not take long to +get acquainted with people who are willing, especially at a +watering-place; and in the course of a few weeks, these young folks +were, to all intents and purposes, old friends,--calling each other by +their given names, and conducting themselves with an easy familiarity +quite charming to behold. Their amusements were mostly in common now. +The light wagons were made to hold two each, instead of one, and the +matinal snipe escaped death, and was happy over his early worm. + +One day, however, Laura Thurston had a headache, and Hattie Chapman +stayed at home to take care of her; so Burnham and Salisbury had to +amuse themselves alone. They took their boat, and idled about the water, +inside the point, dozing under an awning, smoking, gaping, and wishing +that headaches were out of fashion, while the taciturn and tarry skipper +instructed the dignified and urbane Thomas in the science of trolling +for blue-fish. + +At length Ned tossed his cigar-end overboard, and braced himself for an +effort. + +"I say, Charley," said he, "this sort of thing can't go on forever, you +know. I've been thinking, lately." + +"Phenomenon!" replied Charley; "and what have you been thinking about?" + +"Those girls. We've got to choose." + +"Why? Isn't it well enough as it is?" + +"Yes,--so far. But I think, aw, that we don't quite do them justice. +They're _grands partis_, you see. I hate to see clever girls wasting +themselves on society, waiting and waiting,--and we fellows swimming +about just like fish round a hook that isn't baited properly." + +Charley raised himself upon his elbow. + +"You don't mean to tell me, Ned, that you have matrimonial intentions?" + +"Oh, no! Still, why not? We've all got to come to it, some day, I +suppose." + +"Not yet, though. It is a sacrifice we can escape for some years yet." + +"Yes,--of course,--some years; but we may begin to look about us a bit. +I'm, aw, I'm six-and-twenty, you know." + +"And I'm very near that. I suppose a fellow can't put off the yoke too +long. After thirty chances aren't so good. I don't know, by Jove! but +what we ought to begin thinking of it." + +"But it _is_ a sacrifice. Society must lose a fellow, though, one time +or another. And I don't believe we will ever do better than we can now." + +"Hardly, I suspect." + +"And we're keeping other fellows away, maybe. It is a shame!" + +Thomas ran his line in rapidly, with nothing on the hook. + +"Capt'n Hull," he said, gravely, "I had the biggest kind of a fish then, +I'm sure; but d'rectly I went to pull him in, Sir, he took and let go." + +"Yaäs," muttered the taciturn skipper, "the biggest fish allers falls +back inter the warter." + +"I've been thinking a little about this matter, too," said Charley, +after a pause, "and I had about concluded we ought to pair off. But I'll +be confounded, if I know which I like best! They're both nice girls." + +"There isn't much choice," Ned replied. "If they were as different, now, +as you and me, I'd take the blonde, of course; aw, and you'd take the +brunette. But Hattie Chapman's eyes are blue, and her hair isn't black, +you know; so you can't call her dark, exactly." + +"No more than Laura is exactly light. Her hair is brown, more than +golden, and her eyes are hazel. Hasn't she a lovely complexion, though? +By Jove!" + +"Better than Hattie's. Yet I don't know but Hattie's features are a +little the best." + +"They are. Now, honest, Ned, which do you prefer? Say either; I'll take +the one you don't want. I haven't any choice." + +"Neither have I." + +"How will we settle?" + +"Aw--throw for it?" + +"Yes. Isn't there a backgammon board forward, in that locker, Thomas?" + +The board was found, and the dice produced. + +"The highest takes which?" + +"Say, Laura Thurston." + +"Very good; throw." + +"You first." + +"No. Go on." + +Charley threw, with about the same amount of excitement he might have +exhibited in a turkey-raffle. + +"Five-three," said he. "Now for your luck." + +"Six-four! Laura's mine. Satisfied?" + +"Perfectly,--if you are. If not, I don't mind exchanging." + +"Oh, no. I'm satisfied." + +Both reclined upon the deck once more, with a sigh of relief, and a long +silence followed. + +"I say," began Charley, after a time, "it is a comfort to have these +little matters arranged without any trouble, eh?" + +"Y-e-s." + +"Do you know, I think I'll marry mine?" + +"I will, if you will." + +"Done! it is a bargain." + +This "little matter" being arranged, a change gradually took place in +the relations of the four. Ned Salisbury began to invite Laura Thurston +out driving and in bathing somewhat oftener than before, and Hattie +Chapman somewhat less often; while Charley Burnham followed suit with +the last-named young lady. As the line of demarcation became fixed, the +damsels recognized it, and accepted with gracious readiness the +cavaliers that Fate, through the agency of a chance-falling pair of +dice, had allotted to them. + +The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and +passed whispers about, to the effect that the girls had at last +succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net. No suitors +could have been more devoted than our friends. It seemed as if each now +bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to +both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the +sands, they were the very picture of a _partie carrée_ of lovers. + +Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the +reticence common to my sex, they spoke less freely and frequently on the +subject. Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salisbury +ventured a few words. + +"I say, we're a couple of lucky dogs! Who'd have thought, now, aw, that +our summer was going to turn out so well? I'm sure I didn't. How do you +get along, Charley, boy?" + +"Deliciously. Smooth sailing enough. Wasn't it a good idea, though, to +pair off? I'm just as happy as a bee in clover. You seem to prosper, +too, heh?" + +"Couldn't ask anything different. Nothing but devotion, and all that. +I'm delighted. I say, when are you going to pop?" + +"Oh, I don't know. It is only a matter of form. Sooner the better, I +suppose, and have it over." + +"I was thinking of next week. What do you say to a quiet picnic down on +the rocks, and a walk afterward? We can separate, you know, and do the +thing up systematically." + +"All right. I will, if you will." + +"That's another bargain. I notice there isn't much doubt about the +result, though." + +"Hardly!" + +A close observer might have seen that the gentlemen increased their +attentions a little from that time. The objects of their devotion +perceived it, and smiled more and more graciously upon them. + +The day set for the picnic arrived duly, and was radiant. It pains me to +confess that my heroes were a trifle nervous. Their apparel was more +gorgeous and wonderful than ever, and Thomas, who was anxious to be off, +courting Miss Chapman's lady's-maid, found his masters dreadfully +exacting in the matter of hair-dressing. At length, however, the toilet +was over, and "Solomon in all his glory" would have been vastly +astonished at finding himself "arrayed as one of these." + +The boat lay at the pier, receiving large quantities of supplies for the +trip, stowed by Thomas, under the supervision of the grim and tarry +skipper. When all was ready, the young men gingerly escorted their fair +companions aboard, the lines were cast off, and the boat glided gently +down the bay, leaving Thomas free to fly to the smart presence of Susan +Jane, and to draw glowing pictures for her of a neat little porter-house +in the city, wherein they should hold supreme sway, be happy with each +other, and let rooms up-stairs for single gentlemen. + +The brisk land-breeze, the swelling sail, the fluttering of the gay +little flag at the gaff, the musical rippling of water under the +counter, and the spirited motion of the boat, combined with the bland +air and pleasant sunshine to inspire the party with much vivacity. They +had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and +the girls' voices--Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto--rang +melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempts at bass +accompaniment from their gorgeous guardians. + +Before these vocal exercises wearied, the skipper hauled down his jib, +let go his anchor, and brought the craft to, just off the rocks; and +bringing the yawl alongside, unceremoniously plumped the girls down into +it, without giving their cavaliers a chance for the least display of +agile courtliness. Rowing ashore, this same tarry person left them +huddled upon the beach with their hopes, their hampers, their emotions, +and their baskets, and returned to the vessel to do a little private +fishing on his own account till wanted. + +The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among +the rocks, gathering shells and sea-weed for the construction of those +ephemeral little ornaments--fair, but frail--in which the sex delights, +singing, laughing, quoting poetry, attitudinizing upon the peaks and +ledges of the fine old boulders,--mossy and weedy and green with the +wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with +the multitudinous dyes of mineral oxidization,--and, in brief, behaved +themselves with all the charming _abandon_ that so well becomes young +girls, set free, by the _entourage_ of a holiday ramble, from the +buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette. + +Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a +sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing. + +Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a +splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appetites also. The +baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a +broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant-House picnickers, and +the party fell to. Laura's beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept +her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck. Her bright +eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was +something inexpressibly _naïve_ in the freedom with which she ate, +taking a bird's wing in her little fingers, and boldly attacking it with +teeth as white and even as can be imagined. Notwithstanding all the +mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning +feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world +to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, +had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist +the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salisbury. Hattie +Chapman stormed a fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of +Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and +jellies. The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, +as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies principally to +admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters. + +When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned +glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should +walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were "some pretty +rocks and things, you know." She consented, and they marched off. Hattie +also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained +seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, +and looking sublimely unconscious. + +"Sha'n't we walk, too?" Hattie asked. + +"Oh, why, the fact is," said he, hesitantly, "I--I sprained my ankle, +getting out of that confounded boat; so I don't feel much like exercise +just now." + +The young girl's face expressed concern. + +"That is too bad! Why didn't you tell us of it before? Is it painful? +I'm so sorry!" + +"N-no,--it doesn't hurt much. I dare say it will be all right in a +minute. And then--I'd just as soon stay here--with you--as to walk +anywhere." + +This, very tenderly, with a little sigh. + +Hattie sat down again, and began to talk to this factitious cripple, in +the pleasant, purring way some damsels have, about the joys of the +sea-shore,--the happy summer that was, alas! drawing to a close,--her +own enjoyment of life,--and kindred topics,--till Charley saw an +excellent opportunity to interrupt with some aspirations of his own, +which, he averred, must be realized before his life could be considered +a satisfactory success. + +If you have ever been placed in analogous circumstances, you know, of +course, just about the sort of thing that was being said by the two +gentlemen at nearly the same moment: Ned, loitering slowly along the +sands with Laura on his arm,--and Charley, stretched in indolent +picturesqueness upon the rocks, with Hattie sitting beside him. If you +do not know from experience, ask any candid friend who has been through +the form and ceremony of an orthodox proposal. + +When the pedestrians returned, the two couples looked very hard at each +other. All were smiling and complacent, but devoid of any strange or +unusual expression. Indeed, the countenance is subject to such severe +education, in good society, that one almost always looks smiling and +complacent. Demonstration is not fashionable, and a man must preserve +the same demeanor over the loss of a wife or a glove-button, over the +gift of a heart's whole devotion or a bundle of cigars. Under all these +visitations, the complacent smile is in favor, as the neatest, most +serviceable, and convenient form of non-committalism. + +The sun was approaching the blue range of misty hills that bounded the +main-land swamps, by this time; so the skipper was signalled, the +dinner-paraphernalia gathered up, and the party were soon _en route_ for +home once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley +met in their room, and each caught the other looking at him, stealthily. +Both smiled. + +"Did I give you time, Charley?" asked Ned; "we came back rather soon." + +"Oh, yes,--plenty of time." + +"Did you--aw, did you pop?" + +"Y-yes. Did you?" + +"Well--yes." + +"And you were"-- + +"Rejected, by Jove!" + +"So was I!" + +The day following this disastrous picnic, the baggage of Mr. Edwin +Salisbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikahasset +Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a +request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its +hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole +beneath, and presented it. + +"Left for you, this morning, gentlemen." + +It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran +thus:-- + + "DEAR BOYS,--The next time you divert yourselves by throwing + dice for two young ladies, we pray you not to do so in the + presence of a valet who is upon terms of intimacy with the + maid of one of them. + + "With many sincere thanks for the amusement you have given + us,--often when you least suspected it,--we bid you a + lasting adieu, and remain, with the best wishes, + + "_Brant House,_ {HATTIE CHAPMAN, + + "_Wednesday._ {LAURA THURSTON." + + +"It is all the fault of that, aw, that confounded Thomas!" said Ned. + +So Thomas was discharged. + + + + +LIGHT AND DARK. + + + I. + + Straggling through the winter sky, + What is this that begs the eye? + More than pauper by its state, + Less than prince its bashful gait. + + 'Tis the soul in sun's disguise, + Child of Reason's enterprise; + Through earth's weather seeks its kin, + Begs the sun-like take it in. + + Thus from purpling heaven bid, + Open flies the double lid; + To the palace-steps repair + Souls awakened, foul or fair; + + Heavy with a maudlin sleep, + Blithesome from a vision deep, + Flying westward with the night, + Eastward to renew their plight. + + At this menace of the dawn + Dreams the helm of Thought put on; + All my heart its fresco high + Paints against the morning sky. + + + II. + + Is the firmament of brass + 'Gainst my thoughts that seek to pass? + Does the granite vault my brain, + That the soul cannot attain? + + Planets to my window roll; + From the eye which is their goal + Million miles are built of space, + Web that glittering we trace. + + Like a lens the winter sky + Hurls its planets through the eye; + But to thoughts a buckler dense, + Baffling love and reverence. + + Shivered lie the darts I throw, + Vassal stars can farther go; + Time and Space are drops of dew, + When 'tis Light would travel through. + + Shining finds its own expanse, + Rolling suns make room to dance: + Earth unfasten from my brain, + Rid me of my ball and chain. + + Through the window, through the world, + My untethered soul is hurled, + Finds an orbit nothing bars, + Sings its note with morning-stars. + + + III. + + Dearth of God, of Love a dearth, + Rolls my thought, a cloudy Earth, + Through the sullen noon that fears, + Yet expects the morning-spears. + + Ere they glisten, ere they threat, + All my heart lies cold and wet, + Prisoned fog between the hills, + Cheerless pulse of midnight rills. + + 'Tis the darkness that has crept + Where the purple life is kept; + All the veins to thought supply + Murk from out the jealous sky. + + Blood that makes the face a dawn, + Mother's breast to life, is gone: + Strikes my waste no hoof that's bright + Into sparkles of delight. + + Heavy freight of care and pain, + Want of friends, and God's disdain, + Loveless home, and meagre fate + In the midnight well may wait. + + Well may such an Earth forlorn + Shudder on the brink of morn; + But the great breath will not stay, + Strands me on the reefs of day. + + + IV. + + Bellying Earth no anchor throws + Stouter than the breath that blows, + Night and Sorrow cling in vain, + It must toss in day again. + + Hospital and battle-field, + Myriad spots where fate is sealed, + Brinks that crumble, sins that urge, + Plunge again into that surge. + + How the purple breakers throw + Round me their insatiate glow, + Sweep my deck of hideous freight, + Pour through fastening and grate! + + I awake from night's alarms + In the bliss of living arms; + Melted goes my leaden dream + Down the warmth of this Gulf-Stream. + + 'Tis the trade-wind of my soul, + Wafting life to make it whole: + All the night it joyward blew, + Though I neither hoped nor knew. + + Fresher blow me out to sea, + Morning-tost I fain would be, + Sweep my deck and pile it high + With the ingots of the sky. + + Give me freight to carry round + To a place with night that's drowned, + That the Gulf-Stream of the day + Glitter then my Milky-Way. + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +II. + +Snowing: the checkered fields below are traceable now only by the brown +lines of fences and the sparse trees that mark the hedge-rows. The white +of the houses and of the spires of the town is seen dimly through the +snow, and seems to waver and shift position like the sails and spars of +ships seen through fog. And straightway upon this image of ships and +swaying spars I go sailing back to the farm-land of the past, and +sharpen my pen for another day's work among _The Old Farm-Writers_. + +I suspect Virgil was never a serious farmer. I am confident he never had +one of those callosities upon the inner side of his right thumb which +come of the lower thole of a scythe-snath, after a week's mowing. But he +had that quick poet's eye which sees at a glance what other men see only +in a day. Not a shrub or a tree, not a bit of fallow ground or of +nodding lentils escaped his observation; not a bird or a bee; not even +the mosquitoes, which to this day hover pestiferously about the +low-lying sedge-lands of Mantua. His first pastoral, little known now, +and rarely printed with his works, is inscribed _Culex_.[13] + +Young Virgil appears to have been of a delicate constitution, and +probably left the fever-bearing regions of the Mincio for the higher +plain of Milan for sanitary reasons, as much as the other,--of studying, +as men of his parts did study, Greek and philosophy. There is a story, +indeed, that he studied and practised farriery, as his father had done +before him; and Jethro Tull, in his crude onslaught upon what he calls +the Virgilian husbandry, (chap. ix.,) intimates that a farrier could be +no way fit to lay down the rules for good farm-practice. But this story +of his having been a horse-doctor rests, so far as I can discover, only +on this flimsy tradition,--that the young poet, on his way to the South +of Italy, after leaving Milan and Mantua, fell in at Rome with the +master-of-horse to Octavianus, and gave such shrewd hints to that +official in regard to the points and failings of certain favorite horses +of the Roman Triumvir (for Octavianus had not as yet assumed the purple) +as to gain a presentation to the future Augustus, and rich marks of his +favor. + +It is certain that the poet journeyed to the South, and that +thenceforward the glorious sunshine of Baiæ and of the Neapolitan shores +gave a color to his poems and to his life. + +Yet his agricultural method was derived almost wholly from his +observation in the North of Italy. He never forgot the marshy borders of +the Mincio nor the shores of beautiful Benacus (Lago di Garda); who +knows but he may some time have driven his flocks afield on the very +battle-ground of Solferino? + +But the ruralities of Virgil take a special interest from the period in +which they were written. He followed upon the heel of long and +desolating intestine wars,--a singing-bird in the wake of vultures. No +wonder the voice seemed strangely sweet. + +The eloquence of the Senate had long ago lost its traditionary power; +the sword was every way keener. Who should listen to the best of +speakers, when Pompey was in the forum, covered with the spoils of the +East? Who should care for Cicero's periods, when the magnificent +conqueror of Gaul is skirting the Umbrian Marshes, making straight for +the Rubicon and Rome? + +Then came Pharsalia, with its bloody trail, from which Cæsar rises only +to be slaughtered in the Senate-Chamber. Next comes the long duel +between the Triumvirate and the palsied representatives of the +Republican party. Philippi closes that interlude; and there is a new +duel between Octavianus and Antony (Lepidus counting for nothing). The +gallant lover of Cleopatra is pitted against a gallant general who is a +nephew to the first Cæsar. The fight comes off at Actium, and the lover +is the loser; the pretty Egyptian Jezebel, with her golden-prowed +galleys, goes sweeping down, under a full press of wind, to swell the +squadron of the conqueror. The winds will always carry the Jezebels to +the conquering side. + +Such, then, was the condition of Italy,--its families divided, its +grain-fields trampled down by the Volscian cavalry, its houses red with +fresh blood-stains, its homes beyond the Po parcelled out to lawless +returning soldiers, its public security poised on the point of the sword +of Augustus,--when Virgil's Bucolics appear: a pastoral thanksgiving for +the patrimony that had been spared him, through court-favor. + +There is a show of gross adulation that makes one blush for his manhood; +but withal he is a most lithesome poet, whose words are like honeyed +blossoms, and whose graceful measure is like a hedge of bloom that sways +with spring breezes, and spends perfume as it sways. + +The Georgics were said to have been written at the suggestion of +Mæcenas, a cultivated friend of Augustus, who, like many another friend +of the party in power, had made a great fortune out of the wars that +desolated Italy. He made good use of it, however, in patronizing Virgil, +and in bestowing a snug farm in the Sabine country upon Horace; where I +had the pleasure of drinking goats' milk--"_dulci digne mero_"--in the +spring of 184-. + +There can be no doubt but Virgil had been an attentive reader of +Xenophon, of Hesiod, of Cato, and of Varro; otherwise he certainly would +have been unworthy of the task he had undertaken,--that of laying down +the rules of good husbandry in a way that should insure the reading of +them, and kindle a love for the pursuit. + +I suspect that Virgil was not only a reader of all that had been written +on the subject, but that he was also an insistant questioner of every +sagacious landholder and every sturdy farmer that he fell in with, +whether on the Campanian hills or at the house of Mæcenas. How else does +a man accomplish himself for a didactic work relating to matters of +fact? I suspect, moreover, that Virgil, during those half-dozen years in +which he was engaged upon this task, lost no opportunity of inspecting +every bee-hive that fell in his way, of measuring the points and graces +of every pretty heifer he saw in the fields, and of noting with the eye +of an artist the color of every furrow that glided from the plough. It +is inconceivable that a man of his intellectual address should have +given so much of literary toil to a work that was not in every essential +fully up to the best practice of the day. Five years, it is said, were +given to the accomplishment of this short poem. What say our poetasters +to this? Fifteen hundred days, we will suppose, to less than twice as +many lines; blocking out four or five for his morning's task, and all +the evening--for he was a late worker--licking them into shape, as a +bear licks her cubs. + +But _cui bono_? what good is in it all? Simply as a work of art, it will +be cherished through all time,--an earlier Titian, whose color can never +fade. It was, besides, a most beguiling peace-note, following upon the +rude blasts of war. It gave a new charm to forsaken homesteads. Under +the Virgilian leadership, Monte Gennaro and the heights of Tusculum +beckon the Romans to the fields; the meadows by reedy Thrasymenus are +made golden with doubled crops. The Tarentine sheep multiply around +Benacus, and crop close those dark bits of herbage which have been fed +by the blood of Roman citizens. + +Thus much for the magic of the verse; but there is also sound farm-talk +in Virgil. I am aware that Seneca, living a few years after him, +invidiously objects that he was more careful of his language than of his +doctrine, and that Columella quotes him charily,--that the collector of +the "Geoponics" ignores him, and that Tull gives him clumsy raillery; +but I have yet to see in what respect his system falls short of +Columella, or how it differs materially, except in fulness, from the +teachings of Crescenzi, who wrote a thousand years and more later. There +is little in the poem, save its superstitions, from which a modern +farmer can dissent.[14] + +We are hardly launched upon the first Georgic before we find a pretty +suggestion of the theory of rotation,-- + + "Sic quoque mutatis requiescunt foetibus arva." + +Rolling and irrigation both glide into the verse a few lines later. He +insists upon the choice of the best seed, advises to keep the drains +clear, even upon holy-days, (268,) and urges, in common with a great +many shrewd New-England farmers, to cut light meadows while the dew is +on, (288-9,) even though it involve night-work. Some, too, he says, +whittle their torches by fire-light, of a winter's night; and the good +wife, meantime, lifting a song of cheer, plies the shuttle merrily. The +shuttle is certainly an archaism, whatever the good wife may be. + +His theory of weather-signs, taken principally from Aratus, agrees in +many respects with the late Marshal Bugeaud's observations, upon which +the Marshal planted his faith so firmly that he is said to have ordered +all his campaigns in Africa in accordance with them. + +In the opening of the second book, Virgil insists, very wisely, upon +proper adaptation of plantations of fruit-trees to different localities +and exposures,--a matter which is far too little considered by farmers +of our day. His views in regard to propagation, whether by cuttings, +layers, or seed, are in agreement with those of the best Scotch +nursery-men; and in the matter of grafting or inoculation, he errs (?) +only in declaring certain results possible, which even modern gardening +has not accomplished. Dryden shall help us to the pretty falsehood:-- + + "The thin-leaved arbute hazel-grafts receives, + And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves. + Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears, + And the wild ash is white with blooming pears, + And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed + With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred." + +It is curious how generally this belief in something like promiscuous +grafting was entertained by the old writers. Palladius repeats it with +great unction in his poem "De Insitione," two or three centuries +later;[15] and in the tenth book of the "Geoponics," a certain +Damogerontis (whoever he may have been) says, (cap. lxv.,) "Some rustic +writers allege that nut-trees and resinous trees ([Greek: ta rhêtinên +echonta]) cannot be successfully grafted; but," he continues, "this is a +mistake; I have myself grafted the pistache nut into the terebenthine." + +Is it remotely possible that these old gentlemen understood the +physiology of plants better than we? + +As I return to Virgil, and slip along the dulcet lines, I come upon this +cracking laconism, in which is compacted as much wholesome advice as a +loose farm-writer would spread over a page:-- + + "Laudato ingentia rura, + Exiguum colito."[16] + +The wisdom of the advice for these days of steam-engines, reapers, and +high wages, is more than questionable; but it is in perfect agreement +with the notions of a great many old-fashioned farmers who live nearer +to the heathen past than they imagine. + +The cattle of Virgil are certainly no prize-animals. Any good committee +would vote them down incontinently:-- + + ----"Cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix," + +(iii. 52,) would not pass muster at any fair of the last century. + +The horses are better; there is the dash of high venture in them; they +have snuffed battle; their limbs are suppled to a bounding gallop,--as +where in the Æneid, + + "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." + +The fourth book of the Georgics is full of the murmur of bees, showing +how the poet had listened, and had loved to listen. After describing +minutely how and where the homes of the honey-makers are to be placed, +he offers them this delicate attention:-- + + "Then o'er the running stream or standing lake + A passage for thy weary people make; + With osier floats the standing water strew; + Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow; + That basking in the sun thy bees may lie, + And, resting there, their flaggy pinions dry." + + DRYDEN. + +Who cannot see from this how tenderly the man had watched the buzzing +yellow-jackets, as they circled and stooped in broad noon about some +little pool in the rills that flow into the Lago di Garda? For +hereabout, of a surety, the poet once sauntered through the noontides, +while his flock cropped the "milk-giving cytisus," upon the hills. + +And charming hills they are, as my own eyes can witness: nay, my little +note-book of travel shall itself tell the story. (The third shelf, upon +the right, my boy.) + +No matter how many years ago,--I was going from Milan, (to which place I +had come by Piacenza and Lodi,) on my way to Verona by Brescia and +Peschiera. At Desenzano, or thereabout, the blue lake of Benaco first +appeared. A few of the higher mountains that bounded the view were +still capped with snow, though it was latter May. Through fragrant +locusts and mulberry-trees, and between irregular hedges, we dashed down +across the isthmus of Sermione, where the ruins of a Roman castle flout +the sky. + +Hedges and orchards and fragrant locusts still hem the way, as we touch +the lake, and, rounding its southern skirt, come in sight of the grim +bastions of Peschiera. A Hungarian sentinel, lithe and tall, I see +pacing the rampart, against the blue of the sky. Women and girls come +trooping into the narrow road,--for it is near sunset,--with their +aprons full of mulberry-leaves. A bugle sounds somewhere within the +fortress, and the mellow music swims the water, and beats with melodious +echo--boom on boom--against Sermione and the farther shores. + +The sun just dipping behind the western mountains, with a disk all +golden, pours down a flood of yellow light, tinting the +mulberry-orchards, the edges of the Roman castle, the edges of the waves +where the lake stirs, and spreading out in a bay of gold where the lake +lies still. + +Virgil never saw a prettier sight there; and I was thinking of him, and +of my old master beating off spondees and dactyls with a red ruler on +his threadbare knee, when the sun sunk utterly, and the purple shadows +dipped us all in twilight. + +"_È arrivato, Signore!_" said the _vetturino_. True enough, I was at the +door of the inn of Peschiera, and snuffed the stew of an Italian supper. + +Virgil closes the first book of the Georgics with a poetic forecast of +the time when ploughmen should touch upon rusted war-weapons in their +work, and turn out helmets empty, and bones of dead soldiers,--as indeed +they might, and did. But how unlike a poem it will sound, when the +schools are opened on the Rappahannock again, and the boy +scans,--choking down his sobs,-- + + "Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, + Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris," + +and the master veils his eyes! + +I fear that Virgil was harmed by the Georgican success, and became more +than ever an adulator of the ruling powers. I can fancy him at a palace +tea-drinking, where pretty court-lips give some witty turn to his "_Sic +Vos, non Vobis_," and pretty court-eyes glance tenderly at Master +Marius, who blushes, and asks some Sabina (not Poppæa) after Tibullus +and his Delia. But a great deal is to be forgiven to a man who can turn +compliments as Virgil turned them. What can be more exquisite than that +allusion to the dead boy Marcellus, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid? He +is reading it aloud before Augustus, at Rome. Mæcenas is there from his +tall house upon the Esquiline; possibly Horace has driven over from the +Sabine country,--for, alone of poets, he was jolly enough to listen to +the reading of a poem not his own. Above all, the calm-faced Octavia, +Cæsar's sister, and the rival of Cleopatra, is present. A sad match she +has made of it with Antony; and her boy Marcellus is just now +dead,--dying down at Baiæ, notwithstanding the care of that famous +doctor, Antonius Musa, first of hydropaths. + +Virgil had read of the Sibyl,--of the entrance to Hades,--of the magic +metallic bough that made Charon submissive,--of the dog Cerberus, and +his sop,--of the Greeks who welcomed Æneas,--then of the father +Anchises, who told the son what brave fate should belong to him and +his,--warning him, meantime, with alliterative beauty, against the worst +of wars,-- + + "Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella; + Neu patriæ validas in viscera vertite vires,"-- + +too late, alas! There were those about Augustus who could sigh over +this. + +Virgil reads on: Anchises is pointing out to Æneas that old Marcellus +who fought Hannibal; and beside him, full of beauty, strides a young +hero about whom the attendants throng. + +"And who is the young hero," demands Æneas, "over whose brow a dark fate +is brooding?" + +(The motherless Octavia is listening with a yearning heart.) + +And Anchises, the tears starting to his eyes, says,-- + +"Seek not, O son, to fathom the sorrows of thy kindred. The Fates, that +lend him, shall claim him; a jealous Heaven cannot spare such gifts to +Rome. Then, what outcry of manly grief shall shake the battlements of +the city! what a wealth of mourning shall Father Tiber see, as he sweeps +past his new-made grave! Never a Trojan who carried hopes so high, nor +ever the land of Romulus so gloried in a son." + +(Octavia is listening.) + +"Ah, piety! alas for the ancient faith! alas for the right hand so +stanch in battle! None, none could meet him, whether afoot or with +reeking charger he pressed the foe. Ah, unhappy youth! If by any means +thou canst break the harsh decrees of Fate, thou wilt be--Marcellus!" + +It is Octavia's lost boy; and she is carried out fainting. + +But Virgil receives a matter of ten thousand sesterces a line,--which, +allowing for difference in exchange and value of gold, may (or may not) +have been a matter of ten thousand dollars. With this bouncing bag of +sesterces, Virgil shall go upon the shelf for to-day. + + * * * * * + +I must name Horace for the reason of his "_Procul beatus_," etc., if I +had no other; but the truth is, that, though he rarely wrote +intentionally of country-matters, yet there was in him that fulness of +rural taste which bubbled over--in grape-clusters, in images of rivers, +in snowy Soracte, in shade of plane-trees; nay, he could not so much as +touch an _amphora_ but the purple juices of the hill-side stained his +verse as they stained his lip. See, too, what a garden pungency there is +in his garlic ode (III. 5); and the opening to Torquatus (Ode VII. Lib. +4) is the limning of one who has followed the changes of the bursting +spring with his whole heart in his eyes:-- + + Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis,"-- + +every school-boy knows it: but what every school-boy does not know, and +but few of the masters, is this charming, jingling rendering of it into +the Venetian dialect:-- + + "La neve xè andàda, + Su i prài torna i fieri + De cento colori, + E a dosso de i àlbori + La fogia è tornada + A farli vestir. + + "Che gusto e dilèto + Che dà quèla tèra + Cambiàda de cièra, + E i fiumi die placidi + Sbassài nel so' lèto + Va zòzo in te 'l mar!"[17] + +On my last wet-day, I spoke of the elder Pliny, and now the younger +Pliny shall tell us something of one or two of his country-places. Pliny +was a government-official, and was rich: whether these facts had any +bearing on each other I know no more than I should know if he had lived +in our times. + +I know that he had a charming place down by the sea, near to Ostium. Two +roads led thither; "both of them," he says, "in some parts sandy, which +makes it heavy and tedious, if you travel in a coach; but easy enough +for those who ride. My villa" (he is writing to his friend Gallus, +Epist. XX. Lib. 2) "is large enough for all convenience, and not +expensive." He describes the portico as affording a capital retreat in +bad weather, not only for the reason that it is protected by windows, +but because there is an extraordinary projection of the roof. "From the +middle of this portico you pass into a charming inner court, and thence +into a large hall which extends towards the sea,--so near, indeed, that +under a west wind the waves ripple on the steps. On the left of this +hall is a large lounging-room (_cubiculum_), and a lesser one beyond, +with windows to the east and west. The angle which this lounging-room +forms with the hall makes a pleasant lee, and a loitering-place for my +family in the winter. Near this again is a crescent-shaped apartment, +with windows which receive the sun all day, where I keep my favorite +authors. From this, one passes to a bed-chamber by a raised passage, +under which is a stove that communicates an agreeable warmth to the +whole apartment. The other rooms in this portion of the villa are for +the freedmen and slaves; but still are sufficiently well ordered (_tam +mundis_) for my guests." + +And he goes on to describe the bath-rooms, the cooling-rooms, the +sweating-rooms, the tennis-court, "which lies open to the warmth of the +afternoon sun." Adjoining this is a tower, with two apartments below and +two above,--besides a supper-room, which commands a wide look-out along +the sea, and over the villas that stud the shores. At the opposite end +of the tennis-court is another tower, with its apartments opening upon a +museum,--and below this the great dining-hall, whose windows look upon +gardens, where are box-tree hedges, and rosemary, and bowers of vines. +Figs and mulberries grow profusely in the garden; and walking under +them, one approaches still another banqueting-hall, remote from the sea, +and adjoining the kitchen-garden. Thence a grand portico +(_crypto-porticus_) extends with a range of windows on either side, and +before the portico is a terrace perfumed with violets. His favorite +apartment, however, is a detached building, which he has himself erected +in a retired part of the grounds. It has a warm winter-room, looking one +way on the terrace, and another on the ocean; through its folding-doors +may be seen an inner chamber, and within this again a sanctum, whose +windows command three views totally separate and distinct,--the sea, the +woods, or the villas along the shore. + +"Tell me," he says, "if all this is not very charming, and if I shall +not have the honor of your company, to enjoy it with me?" + +If Pliny regarded the seat at Ostium as only a convenient and +inexpensive place, we may form some notion of his Tuscan property, +which, as he says in his letter to his friend Apollinaris, (Lib. V. +Epist. 6,) he prefers to all his others, whether of Tivoli, Tusculum, or +Palestrina. There, at a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from Rome, +in the midst of the richest corn-bearing and olive-bearing regions of +Tuscany, he can enjoy country quietude. There is no need to be slipping +on his toga; ceremony is left behind. The air is healthful; the scene is +quiet. "_Studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo._" I will not follow him +through the particularity of the description which he gives to his +friend Apollinaris. There are the wide-reaching views of fruitful +valleys and of empurpled hill-sides; there are the fresh winds sweeping +from the distant Apennines; there is the _gestatio_ with its clipped +boxes, the embowered walks, the colonnades, the marble banquet-rooms, +the baths, the Carystian columns, the soft, embracing air, and the +violet sky. I leave Pliny seated upon a bench in a marble alcove of his +Tuscan garden. From this bench, the water, gushing through several +little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons +reposing upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, whence it is +received into a polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that it is +always full, without ever overflowing. "When I sup here," he writes, +"this basin serves for a table,--the larger dishes being placed round +the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little +vessels and waterfowl." + +Such _al fresco_ suppers the country-gentlemen of Italy ate in the first +century of our era! + + * * * * * + +Palladius wrote somewhere about the middle of the fourth century. His +work is arranged in the form of a calendar for the months, and closes +with a poem which is as inferior to the poems of the time of Augustus +as the later emperors were inferior to the Cæsars. There is in his +treatise no notable advance upon the teachings of Columella, whom he +frequently quotes,--as well as certain Greek authorities of the Lower +Empire. I find in his treatise a somewhat fuller list of vegetables, +fruits, and field-crops than belongs to the earlier writers. I find more +variety of treatment. I see a waning faith in the superstitions of the +past; Bacchus and the Lares are less jubilant than they were; but the +Christian civilization has not yet vivified the art of culture. The +magnificent gardens of Nero and the horticultural experiences of the +great Adrian at Tivoli have left no traces in the method or inspiration +of Palladius. + + * * * * * + +I will not pass wholly from the classic period, without allusion to the +recent book of Professor Daubeny on Roman husbandry. It is charming, and +yet disappointing,--not for failure, on his part, to trace the +traditions to their sources, not for lack of learning or skill, but for +lack of that _afflatus_ which should pour over and fill both subject and +talker, where the talker is lover as well as master. + +Daubeny's husbandry lacks the odor of fresh-turned ground,--lacks the +imprint of loving familiarity. He is clearly no farmer: every man who +has put his hand to the plough (_aratori crede_) sees it. Your blood +does not tingle at his story of Boreas, nor a dreamy languor creep over +you when he talks of sunny south-winds. + +Had he written exclusively of bees, or trees, or flowers, there would +have been a charming murmur, like the _susurrus_ of the poets,--and a +fragrance as of crushed heaps of lilies and jonquils. But Daubeny +approaches fanning as a good surgeon approaches a _cadaver_. He +disarticulates the joints superbly; but there is no tremulous intensity. +The bystanders do not feel the thrill with which they see a man bare his +arm for a capital operation upon a live and palpitating body. + + * * * * * + +From the time of Palladius to the time of Pietro Crescenzi is a period +of a thousand years, a period as dreary and impenetrable as the +snow-cloud through which I see faintly a few spires staggering: so along +the pages of Muratori's interminable annals gaunt figures come and go; +but they are not the figures of farmers. + +Goths, wars, famines, and plague succeed each other in ghastly +procession. Boëthius lifts, indeed, a little rural plaint from out of +the gloom,-- + + "Felix nimium prior ætas, + Contenta fidelibus arvis,"[18]-- + +but the dungeon closes over him; and there are outstanding orders of +Charlemagne which look as if he had an eye to the crops of Italy, and to +a good vegetable stew with his Transalpine dinners,--but for the most +part the land is waste. I see some such monster as Eccelino reaping a +harvest of blood. I see Lombards pouring down from the mountain-gates, +with falcons on their thumbs, ready to pounce upon the purple _columbæ_ +that trace back their lineage to the doves Virgil may have fed in the +streets of Mantua. I see torrents of people, the third of them women, +driven mad by some fanatical outcry, sweeping over the whole breadth of +Italy, and consuming all green things as a fire consumes stubble. Think +of what the fine villa of Pliny would have been, with its boxwood bowers +and floating dishes, under the press of such crusaders! It was a +precarious time for agricultural investments: I know nothing that could +match it, unless it may have been last summer's harvests in the valley +of the Shenandoah. + +Upon a parchment (_strumento_) of Ferrara, bearing date A. D. 1113, +(Annals of Muratori,) I find a memorandum or contract which looks like +reviving civilization. "_Terram autem illam quam roncabo, frui debeo per +annos tres; postea reddam serraticum._" The Latin is stiff, but the +sense is sound. "If I grub up wild land, I shall hold it three years for +pay." + + * * * * * + +I shall make no apology for introducing next to the reader the +"Geoponica Geoponicorum,"--a somewhat extraordinary collection of +agricultural opinions, usually attributed, in a loose way, to the +Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who held the Byzantine throne about +the middle of the tenth century. It was undoubtedly under the order of +Constantine that the collection took its present shape; but whether a +collection under the same name had not previously existed, and, if so, +to whom is to be credited the authorship, are questions which have been +discussed through a wilderness of Greek and Roman type, by the various +editors. + +The edition before me (that of Niclas, Leipsic) gives no less than a +hundred pages of prolegomena, prefaces, introductory observations, with +notes to each and all, interlacing the pages into a motley of patchwork; +the whole preceded by two, and followed by five stately dedications. The +weight of authority points to Cassianus Bassus, a Bithynian, as the real +compiler,--notwithstanding his name is attached to particular chapters +of the book, and notwithstanding he lived as early as the fifth century. +Other critics attribute the collection to Dionysius Uticensis, who is +cited by both Varro and Columella. The question is unsettled, and is not +worth the settling. + +My own opinion--in which, however, Niclas and Needham do not share--is, +that the Emperor Porphyrogenitus, in addition to his historical and +judicial labors,[19] wishing to mass together the best agricultural +opinions of the day, expressed that wish to some trusted Byzantine +official (we may say his Commissioner of Patents). Whereupon the +Byzantine official (commissioner) goes to some hungry agricultural +friend, of the Chersonesus, and lays before him the plan, with promise +of a round Byzantian stipend. The agricultural friend goes lovingly to +the work, and discovers some old compilation of Bassus or of Dionysius, +into which he whips a few modern phrases, attributes a few chapters to +the virtual compiler of the whole, makes one or two adroit allusions to +local scenes, and carries the result to the Byzantine official +(commissioner). The official (commissioner) has confidence in the +opinions and virtues of his agricultural friend, and indorses the book, +paying over the stipend, which it is found necessary to double, by +reason of the unexpected cost of execution. The official (commissioner) +presents the report to the Emperor, who receives it gratefully,--at the +same tune approving the bill of costs, which has grown into a quadruple +of the original estimates. + +This hypothesis will explain the paragraphs which so puzzle Niclas and +Needham; it explains the evident interpolations, and the local +allusions. The only extravagance in the hypothesis is its assumption +that the officials of Byzantium were as rapacious as our own. + +Thus far, I have imagined a certain analogy between the work in view and +the "Patent Office Agricultural Reports." The analogy stops here: the +"Geoponica" is a good book. It is in no sense to be regarded as a work +of the tenth century, or as one strictly Byzantine: nearly half the +authors named are of Western origin, and I find none dating later than +the fifth century,--while many, as Apuleius, Fiorentinus, Africanus, and +the poor brothers Quintilii, who died under the stab of Commodus, belong +to a period preceding that of Palladius. Aratus and Democritus (of +Abdera) again, who are cited, are veterans of the old Greek school, who +might have contributed as well to the agriculture of Thrace or Macedonia +in the days of Philip as in the days of the Porphyrogenitus. + +The first book, of meteorologic phenomena, is nearly identical in its +teachings with those of Aratus, Varro, and Virgil. + +The subject of field-culture is opened with the standard maxim, +repeated by all the old writers, that the master's eye is +invaluable.[20] The doctrine of rotation, or frequent change of crops, +is laid down with unmistakable precision. A steep for seed (hellebore) +is recommended, to guard against the depredations of birds or mice. + +In the second book, in certain chapters credited to Fiorentinus, I find, +among other valuable manures mentioned, sea-weed and tide-drift, +([Greek: Ta ek tês thalassês de ekbrassomena bryodê],) which I do not +recall in any other of the old writers. He also recommends the refuse of +leather-dressers, and a mode of promoting putrefaction in the +compost-heap, which would almost seem to be stolen from "Bommer's +Method." He further urges the diversion of turbid rills, after rains, +over grass lands, and altogether makes a better compend of this branch +of the subject than can be found in the Roman writers proper. + +Grain should be cut before it is fully ripe, as the meal is the sweeter. +What correspondent of our agricultural papers, suggesting this as a +novelty, could believe that it stood in Greek type as early as ever +Greek types were set? + +A farm foreman should be apt to rise early, should win the respect of +his men, should fear to tell an untruth, regard religious observances, +and not drink too hard. + +Three or four books are devoted to a very full discussion of the vine, +and of wines,--not differing materially, however, from the Columellan +advice. In discussing the moral aspects of the matter, this Geoponic +author enumerates other things which will intoxicate as well as +wine,--even some waters; also the wine made from barley and wheat, which +barbarians drink. Old men, he says, are easily made drunk; women not +easily, by reason of temperament; but by drinking enough they may come +to it. + +Where the discourse turns upon pears, (Lib. X. Cap. xxiii.,) it is +urged, that, if you wish specially good fruit, you should bore a hole +through the trunk at the ground, and drive in a plug of either oak or +beech, and draw the earth over it. If it does not heal well, wash for a +fortnight with the lees of old wine: in any event, the wine-lees will +help the flavor of the fruit. Almost identical directions are to be +found in Palladius, (Tit. XXV.,) but the above is credited to Diophanes, +who lived in Asia Minor a full century before Christ. + +Book XI. opens with flowers and evergreens, introduced (by a Latin +translation) in a mellifluous roll of genitives:--"_plantationem +rosarum, et liliorum, et violarum, et reliquorum florum odoralorum_." +Thereafter is given the pretty tradition, that red roses came of nectar +spilled from heaven. Love, who bore the celestial vintage, tripped a +wing, and overset the vase; and the nectar, spilling on the valleys of +the earth, bubbled up in roses. Next we have this kindred story of the +lilies. Jupiter wished to make his boy Hercules (born of a mortal) one +of the gods; so he snatches him from the bosom of his earthly mother, +Alemena, and bears him to the bosom of the godlike Juno. The milk is +spilled from the full-mouthed boy, as he traverses the sky, (making the +Milky Way,) and what drops below stars and clouds, and touches earth, +stains the ground with--lilies. + +In the chapter upon pot-herbs are some of those allusions to the climate +of Constantinople which may have served to accredit the work in the +Byzantine court. I find no extraordinary methods of kitchen-garden +culture,--unless I except the treatment of musk-melon seeds to a steep +of milk and honey, in order to improve the flavor of the fruit. (Cap. +xx.) The remaining chapters relate to ordinary domestic animals, with +diversions to stags, camels, hare, poisons, scorpions, and serpents. I +can cheerfully commend the work to those who have a snowy day on their +hands, good eyesight, and a love for the subject. + + * * * * * + +And now, while the snow lasts, let us take one look at Messer Pietro +Crescenzi, a Bolognese of the fourteenth century. My copy of him is a +little, fat, unctuous, parchment-bound book of 1534, bought upon a +street stall under the walls of the University of Bologna. + +Through whose hands may it not have passed since its printing! Sometimes +I seem to snuff in it the taint of a dirty-handed friar, who loved his +pot-herbs better than his breviary, and plotted his yearly garden on +some shelf of the hills that look down on Castagnolo: other times I +scent only the mould and the damp of some monastery shelf, that guarded +it quietly and cleanly, while red-handed war raged around the walls. + +Crescenzi was a man of good family in Bologna, being nephew of Crescenzi +di Crescenzo, who died in 1268, an ambassador in Venice. Pietro was +educated to the law, and, wearying of the civil commotions in his native +town, accepted judicial positions in the independent cities of +Italy,--Pisa and Asti among others; and after thirty years of absence, +in which, as he says, he had read many authors,[21] and seen many sorts +of farming, he gives his book to the world. + +Its arrangement is very similar to that of Palladius, to which he makes +frequent reference. There is long and quaint talk of situations, +breezes, cellar-digging, and wells; but in the matter of irrigation and +pipe-laying he is clearly in advance of the Roman writers. He discourses +upon tiles, and gives a cement for making water-tight their +junction,--"_Calcina viva intrisa con olio_." (Lib. I. Cap. ix.) He adds +good rules for mortar-making, and advises that the timber for +house-building be cut in November or December in the old of the moon. + +In matters of physiology he shows a near approach to modern views: he +insists that food for plants must be in a liquid form.[22] + +He quotes Columella's rule for twenty-four loads (_carrette_) of manure +to hill-lands per acre, and eighteen to level land; and adds,--"Our +people put the double of this,"--"_I nostri mettano più chel doppio._" + +But the book of our friend Crescenzi is interesting, not so much for its +maxims of agronomic wisdom as for its association with one of the most +eventful periods o£ Italian history. The new language of the +Peninsula[23] was just now crystallizing into shape, and was presently +to receive the stamp of currency from the hands of Dante and Boccaccio. +A thriving commerce through the ports of Venice and Amalfi demanded all +the products of the hill-sides. Milan, then having a population of two +hundred thousand, had turned a great river into the fields,--which to +this day irrigates thousands of acres of rice-lands. Wheat was grown in +profusion, at that time, on fields which are now desolated by the +malaria, or by indolence. In the days of Crescenzi, gunpowder was burned +for the first time in battle; and for the first time crops of grain were +paid for in bills of exchange. All the Peninsula was vibrating with the +throbs of a new and more splendid life. The art that had cropped out of +the fashionable schools of Byzantium was fast putting them in eclipse; +and before Crescenzi died, if he loved art on canvas as he loved art in +gardens, he must have heard admiringly of Cimabue, and Giotto, and +Orcagna. + + * * * * * + +In 1360 a certain Paganino Bonafede composed a poem called "Il Tesoro +de' Rustici"; but I believe it was never published; and Tiraboschi calls +it "_poco felice_." If we could only bar publicity to all the _poco +felice_ verses! + +In the middle of the fifteenth century the Florentine Poggio says some +good things in a rural way; and still later, that whimsical, +disagreeable Politiano, who was a pet cub of Lorenzo de' Medici, +published his "Rusticus." Roscoe says, with his usual strained +hyperbole, that it is inferior in kind only to the Georgics. The fact +is, it compares with the Georgics as the vilest of the Medici compare +with the grandest of the Cæsars. + +The young Michele Verini, of the same period, has given, in one of his +few remaining letters, an eloquent description of the Cajano farm of +Lorenzo de' Medici. It lay between Florence and Pistoia. The river +Ombrone skirted its fields. It was so successfully irrigated, that three +crops of grain grew in a year. Its barns had stone floors, walls with +moat, and towers like a castle. The cows he kept there (for ewes were +now superseded) were equal to the supply of the entire city of Florence. +Hogs were fed upon the whey; and peacocks and pheasant innumerable +roamed through the woods. + +Politiano also touches upon the same theme; but the prose of young +Verini is better, because more explicit, than the verse of Politiano. + + * * * * * + +While I write, wandering in fancy to that fair plain where Florence sits +a queen, with her girdle of shining rivers, and her garland of +olive-bearing hills,----the snow is passing. The spires have staggered +plainly and stiffly into sight. Again I can count them, one by one. I +have brought as many authors to the front as there are spires staring at +me from the snow. + +Let me marshal them once more:--Verini, the young Florentine; +Politiano,[24] who cannot live in peace with the wife of his patron; +Poggio, the Tuscan; Crescenzi, the magistrate and farmer joined; the +half-score of dead men who lie between the covers of the "Geoponica"; +the martyr Boëthius, who, under the consolations of a serene, perhaps +Christian philosophy, cannot forget the charm of the fields; Palladius, +who is more full than original; Pliny the Consul, and the friend of +Tacitus; Horace, whose very laugh is brimming with the buxom cheer of +the country; and last,--Virgil. + +I hear no such sweet bugle-note as his along all the line! + +Hark!-- + + "Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt." + +Even so: _Claudite jam libros, parvuli!_--Shut up the books, my little +ones! Enough of this. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] "_Lusimus_: hæc propter _Culicis_ sint carmina dicta." + +[14] Of course, I reckon the + + "Exceptantque leves auras; et sæpe sine ullis," etc., + +(Lib. III. 274,) as among the superstitions. + +[15] The same writer, under Februarius, Tit. XVII., gives a very curious +method of grafting the willow, so that it may bear peaches. + +[16] Praise big farms; stick by little ones. + +[17] This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro Bussolino, +and given as an appendix to the _Serie degli Scritti in Dialetto +Venez._, by Bart. Gamba. + +[18] _De Consol. Phil._ Lib. II. + +[19] See Gibbon,--opening of Chapter LIII. + +[20] As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different +agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim. + +The "Geoponica" has,--[Greek: "Pollo ton agron ameino poiei despotou +synechês parousia."] Lib. II. Cap. i. + +Columella says,--"Ne ista quidem præsidia tantum pollent, quantum vel +una præsentia domini." I. i. 18. + +Cato says,--"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv. + +Palladius puts it,--"Præsentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi. + +And the elder Pliny writes,--"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini +esse dixerunt." + +[21] "E molti libri d'antichi e de' novelli savi lessi e studiai, e +diverse e varie operazioni de' coltivalori delle terre vidi e conobbi." + +[22] "Il proprio cibo delle piante sara aleuno humido ben mischiato." +Cap. xiii. + +[23] Crescenzi'a book was written in Latin, but was very shortly after +(perhaps by himself) rendered into the street-tongue of Italy. + +[24] See Roscoe, _Life of Lorenzo de' Medici_, Chap. VIII. + + + + +THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN. + + +The circumstances _were_ a little peculiar,--it is in vain to deny it. +No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and +stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I +was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the +General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel +Prowley's during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about +the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office +occupied by far the greater part of my time and attention. And really, +when you think of the "remarkable men" long identified with this ancient +river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable. + +Chosen a member of the "Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society" during my +first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the +meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of +political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing +was----But stop!--to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the +Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence. For, as the +reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to +slacken his epistolary attentions after the success of his little +scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife +turned out to possess the feminine facility of letter-writing, and was +good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous +productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted +to their perusal. + +It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope +from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following +communication:-- + + + "Rooms of the Young Men's + Gelasmiphilous Society. + + "SIR: You will herewith receive a copy of a resolution + nominating you as the Young Men's candidate for the next + Legislature. You are doubtless aware that it is the custom + for all new candidates to deliver a lyceum-lecture in Foxden + on the evening before the election. We have therefore + engaged the Town Hall in your behalf on the P. M. of + November fifth. Knowing something of the taste in lectures + of those disposed to support you, I venture to recommend the + selection of some light and humorous subject. + + "I am fraternally yrs., + + "THADDEUS WASPY, + + "Secretary Y. M. G. S. + + "P. S. Dr. Howke, who was run last year without success, is + upon the opposition ticket. As the old-fogy element of the + town will probably rally to his support, it is very + important that you bring out the entire strength of Young + Foxden. Thus you see the necessity of having your lecture + lively and full of fun. If you feel equal to it, I am sure + that a Comic Poem would be a great hit." + +As illustrating this extraordinary missive, there is subjoined an +extract from the accompanying epistle of my regular Foxden +correspondent. + + "I inclose what I am given to understand is a nomination to + the Honorable Legislature, a distinction which, I need not + say, gives the highest gratification to my sister and + myself. You will be opposed in this noble emulation by one + Howke, a physician of North Foxden, with whom our venerable + and influential Dr. Dastick has much osseous sympathy. Dr. + Howke (long leaning to the Root-and-Herb School of Medicine, + and having wrought many notable cures with such simples as + sage, savory, wormwood, sweet-marjoram, sassafras, + liverwort, pine-cones, rosemary, poppy-leaves, not to speak + of plasters of thyme, cowslips, rose-buds, fit to refresh + the tired wings of Ariel) has latterly declared his + conversion to the Indian system of physic. The celebrated + Wigwam Family Pills, to the manufacture of which he at + present devotes himself, are not unknown to city journals. + As I am informed that Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden + Regulator," has a large interest in the sale of these + alterative spherules, you will necessarily encounter the + hostility of our county journal. I advise you of the full + might of these adversaries, that you may come to fuller + justification of your supporters in the lecture to be read + before us on election-eve. Dr. Dastick, with some of the + elder of this town, has little liking for this laic + preaching of the lyceum, by reason of the slight and foolish + matter too often dispensed, when in the mean time there be + precious gems of knowledge, the very onyx or sapphire to + bedeck the mind, which the muck-rake of the lecturer never + collects. I add for your consideration a few wholesome + subjects:--Caleb Cheeschateaumuck, the Indian Bachelor of + Arts; A Monody on the Apostle Eliot; A Suggestion of Some + New Claimant for the Honors of Junius; Mather's Four + _Johannes in Eremo_, being Notable Facts in the Lives of + John Cotton, John Norton, John Wilson, and John Davenport; + The Great Obligations of Homer to the Illustrious Mr. Pope; + "New England's Jonas cast up in London," Some Account of + this Remarkable Work; Natootomakteackesuk, or the Day of + Asking Questions, whether this Ancient Festival might be + profitably Revived?--I should feel competent to give + assistance in the treatment of any of these subjects you + might select. If the Muse inspire you, why not try a + descriptive poem, modelled, let us say, upon William + Morrill's 'New England'? The silver ring of verse would be + joyfully heard among us, and work strong persuasions in your + behalf.... I must not forget to mention, that, on the day of + your lecture, you will meet at dinner at my house my + esteemed Western correspondent, Professor Owlsdarck, (his + grandmother was a Sodkin,) whose great work upon Mummies is + the admiration of the literary world. He has been invited to + deliver an address upon some speciality of erudition before + the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy, + and that upon the same evening you are to speak in Foxden. + As the distance is only ten miles, I shall send him over in + the carryall after an early tea. And now to share with you a + little secret. The office of Principal of the Academy is + vacant, and the well-known learning of Professor Owlsdarck + gives his friends great hope in recommending him for the + place. He formerly lived in Wrexford, where his early + 'Essays on Cenotaphs,' published in the local paper of that + town, were very popular. Indeed, I think the trustees have + only to hear the weighty homily he will provide for them to + decide by acclamation in his favor. Thus you see my double + interest in your visits next November; for, as I think, both + my guests will come upon brave opportunities for fame and + usefulness." + +"And what shall you do about it?" asked my wife, after we had thoroughly +read the documents which have been quoted. + +"Stand," I replied, with emphasis. "I don't think there's any chance of +an election; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political +campaign. If I could get a little of the stump-orator's brass into my +composition, it would be worth five years of office-practice for putting +me on in the profession." + +"But you have always had such unwillingness to address an audience," +faltered Kate. + +"The more reason why an effort should now be made to get over it," I +replied. "In short, I consider this nomination quite providential, for I +could never have descended to the vulgar wire-pulling by which such +distinctions are commonly gained; and I confess, it promises to be just +the discipline I want. Of course I have no expectation of being chosen." + +"But why should you not be chosen?" urged my wife. "You are tolerably +well-known in Foxden; Colonel Prowley, an influential citizen, is your +warm friend; and Mr. Waspy tells you how you may get the support of the +active generation." + +"Yes,--by playing literary Grimaldi an hour or so for their diversion! A +very good recipe, were it not probable that the elder portion of the +town would fail to see the humor of it." + +"But you may be certain that everybody likes to laugh at a +lyceum-lecture." + +"Everybody but a clique of pseudo-wiseacres in Foxden perhaps may," I +replied. "But our good friend, the Colonel, has so established his +antiquarian dictatorship over his contemporaries, that I believe +nothing adapted to the present century could possibly please them." + +"You may depend upon it," argued Kate, consolingly, "that all the lieges +of Foxden will be so taken up with this Professor Owlsdarck, who is +fortunately to be there at the same time, that they will give little +thought to your deficiencies. At all events, there is nothing to be done +but to try to please the Young Men who give you the nomination." + +Of course I agreed in this view of the case, and began to cast about for +some grotesque subject for my lecture. But regret at disappointing the +expectations of my old friend caused me to dismiss such light topics as +presented themselves, and after searching for half an hour, I declared +myself as much at a loss as ever. + +"I think I have it!" cried Kate, at length. "Both your correspondents +say that a poem would be particularly acceptable,--and a poem it must +be." + +"Modelled on William Morrill's 'New England'?" I said, dubiously. + +"Not at all; but a comic; poem, such as the secretary asks for. The dear +Colonel will be pleased at the pretension of verse, and your humorous +passages may be passed off as poetic license." + +"There is much in what you say," I replied; "and if I put something +about New England into the title, it will go far to reconcile all +difficulties." + +"Why not call it 'The Whims of New England'?" suggested Kate. + +"'The Whims of New England,'" I repeated. "Let me think how it would +look in print:--'We understand that the brilliant, sparkling, and highly +humorous poem, entitled "The Whims of New England," which convulsed the +_élite_ of Foxden on Friday evening last,' etc., etc. Yes, it sounds +well! 'The Whims of New England,' it shall be!" + +It was a great satisfaction to have decided upon the style and title; +and I sat down at once and began to jot off lines of ten syllables. +"What do you think of this for a beginning?" I presently asked:-- + + "Who shall subdue this headlong-dashing Time, + And lead it fettered through a dance of rhyme? + Where is the coming man who shall not shrink + To lay the Ocean Telegraph--in ink? + Who comes to give us in a form compact + Essence of horse-car, caucus, song, and tract?" + +"But why begin with all these questions?" inquired Kate. + +"It is the custom, my dear," I replied, decisively. "It is the +conventional 'Here we are' of the poetical clown." + +"Well, you must remember to be funny enough," said my wife, with +something like a sigh. "It is not the humorous side of her hero's +character that a woman likes to contemplate; so give me credit for +disinterestedness in the advice." + +"'Motley's the only wear'!" I exclaimed,--"at least before the Young Men +of the Gelasmiphilous Society. I have a stock of Yankee anecdotes that +can be worked off in rhyme to the greatest advantage. In short, I mean +to attempt one of those immensely popular productions that no +library--that is, no circulating library--should be without." + +Easier said than done. The evenings of several weeks were pretty +diligently devoted to my poem. I determined to begin with a few moral +reflections, and in these I think I succeeded in reaching the highest +standard of edification and dulness. Not that I didn't succeed in the +revel of comicalities I afterward permitted myself; but the selection +and polishing of these oddities cost me much more labor than I had +expected. I was really touched at the way in which my wife sacrificed +her feminine preference for the emotional and sentimental, and heard me +read over my piquant periods in order that all the graces of declamation +might give them full effect. And when my poem was at length finished, +when my stories had been carefully arranged with their points bristling +out in all directions, when every shade of emphasis had been studied, I +think it might have been called a popular performance,--perhaps _too_ +popular;--but that is a matter of opinion. + +I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my +first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters +from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers +about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment. + +"How shall I tell the old gentleman," I exclaimed, one day, after +reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles,--"how shall I tell him, that, +instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a +collection of trumpery rhymes?" + +"Why tell him anything about it?" said Kate. "The committee have not +asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend +to address them in prose or verse. Then say nothing; when you begin to +speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to +speak about, and whether they like it or not." + +"A capital plan!" I cried; "for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastick, and +the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it +is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared +verses, or something of the sort." + +So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to +say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, +unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be +carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful; but then I knew it +was the distrust of modesty and inexperience. + + +II. + +A fine, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important +fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the +railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven +o'clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm +of hospitality,--Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh +mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in +a maze of inquiries and information. + +I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to +announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. +Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of +discourse selected for the trustees; and, indeed, it had often been the +custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name +of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about +to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, +ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. +This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and +had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested +the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his +countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness +about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to +pieces and thoroughly oiled, he would be much better for it. + +"Let me have the pleasure of making two valued and dear friends of mine +acquainted with each other!" exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "Professor +Owlsdarck, permit me to"----and with flourishes of extravagant +compliment the introduction was accomplished. + +"Brother, brother, Captain Strype wants to see you a moment; he has gone +into the back-parlor," called the voice of Miss Prowley from a window +above. + +Our host seemed a little annoyed; muttered something about the necessity +of conciliating opposition editors; excused himself with elaborate +apologies; and hurried into the house, leaving his two guests to ripen +in acquaintance as they best might. + +"Fine day, Sir," I remarked, after a deferential pause, to allow my +companion to open the conversation, had he been so disposed. + +"Fine for funerals," was the dismal response of Professor Owlsdarck. + +"On the contrary," said I, "it seems to me one of those days when we are +least able to realize our mortality." + +"Then you think superficially," rejoined the Professor. "A warm day at +this time of year induces people to leave off their flannels; and that, +in our climate, is as good as a death-warrant." + +"I confess, I never looked at it in that light." + +"No, because you look at picturesqueness, while I look at statistics. +Are you interested in mummies?" + +I signified that in that direction my enthusiasm was limited. + +"So I supposed," said Professor Owlsdarck. "And yet how can a man be +said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race? +The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the +rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone +brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical +organization of ancient men? Remember, too, those natural and original +peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its +fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the +proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies." + +"But in these days," I pleaded, "education has become so varied, that, +if we began at the beginning to study down, no man's lifetime would +suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs." + +"Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has +become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone. +Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields +of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface +to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements!" + +"For my own part," I said, "I have generally striven to inform myself +upon topics connected with our own country." + +"And such subjects are most interesting," replied the Professor, "if +only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The _bones_," he +continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,--"the bones of the +Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet. +The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and +mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older, +I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of +research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio. +What better reward for a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest +glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded!" + +After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued +long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring +friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian +dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in +unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of +learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and +tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination +was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine +rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to +borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have +had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to +understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would +have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the +particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of +the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a +quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, +I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his +specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid +horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more +pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to +meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those of that +commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become. + +It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when +he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened. + +"Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife +has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes +your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator," +did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some +beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed +to get a sight of your manuscript." + +"I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the +Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman +told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give +the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he +promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five +minutes,--just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style +of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done." + +"I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection +with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it +can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more +to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my +performance." + +"It is of much more matter than you think," said Colonel Prowley, sadly. +"For the 'Regulator,' which appears to-morrow, goes to press this +afternoon. Strype don't like to have it known, as it lessens the +interest of the 'Latest Intelligence' column; but I happened to find it +out some time ago." + +"Then we are worsted indeed," I cried. "His eagerness is well explained; +for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises +this evening, would be useless for his purpose." + +"A _critique_ of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial +auditor, will be printed in a thousand 'Regulators' before you open your +lips in our Town Hall," said the Colonel, bitterly. + +I knew for the first time that stinging indignation felt by all decent +aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which +dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, open abuse, +my young republican, which you will find galling,--but the contemptible +meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an +instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had +an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery +case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for, +upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those +who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And--it is awkward to +acknowledge it--I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife +whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had +come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never +provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though he +carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement +I derived from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest +ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable +appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any +mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds. + +Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at the end of the +garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the +end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and +emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that +there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for +dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reëntering the house, I +closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it--where I +could not fail to remember it--with my hat and gloves upon the +entry-table. + +You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o'clock dinner. +Full of the half-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more +individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the +clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level +of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding +which are worth noting. + +Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future +guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the +table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly +made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too +warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and +generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his +chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the +town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our +admission, listened with much profit while the political question +pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, +underwent discussion. + +"They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many +reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as +certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host. + +"So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of +men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they +assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by +testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. +Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "_Orandum est ut +sit mens sana_," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the +Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in +sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and +chastity,--leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those +who had made them their special study. + +"Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of +priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost +children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were +the doctors of the body as well as the soul." + +"For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian +medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel. + +We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion. + +"You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in +explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring +to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes +containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one +which seemed quite appropriate." + +"'Familiar in their mouths as household words,'" suggested Mr. Clifton. + +"Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. +So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous +ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to +the text might not meet the difficulty." + +"But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to +make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I, +innocently. + +"Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible +change in a single letter,--aided, of course, by a little intelligent +commentary." + +As we all looked rather doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last +number of Strype's valuable publication, and read as follows:-- + +"IMPORTANT LITERARY DISCOVERY. We learn by the last steamer from England +that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has +already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the +circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied iron-plated +steamers and the potato-rot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon +fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its +universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that +exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet, +'Throw physic to the dogs!' The slightest consideration of the +circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth +was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family +physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He +would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs, +which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more +skilled in the potencies of medicine. The line, as it came from the pen +of Shakspeare, undoubtedly read, 'Throw Physicke to the Powwows'; in +other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able +to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of +accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless +copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the +'P,'--thus transforming the passage into, 'Throw Physicke to the +Bowwows.' The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile +expression for the canine race, changed the last word to 'dogs,' as it +has ever since stood." + +Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, "Even if the emendation and inference +could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he +studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that +he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have +had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by +spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly +effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own." + +"If you speak of modern spiritualism," said Professor Owlsdarck, "you +must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For +how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in +Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi +and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in +that State? The ancestors of some of these nervous media testify to +roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions +like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent +shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type +your reverend brother Bradley's memoir on this subject, whereof the sole +copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford." + +"Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science," said +the clergyman, "that those who have not had sufficient training to know +that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw +the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical +shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden; yet I am constantly +surprised to see how few, in relation to any circumstance out of the +daily routine of business-life, recognize the difference between +possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy +matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been +accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language." + +"If we may believe the Padre Clavigero," observed the Professor, "it +will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects, +and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican." + +This remark seemed hardly to the purpose; for whatever the excellences +of that tongue might have been, there were insuperable objections to its +adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his +parishioners. But the last-named gentleman, with generous tact, allowed +the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it +naturally tended. It did not take long to get to the Pharaohs, of whose +domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a +man who dined with them once a week. From these venerable potentates we +soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as +thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed, +this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded +himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks, +as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the +careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into +how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and +indefatigable research might have been directed. + +Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every +syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden +ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there were +extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious +metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that +conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear. + +Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly +assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to +anything later than B. C. 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library, +and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and +relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite +apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the +hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host, +looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring +the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the +bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the +summons. A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of +the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the +distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor +Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees, +parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy. + + +III. + +Tom and the carryall at length appeared, and Professor Owlsdarck, in a +new suit of black clothes, in which the lately folded creases were very +perceptible, came forth a sort of musty bridegroom out of his chamber, +and rejoiced as a strong statistician to run his appointed race. Kate +and I thought it best to diminish the final bustle of departure by +lingering on the piazza just before the open door, where we could easily +add our parting good-wishes, when he succeeded in getting out of the +house. For there seemed to be some trouble in putting the Professor, +with as little "tumbling" as possible, into his narrow overcoat, and +then in finding his lecture, which had dropped under the table during +the operation, and then in recovering his spectacles from the depths of +some obscure pocket. Although Colonel Prowley had wellnigh exhausted the +language of jubilant enthusiasm, I managed, while helping Professor +Owlsdarck into the carryall, to express a respectful interest in his +success. Yet, while the words were on my lips, I could not but remember +what Strype had said in the morning, and admit the great likelihood of +its truth. And although beginning to feel pretty nervous as the time +drew near for my own sacrifice, I congratulated myself upon a +preparation in accordance with the modern demands of a lyceum audience. +With a pleasant sense of superior sagacity to this far more learned +candidate for popular favor, I proposed, instead of returning to the +house, to take an hour's stroll by the river, and go thence to the Town +Hall at the appointed time. + +"The very thing I was going to suggest," said Kate, "for I don't feel +like talking. My mind is so full of excitement about your poem that +ordinary conversational proprieties are almost impossible." + +Our host, with true courtesy, permitted us to do as we pleased, merely +saying that he would reserve the seat next him for my wife, so that we +need not arrive till it was time to commence the performance. + +"But you are going to forget your manuscript!" he pleasantly added. +"See, it lies on the entry-table with your gloves and overcoat." + +Of course there was no danger of doing anything of the sort, for a +memorandum to take good care of _that_ had printed itself in the largest +capitals upon the tablets of memory. I did feel disagreeably, however, +when my old friend, in handing it to me, looked wistfully at the neat +case of polished leather in which it was securely tied. It was, indeed, +painful to disappoint both in subject and style of composition the kind +interest with which he waited my appearance before an audience of his +townsmen. The only antidote to such regrets was the reflection that I +had prepared what would be most likely to cause the ultimate +satisfaction of all parties; for his mortification at my general +unpopularity and consequent defeat would of course have been greater +than any personal satisfaction he might have experienced in the dry and +antique matter accordant with his peculiar taste. I essayed some +cheerful remark, as the shining packet slipped into my breast-pocket, +and I buttoned my coat securely across the chest, that I might be +continually conscious that the important contents had not dropped out. + +"Remember, I shall be on the second settee from the platform; for I +would not willingly lose the slightest word," was the farewell +exclamation of Colonel Prowley. + +"You are too good, Sir," I answered, as we turned from the house; "I may +always count upon your kind indulgence, and perhaps more of it will be +claimed this evening than your partiality leads you to suspect." + +"And now," said I to Kate, when we were fairly out of hearing, "let us +dismiss for the last hour this provoking poem, and forget that there are +lyceum-lectures, Indian doctors, and General Courts in this beautiful +world." + +Of course I never suspected that we could do anything of the kind, but I +thought an innocent hypocrisy to that effect might beguile the time yet +before us. Kate acquiesced; and we walked along a wooded path where +every stone and shrub was rich in associations with that first summer in +Foxden when our acquaintance began. And soon our petty anxiety was +merged in deeper feelings that flowed upon us, as the great event in our +mortal existence was seen in the retrospect from the same pleasant +places where it once loomed grandly before us. The sweet, fantastic +anticipations that pronounced the "All Hail, Hereafter," to the great +romance of life again started from familiar objects to breathe a freer +atmosphere. The coming fact, which all natural things once called upon +us to accept as the final resting-place of the soul, had passed by us, +and we could look onward still. We saw that marriage was not the +satisfaction of life, but a noble means whereby our selfish infirmities +might be purified by divine light. Well for us that this Masque and +Triumph of Nature should not always be seen as from the twentieth year! +It is too cheap a way to idealize and ennoble self in the noontide sun +of one marriage-day. Yet let the gauze and tinsel be removed when they +may; for all earnest souls there are realities behind them that shall +make the heavens and earth seem accidents. It once seems as if marriage +would discolor the world with roseate tint; but it does better: it +enlightens it. Thus, in imagination, did we sally backward and forward +as the twilight thickened about us. In delicious sympathy of silence we +watched quivering shadows in the water, and marked how the patient elms +gathered in their strength to endure the storms of winter. + +"It is not a lottery," I said, at last, unconsciously thinking aloud. + +"No," responded Kate; "it was so christened of old, because our shrewd +New-Englanders had not made possible a better simile. It is like one of +the great Gift Enterprises of these latter years, where everybody is +sure of his money's worth in book or trinket, and is surprised by a +present into the bargain. The majority, to be sure, get but their bit of +soap or their penny-whistle, while a fortunate few are provided with +gold watches and diamond breast-pins." + +I thought this a good comparison; but I did not say so, for I was in the +mood to rise for my analogy or allegory, instead of swooping to pick it +out of Mr. Perham's advertisements. + +"Nay, nay, my dear," I rejoined, at length; "let us, who have won +genuine jewelry, exalt our gains by some nobler image. A stagnant puddle +of water may reflect the blessed sun even better than this river that +eddies by our feet, yet it is not there that one likes to look for it." + +"Perhaps it is the farthest bound of reaction from transcendentalism, +that causes us, when we do think a free thought, to look about for +something grimly practical to fasten it upon," argued Kate, smilingly. +"Yet I do not quite agree with the reason of my Aunt Patience for +devoting herself to the roughest part of gardening. A taste for flowers, +she contends, is legitimate only when it has perfected itself out of a +taste for earth-worms. There are truly thoughts only to be symbolized by +sunset colors and the song of birds, that are better than if mortared +with logic and based as firmly as the Pyramids." + +The fatal word "Pyramids" sent us flying through the ages till we +reached the tombs of the Pharaohs, whence we came bounding back again +through Grecian civilization, mediæval darkness, and modern +enlightenment, till we naturally stopped at Professor Owlsdarck and the +carryall, by this time nearing Wrexford. My own literary performance, so +associated with that of the Professor, next occupied our attention, and +we realized the fact that it was time to be moving slowly in the +direction of the Town Hall. + +"Don't let us get there till just the hour for commencing," said I, +endeavoring to restrain the quickened step of my companion. + +And I quoted the ghastly merriment of the gentleman going to be hung, to +the effect that there was sure to be no fun till he arrived. + +We said nothing else, but indulged in a very definite sort of wandering +by the river's bank,--I nervously looking at my watch, occasionally +devouring a troche, and patting my manuscript pocket, or, to make +assurance doubly sure, touching the polished surface of the case within. + +We timed it to a minute. At exactly half-past seven o'clock, I proceeded +up the broad aisle of the Town Hall, put my wife into the place reserved +with the Prowley party upon settee number two from the platform, and +mounted the steps of that awful elevation amid general applause. + +The President of the Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society, who occupied a +chair at the right of the desk, came forward to receive me, and we shook +hands with an affectation of the most perfect ease and naturalness. +Here, a noisy satisfaction, as of boys in the gallery, accompanied by a +much fainter enthusiasm among their elders below. + +"You are just in time," whispered the President. "I was afraid you would +be too late; we always like to begin punctually." + +"I am all ready," said I, faintly; "you may announce me immediately." + +I subsided into the orator's chair, and glanced, for the first time, at +my audience. The Young Men, somehow or other, did not appear so numerous +as I had hoped. On the other hand, Dr. Dastick, and a good many friends +of eminently scientific character, loomed up with fearful distinctness. +Even the malleable element of youth seemed to harden by the side of that +implacable fibre of scholastic maturity which was bound to resist my +most delicate manipulation. I withstood, with some effort, the +stage-fright that was trying to creep over me, and hastily snatched the +manuscript from my pocket. Yes, I must have been confused, indeed; for +here is the string round the case tied in a hard knot, and I could have +taken my oath that I fastened it in a very loose bow! I picked at it, +and pulled at it, and humored it in every possible way, but the plaguy +thing was as fast as ever. At last--just as the President was +approaching the conclusion of his remarks, and had got as far as, "_I +shall now have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who_," etc., +etc.--I bethought myself of a relief quite as near at hand as that key +which Faithful held in his bosom during his confinement in Doubting +Castle. My penknife was drawn to the rescue, and the string severed, +while the President, retiring to his chair, politely waved me to the +place he had occupied. Again great applause from the gallery, with +tempered applause from below. With as much unconcern as I could +conveniently assume, I advanced to the front, took a final survey of the +audience, laid my manuscript on the desk, turned back the cover, and +fixed my eyes upon the page before me. + +How describe the nightmare horror that then broke upon my senses? Upon +the first page, in large, writing-master's hand, I had inscribed my +title:--"THE WHIMS OF NEW ENGLAND: A POEM." In its place, in still +larger hand, in lank and grisly characters, stared this hideous +substitute:-- + + "THE OBSEQUIES OF CHEOPS: + A LECTURE." + +With that vivid rapidity with which varied and minute scenery is crowded +into a moment of despair, I perceived the fatal blunder. Owlsdarck and I +had changed manuscripts. Upon that entry-table where lay my poem, the +hurry and bustle of departure had for a moment thrown his lecture. The +cases being identical in appearance, he had taken up my unfortunate +production, which, doubtless, at that very moment, he was opening before +parents, trustees, and pupils connected with the Wrexford Academy. I +will not deny, that, in the midst of my own perplexity, a ghastly sense +of the ridiculous came over me, as I thought of the bewilderment of the +Professor. For an instant of time I actually knew a grim enjoyment in +the fact that circumstances had perpetrated a much better joke than any +in my poem. But my heart stopped beating as an impatient rumble of +applause testified that the desires of the audience were awaiting +gratification. + +I glared upon the expectant faces before me; but they seemed to melt and +fuse into one another, or to dance about quite independently of the +bodies with which they should have been connected. I strove to murmur an +apology; but the words stuck in my throat. + +More applause, in which a slight whistling flavor was apparent. A +kicking, as of cow-hide boots of juvenile proportions, audible from the +gallery. A suspicion of cat-calling in a monad state of development +about the door. Of course my prospects were ruined. My knees seemed +disposed to deposit their burden upon the floor. Hope was utterly +extinguished in my breast. There I stood, weak and contemptible, before +the wretched populace whose votes I had come to solicit. Then it was, +the resolution, or rather the _rage_, of despair inspired me. I +determined to take a terrible vengeance upon my abandoned constituents. +Quick as lightning the thought leaped to execution. I seized the +insufferable composition before me, and began to fulminate its sentences +at the democracy of Foxden. + +"Fulminate" is expressive; but words like "roar" and "bellow" must be +borrowed to give the reader an idea of the vocal power put into that +performance. For it is a habit of our infirm natures to counteract +embarrassment by some physical exaggeration, which, by absorbing our +chief attention, leaves little to be occupied with the cause of +distress. Persons of extreme diffidence are sometimes able to face +society by behaving as if they were vulgarly at their ease, and men +troubled with a morbid modesty often find relief in acting a character +of overweening pride. Thus it was only by absorbing attention in the +effort to produce a very sensational order of declamation that I could +perform the task undertaken. Owlsdarck's handwriting was luckily large +and legible; and I was able to storm and gesticulate without hinderance. + +I ploughed through the tough old homily, tossing up the biggest size of +words as if they were not worth thinking of. I went at the lamented +Cheops with a fearful enthusiasm. The air seemed heavy with a miasma of +information. It was not my fault, if every individual in the audience +did not feel personally sticky with the glutinous drugs I lavished upon +the embalmment. I was as profuse with my myrrh, cassia, and aloes, as if +those costly vegetable productions were as cheap as cabbages. I split up +a sycamore-tree to make an external shell, as if it were as familiar a +wood as birch or hemlock. At last, having got his case painted all over +with appropriate emblems, and Cheops himself done up in his final +wrapping, I struck a mighty blow upon the desk, which set the lamps +ringing and flaring in majestic emphasis. + +It was at this point that the presence of an audience was once more +recalled to me. Enthusiastic applause, peal after peal, responded to my +efforts. I ventured to look out into the hall before me. Dr. Dastick was +thumping with energy upon the neighboring settee. The elders of Foxden +were leading the approbation, and a wild tattoo was resonant from the +gallery. The face of Colonel Prowley was aglow with satisfaction, and +the dear old gentleman actually waved his handkerchief as he caught my +eye. But my frightened, pale-faced Kate,--my first shudder returned +again as I met her gaze. Again I felt the sinking, prickling sensation +of being in for it. There was no resource but to charge at the +Professor's manuscript as vigorously as ever. + +I now went to pyramid-making with the same zeal with which I had acted +as undertaker. Locks, parsley, and garlic, to the amount of one thousand +and sixty talents, were lavished upon the workmen. Stuffed cats and +sacred crocodiles were carried in procession to encourage them. Stones, +thirty feet long, were heaved out of quarries, and hieroglyphics chopped +into them with wonderful despatch. At last, after an hour and a half of +laborious vociferation, I managed to get the pyramid done and Cheops put +into it. A sort of dress-parade of authorities was finally called: +Herodotus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, and many +others, were fired in concluding volleys among the audience. I was +conscious of a salvo of clapping, pounding, and stamping that thundered +in reply. The last sentence had been uttered. Again the audience blurred +and danced before my eyes; I staggered back, and sank confused and +breathless into the orator's chair. + +"Good, good," whispered the President. "It was a capital idea; ha, ha, +very funny! To hear you hammering away at Egyptian antiquities as if +you'd never thought of anything else! The elocution and gestures, too, +were perfectly tall;--the Young Men of our Society were delighted;--I +could see they were." + +"Permit me to congratulate you, Sir," said Dr. Dastick, who had elbowed +his way to the platform. "I confess myself most agreeably disappointed +in your performance. There was in it a solidity of information and a +curiosity of important research for which I was totally unprepared. Let +me hope that such powers of oratory as we have heard this evening may +soon plead the cause of good learning in the legislature of our State." + +"A good subject, my dear young friend, and admirably developed," +exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "You have already won the palm of victory, if +I rightly read the faces of some who were too quick to endow you with +the common levity and indiscretion of youth." + +"You have had success with young and old," said the Reverend Mr. +Clifton, kindly holding out his hand. "We have rarely lecturers who +seem to give such universal satisfaction." + +After these congratulations, and others to the same purpose, the real +state of the case could no longer be hidden. Instead of the +mortification and defeat confidently expected, I had unwittingly made a +ten-strike upon that erratic set of pins, the Foxden public. The Young +Men, who knew me only as the [Greek: gelôtopoios], or laughter-maker, of +their merry association, considered the sombre getting up and energetic +delivery of the Cheops lecture the very best joke I had ever +perpetrated. Some of the most influential citizens, as has been already +seen, were personally gratified in the general dustiness of the subject; +while others, perchance, were able to doze in the consciousness that the +opinions of Cheops upon such disturbing topics as Temperance, +Anti-Slavery, and Woman's Rights must necessarily be of a patriarchal +and comforting character. But the glory of the unlooked-for triumph +seemed strangely lessened by the reflection that I had no just claim to +the funereal plumage with which I had so happily decked myself. + +"Gentlemen," said I, "I ought to tell you that the address I have +delivered this evening is--in fact--is not original." + +"That's just why we like it," rejoined Dr. Dastick. "No young man should +be original; it is a great impertinence, if he tries to be." + +"I do not mean simply to acknowledge an indebtedness to the ancient +authorities quoted in the lecture; but--but, the truth is, that the +arrangement and composition cannot properly be called my own." + +"Not the least consequence," said Colonel Prowler. "You showed a +commendable modesty in seeking the aid of any discreet and learned +person. You know I offered to give you what assistance was in my power; +but you found--unexpectedly, at the last moment, perhaps--some wiser +friend." + +"Most unexpectedly,--at the very last moment," I murmured. + +"As for originality," said the clergyman, pleasantly, "when you have +come to my age, you will cease to trouble yourself much about it. No man +can accomplish anything important without a large indebtedness to those +who have lived, as well as to those who live. We know that the old +fathers not only dared to lack originality, but even to consider times +and peoples in their selection and treatment of topics. _Non quod +sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt_, may be said of them in no +disparagement. For, not to mention others, I might quote Cyprian, +Minutius, Lactantius, and Hilarius,"---- + +"Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be +in a sermon," interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the +drift of his pastor's remarks. "And I rejoice that the success of our +friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow +witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such +fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may +well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of +Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But +come, all of you, for an hour, to my house; for I am mistaken, if there +be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have +just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to +Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an +offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which +are just now at full maturity." + +Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the +Doctor's invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer +(having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) +should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxden for +the next hour or so. + +"But you forget Professor Owlsdarck," I ventured to whisper to the +Colonel. "I must see him the instant he returns. That is--I am very +impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive at your +house, if I am not there to meet him." + +My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then +informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass +Dastick's house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring +in the Professor. + +"No," I exclaimed, with energy; "promise that I may go out and receive +Owlsdarck alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick's." + +"I doubt if there would be any precedent for this," argued the Colonel, +gravely. + +"Then we must make one," I asserted. "For surely nothing is more +appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether +in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the +craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings." + +After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the +case; and we passed out of the hot lecture-room into the still, fresh +night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind +the crowd. + +"I am not mad yet," I said, "though when I began that extraordinary +lecture you must have thought me so." + +"For a few moments," replied my wife, "I was utterly bewildered; but +soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the +Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck's lecture." + +"And he appeared with my poem before the audience in Wrexford." + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Kate, "I never thought of that part of it!" + +"Yet that is _the_ part of it of which it behooves us to think just at +present," I replied. "To my utter amazement, there has been something, +either in the Professor's wisdom or in my rendering of it, that has +_taken_ with the audience. Not knowing what Owlsdarck has done, or may +wish to do, I have not explained the humiliating and ridiculous +blunder,--though I have stoutly denied myself any credit for the +information or composition of the lecture." + +"But the Professor couldn't have read your poem at Wrexford?" + +"Two hours ago I should have thought it so impossible, that only one +thing in the world would have seemed to me more so, and that was that I +should have read his lecture in Foxden. But, luckily, I have permission +to stop the carryall on its way back, and so meet Owlsdarck before he +comes into the house. Let us keep the secret for the present, and wait +further developments." + +As others of the party had begun to look back, and to linger for us to +come up, there was no opportunity for further conference. And so we made +an effort, and talked of everything but what we were thinking of, till +we reached Dr. Dastick's house. + +I was conscious of a sweet memory, while passing along the broad, +low-roofed piazza where I first met my wife. And I marvelled that fate +had so arranged matters, that, again in the moonlight, near that very +spot, I was to have an important interview with another person with whom +my destiny had become strangely entangled. + +One sense was painfully acute while the relics and pears were being +passed about during the remainder of the evening. At any period I could +have heard the creak of the venerable carryall above the swarm of +information which buzzed about the Doctor's parlor. I responded to the +waggish raillery of the young men, talked _bones_ with their seniors, +disclaimed all originality in my lecture, thanked people for what they +said about my spirited declamation, and--through it all--listened +intently for the solemn rumble upon the Wrexford road. Time really +seemed to stop and go backward, as if in compliment to the ancient +fragments of gums, wrappages, and scarabæi that were produced for our +inspection. The carryall, I thought, must have broken down; Wrexford +had, perchance, been suddenly destroyed, like the Cities of the Plain; +the Professor had been tarred and feathered by the enraged inhabitants, +or, perhaps, had been murdered upon the road;--there was no limit to the +doleful hypotheses which suggested themselves. + +And, in fact, it was now getting late to everybody. The last pear had +vanished, and people began to look at the clock. Colonel Frowley was +audibly wondering what could have detained the Professor, and Dr. +Dastick was expressing his regret at not having the pleasure of seeing +him, when,--no,--yes, a jerking trundle was heard in the distance,--it +was not the wind this time! I seized my hat, rushed from the house, and +paused not till I had stopped the carryall with the emphasis of a +highwayman. + +"I have come to ask you to get out, Professor Owlsdarck," I exclaimed. +"Tom can drive the horse home; we're all at Dr. Dastick's, and they've +sent me to beg you to come in." + +The occupant of the vehicle, upon hearing my voice, made haste to +alight. Tom gave an expressive "Hud up," and rolled away into the +moonlight. + +"My dear Sir," said I, "no apology,--no allusion to how it happened; we +have both suffered quite enough. Only tell me what you managed to do +with my poem, and what the people of Wrexford have done to you." + +"What did I do with your poem?" echoed the Professor,--there was an +undertone of humorous satisfaction in his words that I had never before +remarked,--"why, what could I do with it but read it to my audience? +They thought it was capital, and----Well, _I_ thought so, too. And if +you want to know what the trustees did to me, you will find it in print +in a day or two. The fact is, they called a meeting, after I finished, +and unanimously elected me Principal of their Academy." + +I managed to get a few more particulars before entering the house, and +these, with other circumstances afterwards ascertained, made the +Professor's adventure to unravel itself thus: Owlsdarck had discovered +the change of manuscript about five minutes before he was expected to +speak. The audience had assembled, and (in view of the respect which +should appertain to the office for which he was an aspirant) he saw the +humiliation of disappointing the academic flock by a confession of his +absurd position. He glanced at the first page of my verses, and, seeing +that they commenced in a grave and solemn strain, determined to run for +luck, and make the best of them. Accordingly he began by saying, that, +instead of the usual literary address, he should read a new American +poem, which he trusted would prove popular and to the purpose. It turned +out to be very much to the purpose. The dismal Professor Owlsdarck. +giving utterance to the Yankee quips and waggery which I had provided, +took his audience by storm with amazement and delight. For the truth +was, as Strype had intimated in the morning, a formidable opposition had +arrayed itself against the Professor, which (while acknowledging the +claims of his profound learning) contended that he lacked sympathy with +the merry hearts of youth, a fatal defect in the character of a teacher. +Of course the entertainment of the evening filled all such cavillers +with shame and confusion. There was nothing to do but to own their +mistake, and to support the many-sided Owlsdarck with all enthusiasm. +Hence his unanimous election, and hence my infinite relief upon +reëntering the Doctor's house. + +We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our +unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor +Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in +Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, +and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick's parlor, conscious of a +plethoric satisfaction strange to experience. + +I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the +"Regulator" appeared the next morning with a bitter _critique_ of my +performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of +license allowed to opposition editors upon election-day. But to +ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as "a flimsy and buffooning +poem,"--there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of +impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, +to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no +parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of +its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing +party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to +conciliate. + +And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent +Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a +good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me +to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in +the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess +undoubted evidence. + +"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man. in school," exclaimed a chubby +little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from +Wrexford to pass the summer vacation,--"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff +man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear +him laugh and carry on with the boys!" + +A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon +"The Whims of New England," and made the tour of the river-towns, and +several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting +overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum-engagements +at home compelled him to decline. + +I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden +bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my +topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to +maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first attempt. I don't mind +mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the +people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my +readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring +Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open +to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive _Lecture: Subject, +The Obsequies of Cheops_. + + + + +MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN. + + +A chapter on mountains will not be an inappropriate introduction to that +part of the world's history on which we are now entering, when the great +inequalities of the earth's surface began to make their appearance; and +before giving any special account of the geological succession in +Europe, I will say something of the formation of mountains in general, +and of the men whose investigations first gave us the clue to the +intricacies of their structure. It has been the work of the nineteenth +century to decipher the history of the mountains, to smooth out these +wrinkles in the crust of the earth, to show that there was a time when +they did not exist, to decide at least comparatively upon their age, and +to detect the forces which have produced them. + +But while I speak of the reconstructive labors of the geologist with so +much confidence, because to my mind they reveal an intelligible +coherence in the whole physical history of the world, yet I am well +aware that there are many and wide gaps in our knowledge to be filled +up. All the attempts to represent the appearance of the earth in past +periods by means of geological maps are, of course, but approximations +of the truth, and will compare with those of future times, when the +phenomena are better understood, much as our present geographical maps, +the result of repeated surveys and of the most accurate measurements, +compare with those of the ancients. + +Homer's world was a flat expanse, surrounded by ocean, of which Greece +was the centre. Asia Minor, the Ægean Islands, Egypt, part of Italy and +Sicily, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea filled out and completed his +map. + +Hecatæus, the Greek historian and geographer, who lived more than five +hundred years before Christ, had not enlarged it much. He was, to be +sure, a voyager on the Mediterranean, and had an idea of the extent of +Italy. Acquaintance with Phoenician merchants also had enlarged his +knowledge of the world; Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain were known to him; +he was familiar with the Black and Red Seas; and though an indentation +on his map in the neighborhood of the Caspian would seem to indicate +that he was aware of the existence of this sea also, it is not otherwise +marked. + +Herodotus makes a considerable advance beyond his predecessors: the +Caspian Sea has a place on his map; Asia is sketched out, including the +Persian Gulf with the large rivers pouring into it; and the course of +the Ganges is traced, though he makes it flow east and empty into the +Pacific, instead of turning southward and emptying into the Indian +Ocean. + +Eratosthenes, two centuries before Christ, is the first geographer who +makes some attempt to determine the trend of the land and water, +presenting a suggestion that the earth is broader in one direction than +in the other. In his map, he adds also the geographical results derived +from the expeditions of Alexander the Great. + +Ptolemy, who flourished in Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian, is the +next geographer of eminence, and he shows us something of Africa; for, +in his time, the Phoenicians, in their commercial expeditions, had +sailed far to the south, had reached the termination of Africa, with +ocean lying all around it, and had seen the sun to the north of them. +This last assertion, however, Ptolemy does not credit, and he is as +skeptical of the open ocean surrounding the extremity of Africa as +modern geographers and explorers have been of the existence of Kane's +open Arctic Sea. He believes that what the Phoenician traders took to +be the broad ocean must be part of an inland sea, corresponding to the +Mediterranean, with which he was so familiar. His map includes also +England, Ireland, and Scotland; and his Ultima Thule is, no doubt, the +Hebrides of our days. + +Our present notions of the past periods of the world's history probably +bear about the same relation to the truth that these ancient +geographical maps bear to the modern ones. But this should not +discourage us, for, after all, those maps were in the main true as far +as they went; and as the ancient geographers were laying the foundation +for all our modern knowledge of the present conformation of the globe, +so are the geologists of the nineteenth century preparing the ground for +future investigators, whose work will be as far in advance of theirs as +are the delineations of Carl Ritter, the great master of physical +geography in our age, in advance of the map drawn by the old Alexandrian +geographer. We shall have our geological explorers and discoverers in +the lands and seas of past times, as we have had in the present,--our +Columbuses, our Captain Cooks, our Livingstones in geology, as we have +had in geography. There are undiscovered continents and rivers and +inland seas in the past world to exercise the ingenuity, courage, and +perseverance of men, after they shall have solved all the problems, +sounded all the depths, and scaled all the heights of the present +surface of the earth. + +What has been done thus far is chiefly to classify the inequalities of +the earth's surface, and to detect the different causes which have +produced them. Foldings of the earth's crust, low hills, extensive +plains, mountain-chains and narrow valleys, broad table-lands and wide +valleys, local chimneys or volcanoes, river-beds, lake-basins, inland +seas,--such are some of the phenomena which, disconnected as they seem +at first glance, have nevertheless been brought under certain +principles, and explained according to definite physical laws. + +Formerly, men looked upon the earth as a unit in time, as the result of +one creative act, with all its outlines established from the beginning. +It has been the work of modern science to show that its inequalities are +not contemporaneous or simultaneous, but successive, including a law of +growth,--that heat and cold, and the consequent expansion and +contraction of its crust, have produced wrinkles and folds upon the +surface, while constant oscillations, changes of level which are even +now going on, have modified its conformation, and moulded its general +outline through successive ages. + +In thinking of the formation of the globe, we must at once free +ourselves from the erroneous impression that the crust of the earth is a +solid, steadfast foundation. So far from being immovable, it has been +constantly heaving and falling; and if we are not impressed by its +oscillations, it is because they are not so regular or so evident to our +senses as the rise and fall of the sea. The disturbances of the ocean, +and the periodical advance and retreat of its tides, are known to our +daily experience; we have seen it tossed into great billows by storms, +or placid as a lake when undisturbed. But the crust of the earth also +has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as +nothing,--which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, +and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions +that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll up for +twenty thousand feet, and be petrified at its greatest height: the +mountains are but the gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land +by the geological tempests of past times. Besides these sudden storms of +the earth's surface, there have been its gradual upheavals and +depressions, going on now as steadily as ever, and which may be compared +to the regular action of the tides. These, also, have had their share in +determining the outlines of the continents, the height of the lands, and +the depth of the seas. + +Leaving aside the more general phenomena, let us look now at the +formation of mountains especially. I have stated in a previous article +that the relative position of the stratified and unstratified rocks +gives us the key to their comparative age. To explain this I must enter +into some details respecting the arrangement of stratified deposits on +mountain-slopes and in mountain-chains, taking merely theoretical cases, +however, to illustrate phenomena which we shall meet with repeatedly in +actual facts, when studying special geological formations. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +We have, for instance, in Figure 1, a central granite mountain, with a +succession of stratified beds sloping against its sides, while at its +base are deposited a number of horizontal beds which have evidently +never been disturbed from the position in which they were originally +accumulated. The reader will at once perceive the method by which the +geologist decides upon the age of such a mountain. He finds the strata +upon its slopes in regular superposition, the uppermost belonging, we +will suppose, to the Triassic period; at its base he finds undisturbed +horizontal deposits, also in regular superposition, belonging to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Therefore, he argues, this mountain +must have been uplifted after the Triassic and all preceding deposits +were formed, since it has broken its way through them, and forced them +out of their natural position; and it must have been previous to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, since they have been accumulated +peacefully at its base, and have undergone no such perturbations. + +The task of the geologist would be an easy one, if all the problems he +has to deal with were as simple as the case I have presented here; but +the most cursory glance at the intricacies of mountain-structure will +show us how difficult it is to trace the connection between the +phenomena. We must not form an idea of ancient mountain-upheavals from +existing active volcanoes, although the causes which produced them were, +in a modified and limited sense, the same. Our present volcanic +mountains are only chimneys, or narrow tunnels, as it were, pierced in +the thickness of the earth's surface, through which the molten lava +pours out, flowing over the edges and down the sides and hardening upon +the slopes, so as to form conical elevations. The mountain-ranges +upheaved by ancient eruptions, on the contrary, are folds of the earth's +surface, produced by the cooling of a comparatively thin crust upon a +hot mass. The first effect of this cooling process would be to cause +contractions; the next, to produce corresponding protrusions,--for, +wherever such a shrinking and subsidence of the crust occurred, the +consequent pressure upon the melted materials beneath must displace them +and force them upward. While the crust continued so thin that these +results could go on without very violent dislocations,--the materials +within easily finding an outlet, if displaced, or merely lifting the +surface without breaking through it,--the effect would be moderate +elevations divided by corresponding depressions. We have seen this kind +of action, during the earlier geological epochs, in the upheaval of the +low hills in the United States, leading to the formation of the +coal-basins. + +On our return to the study of the American continent, we shall find in +the Alleghany chain, occurring at a later period, between the +Carboniferous and Triassic epochs, a good illustration of the same kind +of phenomena, though the action of the Plutonic agents was then much +more powerful, owing to the greater thickness of the crust and the +consequent increase of resistance. The folds forced upward in this chain +by the subsidence of the surface are higher than any preceding +elevations; but they are nevertheless a succession of parallel folds +divided by corresponding depressions, nor does it seem that the +displacement of the materials within the crust was so violent as to +fracture it extensively. + +Even so late as the formation of the Jura mountains, between the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the character of the upheaval is the +same, though there are more cracks at right angles with the general +trend of the chain, and here and there the masses below have broken +through. But the chain, as a whole consists of a succession of parallel +folds, forming long domes or arches, divided by longitudinal valleys. +The valleys represent the subsidences of the crust; the domes are the +corresponding protrusions resulting from these subsidences. The lines of +gentle undulation in this chain, so striking in contrast to the rugged +and abrupt character of the Alps immediately opposite, are the result of +this mode of formation. + +After the crust of the earth had grown so thick, as it was, for +instance, in the later Tertiary periods, when the Alps were uplifted, +such an eruption could take place only by means of an immense force, and +the extent of the fracture would be in proportion to the resistance +opposed. It is hardly to be doubted, from the geological evidence +already collected, that the whole mountain-range from Western Europe +through the continent of Asia, including the Alps, the Caucasus, and the +Himalayas, was raised at the same time. A convulsion that thus made a +gigantic rent across two continents, giving egress to three such +mountain-ranges, must have been accompanied by a thousand fractures and +breaks in contrary directions. Such a pressure along so extensive a +tract could not be equal everywhere; the various thicknesses of the +crust, the greater or less flexibility of the deposits, the direction of +the pressure, would give rise to an infinite variety in the results; +accordingly, instead of the long, even arches, such as characterize the +earlier upheavals of the Alleghanies and the Jura, there are violent +dislocations of the surface, cracks, rents, and fissures in all +directions, transverse to the general trend of the upheaval, as well as +parallel with it. + +Leaving aside for the moment the more baffling and intricate problems of +the later mountain-formations, I will first endeavor to explain the +simpler phenomena of the earlier upheavals. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +Suppose that the melted materials within the earth are forced up against +a mass of stratified deposits, the direction of the pressure being +perfectly vertical, as represented in Figure 2. Such a pressure, if not +too violent, would simply lift the strata out of their horizontal +position into an arch or dome, (as in Figure 3,) and if continued or +repeated in immediate sequence, it would produce a number of such domes, +like long billows following each other, such as we have in the Jura. But +though this is the prevailing character of the range, there are many +instances even here where an unequal pressure has caused a rent at right +angles with the general direction of the upheaval; and one may trace the +action of this unequal pressure, from the unbroken arch, where it has +simply lifted the surface into a dome, to the granite crest, where the +melted rock has forced its way out and crystallized between the broken +beds that rest against its slopes. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + +In other instances, the upper beds alone may have been cracked, while +the continuity of the lower ones remains unbroken. In this case we have +a longitudinal valley on the top of a mountain-range, lying between the +two sides of the broken arch (as in Figure 4). Suppose, now, that there +are also transverse cracks across such a longitudinal split, we have +then a longitudinal valley with transverse valleys opening into it. +There are many instances of this in the Alleghanies and in the Jura. +Sometimes such transverse valleys are cut straight across, so that their +openings face each other; but often the cracks have taken place at +different points on the opposite sides, so that, in travelling through +such a transverse valley, you turn to the right or left, as the case may +be, where it enters the longitudinal valley, and follow that till you +come to another transverse valley opening into it from the opposite +side, through which you make your way out, thus crossing the chain in a +zigzag course (as in Figure 5). Such valleys are often much narrower at +some points than at others. There are even places in the Jura where a +rent in the chain begins with a mere crack,--a slit but just wide enough +to admit the blade of a knife; follow it for a while, and you may find +it spreading gradually into a wider chasm, and finally expanding into a +valley perhaps half a mile wide, or even wider. + +By means of such cracks, rivers often pass through lofty +mountain-chains, and when we come to the investigation of the glacial +phenomena connected with the course of the Rhone, we shall find that +river following the longitudinal valley which separates the northern and +southern parts of the chain of the Alps till it comes to Martigny, where +it takes a sharp turn to the right through a transverse crack, flowing +northward between walls fourteen thousand feet high, till it enters the +Lake of Geneva, through which it passes, issuing at the other end, where +it takes a southern direction. For a long time mountains were supposed +to be the limitations of rivers, and old maps represent them always as +flowing along the valleys without ever passing through the +mountain-chains that divide them; but geology is fast correcting the +errors of geography, and a map which represents merely the external +features of a country, without reference to their structural relations, +is no longer of any scientific value. + +It is not, however, by rents in mountain-chains alone, or by depressions +between them, that valleys are produced; they are often due to the +unequal hardness of the beds raised, and to their greater or less +liability to be worn away and disintegrated by the action of the rains. +This inequality in the hardness of the rocks forming a mountain-range +not only adds very much to the picturesqueness of outline, but also +renders the landscape more varied through the greater or less fertility +of the soil. On the hard rocks, where little soil can gather, there are +only pines, or a low, dwarfed growth; but on the rocks of softer +materials, more easily acted upon by the rain, a richer soil gathers, +and there, in the midst of mountain-scenery, may be found the most +fertile growth, the richest pasturage, the brightest flowers. Where such +a patch of arable soil has a southern exposure on a mountain-side, we +may have a most fertile vegetation at a great height and surrounded by +the dark pine-forests. Many of the pastures on the Alps, to which from +height to height the shepherds ascend with their flocks in the +summer,--seeking the higher ones as the lower become dry and +exhausted,--are due to such alternations in the character of the rocks. + +In consequence of the influence of time, weather, atmospheric action of +all kinds, the apparent relation of beds has often become so completely +reversed that it is exceedingly difficult to trace their original +relation. Take, for instance, the following case. An eruption has +upheaved the strata over a given surface in such a manner as to lift +them into a mountain, cracking open the upper beds, but leaving the +lower ones unbroken. We have then a valley on a mountain-summit between +two crests resembling the one already shown in Figure 4. Such a narrow +passage between two crests may be changed in the course of time to a +wide expansive valley by the action of the rains, frosts, and other +disintegrating agents, and the relative position of the strata forming +its walls may seem to be entirely changed. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6.] + +Suppose, for example, that the two upper layers of the strata rent apart +by the upheaval of the mountain are limestone and sandstone, while the +third is clay and the fourth again limestone (as in Figure 6). Clay is +soft, and yields very readily to the action of rain. In such a valley +the edges of the strata forming its walls are of course exposed, and the +clay formation will be the first to give way under the action of +external influences. Gradually the rains wear away its substance till +it is completely hollowed out. By the disintegration of the bed beneath +them, the lime and sandstone layers above lose their support and crumble +down, and this process goes on, the clay constantly wearing away, and +the lime and sand above consequently falling in, till the upper beds +have receded to a great distance, the valley has opened to a wide +expanse instead of being inclosed between two walls, and the lowest +limestone bed now occupies the highest position on the mountain. Figure +7 represents one of the crests shown in Figure 6, after such a levelling +process has changed its outline. + +[Illustration: Fig. 7.] + +But the phenomena of eruptions in mountain-chains are far more difficult +to trace than the effects thus gradually produced. Plutonic action has, +indeed, played the most fantastic tricks with the crust of the earth, +which seems as plastic in the grasp of the fiery power hidden within it +as does clay in the hands of the sculptor. + +We have seen that an equal vertical pressure from below produces a +regular dome,--or that, if the dome be broken through, a granite crest +is formed, with stratified materials resting against its slopes. But the +pressure has often been oblique instead of vertical, and then the slope +of the mountain is uneven, with a gradual ascent on one side and an +abrupt wall on the other; or in some instances the pressure has been so +lateral that the mountain is overturned and lies upon its side, and +there are still other cases where one mountain has been tilted over and +has fallen upon an adjoining one. + +Sometimes, when beds have been torn asunder, one side of them has been +forced up above the other; and there are even instances where one side +of a mountain has been forced under the surface of the earth, while the +other has remained above. Stratified beds of rock are even found which +have been so completely capsized, that the layers, which were of course +deposited horizontally, now stand on end, side by side, in vertical +rows. I remember, after a lecture on some of these extravagances in +mountain-formations, a friend said to me, not inaptly,--"One can hardly +help thinking of these extraordinary contortions as a succession of +frantic frolics: the mountains seem like a troop of rollicking boys, +hunting one another in and out and up and down in a gigantic game of +hide-and-seek." + +The width of the arch of a mountain depends in a great degree on the +thickness and flexibility of the beds of which it is composed. There is +not only a great difference in the consistency of stratified material, +but every variety in the thickness of the layers, from an inch, and even +less, to those measuring from ten or twenty to one hundred feet and more +in depth, without marked separation of the successive beds. This is +accounted for by the frequent alternations of subsidence and upheaval; +the continents having tilted sometimes in one direction, sometimes in +another, so that in certain localities there has been much water and +large deposits, while elsewhere the water was shallow and the deposits +consequently less. Thin and flexible strata have been readily lifted +into a sharp, abrupt arch with narrow base, while the thick and rigid +beds have been forced up more slowly in a wider arch with broader base. + +Table-lands are only long unbroken folds of the earth's surface, raised +uniformly and in one direction. It is the same pressure from below, +which, when acting with more intense force in one direction, makes a +narrow and more abrupt fold, forming a mountain-ridge, but, when acting +over a wider surface with equal force, produces an extensive uniform +elevation. If the pressure be strong enough, it will cause cracks and +dislocations at the edges of such a gigantic fold, and then we have +table-lands between two mountain-chains, like the Gobi in Asia between +the Altai Mountains and the Himalayas, or the table-land inclosed +between the Rocky Mountains and the coast-range on the Pacific shore. + +We do not think of table-lands as mountainous elevations, because their +broad, flat surfaces remind us of the level tracts of the earth; but +some of the table-lands are nevertheless higher than many +mountain-chains, as, for instance, the Gobi, which is higher than the +Alleghanies, or the Jura, or the Scandinavian Alps. One of Humboldt's +masterly generalizations was his estimate of the average thickness of +the different continents, supposing their heights to be levelled and +their depressions filled up, and he found that upon such an estimate +Asia would be much higher than America, notwithstanding the great +mountain-chains of the latter. The extensive table-land of Asia, with +the mountains adjoining it, outweighed the Alleghanies, the Rocky +Mountains, the Coast-Chain, and the Andes. + + * * * * * + +When we compare the present state of our knowledge of geological +phenomena with that which prevailed fifty years ago, it seems difficult +to believe that so great and important a change can have been brought +about in so short a time. It was on German soil and by German students +that the foundation was laid for the modern science of systematic +geology. + +In the latter part of the eighteenth century, extensive mining +operations in Saxony gave rise to an elaborate investigation of the soil +for practical purposes. It was found that the rocks consisted of a +succession of materials following each other in regular sequence, some +of which were utterly worthless for industrial purposes, while others +were exceedingly valuable. The _Muschel-Kalk_ formation, so called from +its innumerable remains of shells, and a number of strata underlying it, +must be penetrated before the miners reached the rich veins of +_Kupferschiefer_ (copper slate), and below this came what was termed the +_Todtliegende_ (dead weight), so called because it contained no +serviceable materials for the useful arts, and had to be removed before +the valuable beds of coal lying beneath it, and making the base of the +series, could be reached. But while the workmen wrought at these +successive layers of rock to see what they would yield for practical +purposes, a man was watching their operations who considered the crust +of the earth from quite another point of view. + +Abraham Gottlob Werner was born more than a century ago in Upper +Lusatia. His very infancy seemed to shadow forth his future studies, for +his playthings were the minerals he found in his father's forge. At a +suitable age he was placed at the mining school of Freiberg in Saxony, +and having, when only twenty-four years of age, attracted attention in +the scientific world by the publication of an "Essay on the Characters +of Minerals," he was soon after appointed to the professorship of +mineralogy in Freiberg. His lot in life could not have fallen in a spot +more advantageous for his special studies, and the enthusiasm with which +he taught communicated itself to his pupils, many of whom became his +devoted disciples, disseminating his views in their turn with a zeal +which rivalled the master's ardor. + +Werner took advantage of the mining operations going on in his +neighborhood, the blasting, sinking of shafts, etc., to examine +critically the composition of the rocks thus laid open, and the result +of his analysis was the establishment of the Neptunic school of geology +alluded to in a previous article, and so influential in science at the +close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century. From +the general character of these rocks, as well as the number of marine +shells contained in them, he convinced himself that the whole series, +including the Coal, the _Todtliegende_, the _Kupferschiefer_, the +_Zechstein_, the Red Sandstone, and the _Muschel-Kalk_, had been +deposited under the agency of water, and were the work of the ocean. + +Thus far he was right, with the exception that he did not include the +local action of fresh water in depositing materials, afterwards traced +by Cuvier and Brogniart in the Tertiary deposits about Paris. But from +these data he went a step too far, and assumed that all rocks, except +the modern lavas, must have been accumulated by the sea,--believing even +the granites, porphyries, and basalts to have been deposited in the +ocean and crystallized from the substances it contained in solution. + +But, in the mean time, James Hutton, a Scotch geologist, was looking at +phenomena of a like character from a very different point of view. In +the neighborhood of Edinburgh, where he lived, was an extensive region +of trap-rock,--that is, of igneous rock, which had forced itself through +the stratified deposits, sometimes spreading in a continuous sheet over +large tracts, or splitting them open and tilling all the interstices and +cracks so formed. Thus he saw igneous rocks not only covering or +underlying stratified deposits, but penetrating deep into their +structure, forming dikes at right angles with them, and presenting, in +short, all the phenomena belonging to volcanic rocks in contact with +stratified materials. He again pushed his theory too far, and, inferring +from the phenomena immediately about him that heat had been the chief +agent in the formation of the earth's crust, he was inclined to believe +that the stratified materials also were in part at least due to this +cause. I have alluded in a former number to the hot disputes and +long-contested battles of geologists upon this point. It was a pupil of +Werner's who at last set at rest this much vexed question. + +At the age of sixteen, in the year 1790, Leopold von Buch was placed +under Werner's care at the mining school of Freiberg. Werner found him a +pupil after his own heart. Warmly adopting his teacher's theory, he +pursued his geological studies with the greatest ardor, and continued +for some time under the immediate influence and guidance of the Freiberg +professor. His university-studies over, however, he began to pursue his +investigations independently, and his geological excursions led him into +Italy, where his confidence in the truth of Werner's theory began to be +shaken. A subsequent visit to the region of extinct volcanoes in +Auvergne, in the South of France, convinced him that the aqueous theory +was at least partially wrong, and that fire had been an active agent in +the rock-formations of past times. This result did not change the +convictions of his master, Werner, who was too old or too prejudiced to +accept the later views, which were nevertheless the result of the +stimulus he himself had given to geological investigations. + +But Von Buch was indefatigable. For years he lived the life of an +itinerant geologist. With a shirt and a pair of stockings in his pocket +and a geological hammer in his hand he travelled all over Europe on +foot. The results of his foot-journey to Scandinavia were among his most +important contributions to geology. He went also to the Canary Islands; +and it is in his extensive work on the geological formations of these +islands that he showed conclusively not only the Plutonic character of +all unstratified rocks, but also that to their action upon the +stratified deposits the inequalities of the earth's surface are chiefly +due. He first demonstrated that the melted masses within the earth had +upheaved the materials deposited in layers upon its surface, and had +thus formed the mountains. + +No geologist has ever collected a larger amount of facts than Von Buch, +and to him we owe a great reform not only in geological principles, but +in methods of study also. An amusing anecdote is told of him, as +illustrating his untiring devotion to his scientific pursuits. In +studying the rocks, he had become engaged also in the investigation of +the fossils contained in them. He was at one time especially interested +in the _Terebratulæ_ (fossil shells), and one evening in Berlin, where +he was engaged in the study of these remains, he came across a notice +in a Swedish work of a particular species of that family which he could +not readily identify without seeing the original specimens. The next +morning Von Buch was missing, and as he had invited guests to dine with +him, some anxiety was felt on account of his non-appearance. On inquiry, +it was found that he was already far on his way to Sweden: he had +started by daylight on a pilgrimage after the new, or rather the old, +_Terebratula_. I tell the story as I heard it from one of the +disappointed guests. + +All great natural phenomena impressed him deeply. On one occasion it was +my good fortune to make one of a party from the "Helvetic Association +for the Advancement of Science" on an excursion to the eastern extremity +of the Lake of Geneva. I well remember the expressive gesture of Von +Buch, as he faced the deep gorge through which the Rhone issues from the +interior of the Alps. While others were chatting and laughing about him, +he stood for a moment absorbed in silent contemplation of the grandeur +of the scene, then lifted his hat and bowed reverently before the +mountains. + +Next to Von Buch, no man has done more for modern geology than Elie de +Beaumont, the great French geologist. Perhaps the most important of his +generalizations is that by which he has given us the clue to the +limitation of the different epochs in past times by connecting them with +the great revolutions in the world's history. He has shown us that the +great changes in the aspect of the globe, as well as in its successive +sets of animals, coincide with the mountain-upheavals. + +I might add a long list of names, American as well as European, which +will be forever honored in the history of science for their +contributions to geology in the last half-century. But I have intended +only to close this chapter on mountains with a few words respecting the +men who first investigated their intimate structural organization, and +established methods of study in reference to them now generally adopted +throughout the scientific world. In my next article I shall proceed to +give some account of special geological formations in Europe, and the +gradual growth of that continent. + + + + +CAMILLA'S CONCERT. + +I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between +"Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker,"--I, whose every attempt at music, +though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my +earliest childhood, been regarded as a premonitory symptom of epilepsy, +or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the +bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,--_I_, who can +but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the +olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in +the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, +pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso,--_I_ was bidden to +Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to the slaughter, I went. + +He bears a great loss and sorrow who has "no ear for music." Into one +great garden of delights he may not go. There needs no flaming sword to +bar the way, since for him there is no gate called Beautiful which he +should seek to enter. Blunted and stolid he stumps through life for whom +its harp-strings vainly quiver. Yet, on the other hand, what does he not +gain? He loses the concord of sweet sounds, but he is spared the discord +of harsh noises. For the surges of bewildering harmony and the depths +of dissonant disgust, he stands on the levels of perpetual peace. You +are distressed, because in yonder well-trained orchestra a single voice +is pitched one-sixteenth of a note too high. For me, I lean out of my +window on summer nights enraptured over the organ-man who turns poor +lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not +disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there +is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark +eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You +mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauling. I hear no +caterwauling, but the river-god of Arno ripples sort songs in the +summer-tide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the +cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,--the cantatrice +with the laurel yet green on her brow, gliding over the molten moonlit +water-ways of Venice, and dreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with +the plash of the oars of the gondolier. It is the chant of the +flower-girl with large eyes shining under the palm-branches in the +market-place of Milan; and with the distant echoing notes come the sweet +breath of her violets and the unquenchable odors of her crushed +geraniums borne on many a white sail from the glorified Adriatic. +Bronzed cheek and swart brow under my window, I shall by-and-by-throw +you a paltry nickel cent for your tropical dreams; meanwhile tell me, +did the sun of Dante's Florence give your blood its fierce flow and the +tawny hue to your bared and brawny breast? Is it the rage of Tasso's +madness that burns in your uplifted eyes? Do you take shelter from the +fervid noon under the cypresses of Monte Mario? Will you meet queenly +Marguerite with myrtle wreath and myrtle fragrance, as she wanders +through the chestnut vales? Will you sleep to-night between the +colonnades under the golden moon of Napoli? Go back, O child of the +Midland Sea! Go out from this cold shore, that yields but crabbed +harvests for your threefold vintages of Italy. Go, suck the sunshine +from Seville oranges under the elms of Posilippo. Go, watch the shadows +of the vines swaying in the mulberry-trees from Epomeo's gales. Bind the +ivy in a triple crown above Bianca's comely hair, and pipe not so +wailingly to the Vikings of this frigid Norseland. + +But Italy, remember, my frigid Norseland has a heart of fire in her +bosom beneath its overlying snows, before which yours dies like the +white sick hearth-flame before the noonday sun. Passion, but not +compassion, is here "cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." We +lure our choristers with honeyed words and gentle ways: you lay your +sweetest songsters on the gridiron. Our orchards ring with the +full-throated happiness of a thousand birds: your pomegranate groves are +silent, and your miserable cannibal kitchens would tell the reason why, +if outraged spits could speak. Go away, therefore, from my window, +Giuseppe; the air is growing damp and chilly, and I do not sleep in the +shadows of broken temples. + +Yet I love music: not as you love it, my friend, with intelligence, +discrimination, and delicacy, but in a dull, woodeny way, as the "gouty +oaks" loved it, when they felt in their fibrous frames the stir of +Amphion's lyre, and "floundered into hornpipes"; as the gray, stupid +rocks loved it, when they came rolling heavily to his feet to listen; in +a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sad +Orpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and the +thick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause of +the waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad, +yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me,--not in the +fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many an +earthy layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisite +nerves that bear to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpid +or dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But as +sometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow his +needed nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by being immersed in a +bath of wine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, +penetrates to the sources of vitality,--so I, though the natural avenues +of sweet sounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine +flow of the musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around +me. An inward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile, secret +essence of life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, +and, borne on unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs. + +So I was comforted for my waxed ears and Camilla's concert. + +There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumb +devil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may as +well mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion and +debate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure to +come off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seems to +me the most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musical +rivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now, +if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But what +is well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head and shoulders +above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authority at all +rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the town to spend +Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse of voice, +absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving many signs. +Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from the city, and +immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from her aduncate nose, and +carries all before her. Mysterious is the arrangement of the world. The +last round of the ladder is not yet reached. To Madame Morlot, Harriette +is a savage, _une bête_, without cultivation. "Oh, the dismal little +fright! a thousand years of study would be useless; go, scour the +floors; she has positively no voice." No voice, Madame Morlot? +Harriette, no voice,--who burst every ear-drum in the room last night +with her howling and hooting, and made the stoutest heart tremble with +fearful forebodings of what might come next? But Madame Morlot is not +infallible, for Herr Driesbach sits shivering at the dreadful noises +which Madame Morlot extorts from his sensitive and suffering piano, and +at the necessity which lies upon him to go and congratulate her upon her +performance. Ah! if his tortured conscience might but congratulate her +and himself upon its close! And so the scale ascends. Hills on hills and +Alps on Alps arise, and who shall mount the ultimate peak till all the +world shall say, "Here reigns the Excellence"? I listen with pleasure to +untutored Nancie till Anabella takes all the wind from her sails. I +think the force of music can no farther go than Madame Morlot, and, +behold, Herr Driesbach has knocked out her underpinning. I am +bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be _à la +mode_?" But if it is so disheartening to me, who am only a passive +listener, what must be the agonies of the _dramatis personæ_? "Hang it!" +says Charles Lamb, "how I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" +And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What +shall avenge them for their _spretæ injuria formæ_? What can repay the +hapless performer, who has performed her very best, for learning by +terrible, indisputable indirections that her cherished and boasted +Cremona is but a very second fiddle? + +So, standing on the high ground of certain immunity from criticism and +hostile judgment, I do not so much console myself as I do not stand in +need of consolation. I rather give thanks for my mute and necessarily +unoffending lips, and I shall go in great good-humor to Camilla's +concert. + +There are many different ways of going to a concert. You can be one of +a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, +an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they +condemn, they criticise with perfect _au-faitism_. (No one need say +there is no such word. I know there was not yesterday, and perhaps will +not be to-morrow; but that there is such a one to-day, you have but to +open your eyes and see.) Into such company as this, even I, whose poor +old head is always fretting itself wedged in where it has no business to +be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into +the Irishman's echo, which always returned for his "How d' ye do?" a +"Pretty well, thank you." I cling to the skirts of that member of the +party who is agreed to have the best taste and echo his responses an +octave higher. If he sighs at the end of a song, I bring out my +pocket-handkerchief. If he says "charming," I murmur "delicious." If he +thinks it "exquisite," I pronounce it "enchanting." Where he is rapt in +admiration, I go into a trance, and so shamble through the performances, +miserable impostor that I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am +a dunce, fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain +upon the mental powers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be +accomplished and what skill may be attained by long practice. + +It is not ingenuous? I am afraid not quite. The guilt rest with those +who make me incur it! You cannot even read a book with any degree of +pleasure, if you know an opinion is expected of you at the finis. You +leave the popular novel till people have forgotten to ask, "How do you +like it?" How can you enjoy anything, if you are not at liberty to give +yourself wholly to it, but must be all the while making up a speech to +deliver when it is over? Nothing is better than to be a passive +listener, but nothing is worse than to be obliged to turn yourself into +a sounding-board: and must I have both the suffering and the guilt? + +Also one may go to a concert as a conductor with a single musical +friend. By conductor I do not mean escort, but a magnetic conductor, +rapture conductor, a fit medium through which to convey away his +delight, so that he shall not become surcharged and explode. He does not +take you for your pleasure, nor for his own, but for use. He desires +some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinions and his +enthusiasms, sure of an attentive listener,--since nothing is so +pleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend that in +such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptive of +theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like to be +obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it must be +confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, strike out +into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to the grand +paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as to be +leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not suffer your +eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your _ennui_, endeavor +to preserve an animated expression, and your success is complete. This +is all that is necessary. You will never be called upon for notes or +comments. Your little escapades will never be detected. It is not your +opinions that were sought, nor your education that was to be furthered. +You were only an escape-pipe, and your mission ceased when the soul of +song fled and the gas was turned off. This, too, is all that can justly +be demanded. Minister, lecturer, singer, no one has any right to ask of +his audience anything more than opportunity,--the externals of +attention. All the rest is his own look-out. If you prepossess your mind +with a theme, you do not give him an even chance. You must offer him in +the beginning a _tabula rasa_,--a fair field,--and then it is his +business to go in and win your attention; and if he cannot, let him pay +the costs, for the fault is his own. + +This also is torture, but its name is Zoar, a little one. + +There is yet another way. You may go with one or many who believe and +practise the doctrine of _laissez-faireity_. Do not now proceed to dash +your brains out against that word. I have just done it myself, and one +such head as mine is ample sacrifice for any verbal crime. They go to +the concert for love of music,--negatively for its rest and refreshment, +positively for its embodied delights. They take you for your enjoyment, +which they permit you to compass after your own fashion. They force from +you no comment. They demand no criticism. They do not require censure as +your certificate of taste. They do not trouble themselves with your +demeanor. If you choose to talk in the pauses, they are receptive and +cordial. If you choose to be silent, it is just as well. If you go to +sleep, they will not mind,--unless, under the spell of the genius of the +place, your sleep becomes vocal, and you involuntarily join the concert +in the undesirable _rôle_ of De Trop. If you go into raptures, it is all +the same; you are not watched and made a note of. They leave you at the +top of your bent. Whether you shall be amused, delighted, or disgusted, +they respect your decisions and allow you to remain free. + +How did I go to my concert? Can I tell for the eyes that made "a +sunshine in the shady place"? Was I not veiled with the beautiful hair, +and blinded with the lily's white splendor? So went I with the Fairy +Queen in her golden coach drawn by six white mice, and, behold, I was in +Camilla's concert-room. + +It is to be a fiddle affair. Now I am free to say, if there is anything +I hate, it is a fiddle. Hide it away under as many Italian coatings as +you choose,--viol, violin, viola, violone, violoncello, +violoncellettissimo, at bottom it is all one, a fiddle; in its best +estate, a diddle, diddle, frivolous, rattling, Yankee-Doodle, +country-tavern-ball whirligig, without dignity, sentiment, or power; and +at worst a rubbing, rasping, squeaking, woolleny, noisy nuisance, that +it sets my teeth on edge to think of. I shudder at the mere memory of +the reluctant bow dragging its slow length across the whining strings. +And here I am, in my sober senses, come to hear a fiddle! + +But it is Camilla's. Do you remember--I don't, but I should, if I had +known it--a little girl who, a few years ago, became famous for her +wonderful performance on the violin? At six years of age she went to a +great concert, and of all the fine instruments there, the unseen spirit +within her made choice, "Papa, I should like to learn the violin." So +she learned it and loved it, and when ten years old delighted foreign +and American audiences with her marvellous genius. It was the little +Camilla who now, after ten years of silence, tuned her beloved +instrument once more. + +As she walks softly and quietly in, I am conscious of a disappointment. +I had unwittingly framed for her an aesthetic violin, with the essential +strings and bridge and bow indeed, but submerged and forgot in such +Orient splendors as befit her glorious genius. Barbaric pearl and gold, +finest carved work, flashing gems from Indian water-courses, the +delicatest pink sea-shell, a bubble-prism caught and crystallized,--of +all rare and curious substances wrought with dainty device, fantastic as +a dream, and resplendent as the light, should her instrument be +fashioned. Only in "something rich and strange" should the mystic soul +lie sleeping for whom her lips shall break the spell of slumber, and her +young fingers unbar the sacred gates. And, oh, me! it is, after all, the +very same old red fiddle! Dee, dee! + +But she neither glides nor trips nor treads, as heroines invariably do, +but walks in like a good Christian woman. She steps upon the stage and +faces the audience that gives her hearty greeting and waits the prelude. +There is time for cool survey. I am angry still about the red fiddle, +and I look scrutinizingly at her dress and think how ugly are hoops. The +skirt is white silk,--a brocade, I believe,--at any rate, stiff, and, +though probably full to overflowing in the hands of the seamstress, who +must compress it within prescribed limits about the waist, looks scanty +and straight, because, like all other skirts in the world at this +present writing, it is stretched over a barrel. Why could she not, she +who comes before us to-night, not as a fashion, but an inspiration,--why +could she not discard the mode, and assume that immortal classic drapery +whose graceful falls and folds the sculptor vainly tries to imitate, the +painter vainly seeks to limn? When Corinne tuned her lyre at the +Capitol, when she knelt to be crowned with her laurel crown at the hands +of a Roman senator, is it possible to conceive her swollen out with +crinoline? And yet I remember, that, though _sa robe était blanche, et +son costume était très pittoresque_, it was _sans s'écarter cependant +assez des usages reçus pour que l'on pût y trouver de l'affectation_; +and I suppose, if one should now suddenly collapse from conventional +rotundity to antique statuesqueness, the great "_on_" would very readily +"_y trouver de l'affectation_." Nevertheless, though one must dress in +Rome as Romans do, and though the Roman way of dressing is, taking all +things into the account, as good as any, and, if not more graceful, a +thousand times more convenient, wholesome, comfortable, and manageable +than Helen's, still it does seem, that, when one steps out of the +ordinary area of Roman life and assumes an abnormal position, one might, +without violence, assume temporarily an abnormal dress, and refresh our +dilated eyes once more with flowing, wavy outlines. Music is one of the +eternities: why should not its accessories be? Why should a discord +disturb the eye, when only concords delight the ear? + +But I lift my eyes from Camilla's unpliant drapery to the red red rose +in her hair, and thence, naturally, to her silent face, and in that +instant ugly dress and red red rose fade out of my sight. What is it +that I see, with tearful tenderness and a nameless pain at the heart? A +young face deepened and drawn with suffering; dark, large eyes, whose +natural laughing light has been quenched in tears, yet shining still +with a distant gleam caught from the eternal fires. O still, pathetic +face! A sterner form than Time has passed and left his vestige there. +Happy little girl, playing among the flickering shadows of the +Rhine-land, who could not foresee the darker shadows that should settle +and never lift nor flicker from her heavy heart! Large, lambent eyes, +that might have been sweet, but now are only steadfast,--that may yet be +sweet, when they look to-night into a baby's cradle, but gazing now upon +a waiting audience, are only steadfast. Ah! so it is. Life has such hard +conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rare virtue, every +pleasant facility, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, +sprightliness, benevolence, must sometimes be cast into the crucible to +distil the one elixir, patience. Large, lambent eyes, in which days and +nights of tears are petrified, steadfast eyes that are neither mournful +nor hopeful nor anxious, but with such unvoiced sadness in their depths +that the hot tears well up in my heart, what do you see in the waiting +audience? Not censure, nor pity, nor forgiveness, for you do not need +them,--but surely a warm human sympathy, since heart can speak to heart, +though the thin, fixed lips have sealed their secret well. Sad mother, +whose rose of life was crushed before it had budded, tender young lips +that had drunk the cup of sorrow to the dregs, while their cup of bliss +should hardly yet be brimmed for life's sweet spring-time, your +crumbling fanes and broken arches and prostrate columns lie not among +the ruins of Time. Be comforted of that. They bear witness of a more +pitiless Destroyer, and by this token I know there shall dawn a brighter +day. The God of the fatherless and the widow, of the worse than widowed +and fatherless, the Avenger of the Slaughter of the Innocents, be with +you, and shield and shelter and bless! + +But the overture wavers to its close, and her soul hears far off the +voice of the coming Spirit. A deeper light shines in the strangely +introverted eyes,--the look as of one listening intently to a distant +melody which no one else can hear,--the look of one to whom the room and +the people and the presence are but a dream, and past and future centre +on the far-off song. Slowly she raises her instrument. I almost shudder +to see the tawny wood touching her white shoulder; yet that cannot be +common or unclean which she so loves and carries with almost a caress. +Still intent, she raises the bow with a slow sweep, as if it were a wand +of divination. Nearer and nearer comes the heavenly voice, pouring +around her a flood of mystic melody. And now at last it breaks upon our +ears,--softly at first, only a sweet faint echo from that other sphere, +but deepening, strengthening, conquering,--now rising on the swells of a +controlling passion, now sinking into the depths with its low wail of +pain; exultant, scornful, furious, in the glad outburst of opening joy +and the fierce onslaught of strength; crowned, sceptred, glorious in +garland and singing-robes, throned in the high realms of its +inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope and ever new delights: then +sweeping down through the lower world with diminishing rapture, rapture +lessening into astonishment, astonishment dying into despair, it gathers +up the passion and the pain, the blight and woe and agony; all garnered +joys are scattered. Evil supplants the good. Hope dies, love pales, and +faith is faint and wan. But every death has its moaning ghost, pale +spectre of vanished loves. Oh, fearful revenge of the outraged soul! The +mysterious, uncomprehended, incomprehensible soul! The irrepressible, +unquenchable, immortal soul, whose every mark is everlasting! Every +secret sin committed against it cries out from the housetops. Cunning +may strive to conceal, will may determine to smother, love may fondly +whisper, "It does not hurt"; but the soul will not _be_ outraged. +Somewhere, somehow, when and where you least expect, unconscious, +perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by the many, visible only to the +clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soul bursts asunder its bonds. It +is but a little song, a tripping of the fingers over the keys, a drawing +of the bow across the strings,--only that? Only that! It is the protest +of the wronged and ignored soul. It is the outburst of the pent and +prisoned soul. All the ache and agony, all the secret wrong and silent +endurance, all the rejected love and wounded trust and slighted truth, +all the riches wasted, all the youth poisoned, all the hope trampled, +all the light darkened,--all meet and mingle in a mad whirl of waters. +They surge and lash and rage, a wild storm of harmony. Barriers are +broken. Circumstance is not. The soul! the soul! the soul! the wronged +and fettered soul! the freed and royal soul! It alone is king. Lift up +your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the +King of Glory shall come in! Tremble, O Tyrant, in your +mountain-fastness! Tremble, Deceiver, in your cavern under the sea! Your +victim is your accuser. Your sin has found you out. Your crime cries to +Heaven. You have condemned and killed the just. You have murdered the +innocent in secret places, and in the noonday sun the voice of their +blood crieth unto God from the ground. There is no speech nor language. +There is no will nor design. The seal of silence is unbroken. But +unconscious, entranced, inspired, the god has lashed his Sibyl on. The +vital instinct of the soul, its heaven-born, up-springing life, flings +back the silver veil, and reveals the hidden things to him who hath eyes +to see. + +The storm sobs and soothes itself to silence. There is a hush, and then +an enthusiasm of delight. The small head slightly bows, the still face +scarcely smiles, the slight form disappears,--and after all, it was only +a fiddle. + +"When Music, heavenly maid, was young," begins the ode; but Music, +heavenly maid, seems to me still so young, so very young, as scarcely to +have made her power felt. Her language is as yet unlearned. When a baby +of a month is hungry or in pain, he contrives to make the fact +understood. If he is at peace with himself and his surroundings, he +leaves no doubt on the subject. To precisely this degree of +intelligibility has the Heavenly Maid attained among us. When Beethoven +sat down to the composition of one of his grand harmonies, there was +undoubtedly in his mind as distinct a conception of that which he wished +to express, of that within him which clamored for expression, as ever +rises before a painter's eye or sings in a poet's brain. Thought, +emotion, passion, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, each had its life and law. +The painter paints you this. This the poet sings you. You stand before a +picture, and to your loving, searching gaze its truths unfold. You read +the poem with the understanding, and catch its concealed meanings. But +what do you know of what was in Beethoven's soul? Who grasps his +conception? Who faithfully renders, who even thoroughly knows his idea? +Here and there to some patient night-watcher the lofty gates are +unbarred, "on golden hinges turning." But, for the greater part, the +musician who would tell so much speaks to unheeding ears. We comprehend +him but infinitesimally. It is the Battle of Prague. Adrianus sits down +to the piano, and Dion stands by his side, music-sheet in hand, acting +as showman. "The Cannon," says Dion, at the proper place, and you +imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge," continues Dion, and with +a violent effort you fancy the ground trembles. "Groans of the wounded," +and you are partly horror-struck and partly incredulous. But what lame +representation is this! As if one should tie a paper around the ankle of +the Belvedere Apollo, with the inscription, "This is the ankle." A +collar declares, "This is the neck." A bandeau locates his "forehead." A +bracelet indicates the "arm." Is the sculpture thus significant? Hardly +more does our music yet signify to us. You hear an unfamiliar air. You +like it or dislike it, or are indifferent. You can tell that it is slow +and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it is defiant +or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shades of its +meaning! How hidden is the song in the heart of the composer till he +gives you the key! You hear as though you heard not. You hear the +thunder, and the cataract, and the crash of the avalanche; but the song +of the nightingale, the chirp of the katydid, the murmur of the +waterfall never reach you. This cannot be the ultimatum. Music must hold +in its own bosom its own interpretation, and man must have in his its +corresponding susceptibilities. Music is language, and language implies +a people who employ and understand it. But music, even by its professor, +is as yet faintly understood. Its meanings go on crutches. They must be +helped out by words. What does this piece say to you? Interpret it. You +cannot. You must be taught much before you can know all. It must be +translated from music into speech before you can entirely assimilate it. +Musicians do not trust alone to notes for moods. Their light shines only +through a glass darkly. But in some other sphere, in some happier time, +in a world where gross wants shall have disappeared, and therefore the +grossness of words shall be no longer necessary, where hunger and thirst +and cold and care and passion have no more admittance, and only love and +faith and hope and admiration and aspiration shall crave utterance, in +that blessed unseen world, shall not music be the every-day speech, +conveying meaning not only with a sweetness, but with an accuracy, +delicacy, and distinctness, of which we have now but a faint conception? +Here words are not only rough, but ambiguous. There harmonies shall be +minutely intelligible. Speak with what directness we can, be as +explanatory, repetitious, illustrative as we may, there are mistakes, +misunderstandings, many and grievous, and consequent missteps, +calamities, and catastrophes. But in that other world language shall be +exactly coexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate +to meaning. There shall be no hidden corners, no bungling +incompatibilities, but the searching sound penetrates into the secret +sources of the soul, all-pervading. Not a nook, not a crevice, no maze +so intricate, but the sound floats in to gather up the fragrant aroma, +to bear it yonder to another waiting soul, and deposit it as deftly by +unerring magnetisms in the corresponding clefts. + +Toot away, then, fifer-fellow! Turn your slow crank, inexorable Italian! +Thrum your thrums, Miss Laura, for Signor Bernadotti! You are a long way +off, but your foot-prints point the right way. With many a yawn and sigh +subjective, with, I greatly fear me, many a malediction objective, you +are "learning the language of another world." To us, huddled together in +our little ant-hill, one is "_une bête_," and one is "_mon ange_"; but +from that fixed star we are all so far as to have no parallax. + +But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one has +raised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates of +the sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunny France, +in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow and sighing have +fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comes sweeping by"; but +young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheep lie on the slopes +of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from his mountain-peak. +Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and every gentle height blooms +with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dance through the fruitful +orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfs wound in with their +bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trilling the lays of their +land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mount higher and yet +higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here the freshening air sweeps +down, and the low gurgle of living water purling out from cool, dark +chasms mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here the young shepherd +himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, lithe, supple, strong, brave, +and free as the soul of his race,--the same iron in his sinews, and the +same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout" to Charlemagne a +thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path of Roncesvalles blow the +evening gales, wafting tender messages to the listening girls below. +Green grows the grass and gay the flowers that spring from the blood of +princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. No bugle-blast can bring old +Roland back, though it wind long and loud through the echoing woods. +Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiant stems, may sit on happy +evenings in the shadow of the vines, or group themselves on the +greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing their songs of battle +and victory,--the olden legends of their heroic sires; but the strain +that floats down from the darkening slopes into their heart of hearts, +the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, and throbs in their +throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, is not the shock of +deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweet old song,--old, yet +ever new,--whose burden is, + + "Come live with me and be my love,"-- + +old, yet always new,--sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whether +it be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears it +from princely lips in her palace on the sea. + +But the mountain shadows stretch down the valleys and wrap the meadows +in twilight. Farther and farther the notes recede as the flutesman +gathers his quiet flock along the winding paths. Smooth and far in the +tranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silvery +sweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening-air, lessening and +lowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain just cleaves, +a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the +dewy twilight, and--you hear only your own heart-beats. It is not dead, +but risen. It never ceased. It knew no pause. It has gone up the heights +to mingle with the songs of the angels. You rouse yourself with a start, +and gaze at your neighbor half bewildered. What is it? Where are we? +Oh, my remorseful heart! There is no shepherd, no mountain, no girl with +scarlet ribbon and black braids bound on her beautiful temples. It was +only a fiddle on a platform! + +Now you need not tell me that. I know better. I have lived among fiddles +all my life,--embryotic, Silurian fiddles, splintered from cornstalks, +that blessed me in the golden afternoons of green summers waving in the +sunshine of long ago,--sympathetic fiddles that did me yeomen's service +once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret and broke my head, and the +frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me +lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that +nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, and so _sinciput_ and +_occiput_ were left overnight to compose their own quarrels, whereby I +was naturally all right before the doctor had a chance at me, suffering +only the slight disadvantage of going broken-headed through life. What I +might have been with a whole skull, I don't know; but I will say, that, +even in fragments, my head is the best part of me. + +Yes, I think I may dare affirm that whatever there is to know about a +fiddle I know, and I can give my affidavit that it is no fiddle that +takes you up on its broad wings, outstripping the "wondrous horse of +brass," which required + + "the space of a day natural, + This is to sayn, four and twenty houres, + Wher so you list, in drought or elles showres, + To beren your body into every place + To which your herte willeth for to pace, + Withouten wemme of you, thurgh foule or faire,"-- + +since it bears you, "withouten" even so much as your "herte's" will, in +a moment's time, over the seas and above the stars. + +A fiddle, is it? Do not for one moment believe it.--A poet walked +through Southern woods, and the Dryads opened their hearts to him. They +unfolded the secrets that dwell in the depths of forests. They sang to +him under the starlight the songs of their green, rustling land. They +whispered the loves of the trees sentient to poets:-- + + "The sayling pine; the cedar, proud and tall; + The vine-propt elme; the poplar, never dry; + The builder oake, sole king of forrests all; + The aspine, good for staves; the cypresse funerall; + The lawrell, meed of mightie conquerours + And poets sage; the firre, that weepeth stille; + The willow, worne of forlorne paramours; + The eugh, obedient to the benders will; + The birch, for shaftes; the sallow, for the mill; + The mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wounde; + The warlike beech; the ash, for nothing ill; + The fruitful olive; and the platane round; + The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound." + +They sang to him with their lutes. They danced before him with sunny, +subtile grace, wreathing him with strange loveliness. They brought him +honey and wine in the white cups of lilies, till his brain was drunk +with delight; and they kept watch by his moss pillow, while he slept. + +In the dew of the morning, he arose and felled the kindly tree that had +sheltered him, not knowing it was the home of Arborine, fairest of the +wood-nymphs. But he did it not for cruelty, but tenderness, to carve a +memorial of his most memorable night, and so pulled down no thunders on +his head. For Arborine loved him, and, like her sister Undine in the +North, found her soul in loving him. Unseen, the beautiful nymph guided +his hand as he fashioned the sounding viol, not knowing he was +fashioning a palace for a soul new-born. He wrought skilfully, strung +the intense chords, and smote them with the sympathetic bow. What burst +of music flooded the still air! What new song trembled among the +mermaiden tresses of the oaks! What new presence quivered in every +listening harebell and every fearful wind-flower? The forest felt a +change, for tricksy nymph had proved a mortal love, and put off her +fairy phantasms for the deep consciousness of humanity. The wood heard, +bewildered. A shudder as of sorrow thrilled through it. A breeze that +was almost sad swept down the shady aisles as the Poet passed out into +the sunshine and the world. + +But Nature knows no pain, though Arborines appear never more. A balm +springs up in every wound. Over the hills, and far away beyond their +utmost purple rim, and deep into the dying day the happy love-born one +followed her love, happy to exchange her sylvan immortality for the +spasm of mortal life,--happy, in her human self-abnegation, to lie close +on his heart and whisper close in his ear, though he knew only the +loving voice and never the loving lips. Through the world they passed, +the Poet and his mystic viol. It gathered to itself the melodies that +fluttered over sea and land,--songs of the mountains, and songs of the +valleys,--murmurs of love, and the trumpet-tones of war,--bugle-blast of +huntsman on the track of the chamois, and mother's lullaby to the baby +at her breast. All that earth had of sweetness the nymph drew into her +viol-home, and poured it forth anew in strains of more than mortal +harmony. The fire and fervor of human hearts, the quiet ripple of inland +waters, the anthem of the stormy sea, the voices of the flowers and the +birds lent their melody to the song of her who knew them all. + +The Poet died. Died, too, sweet Arborine, swooning away in the fierce +grasp of this stranger Sorrow, to enter by the black gate of death into +the full presence and recognition of him by loving whom she had learned +to be. + +The viol passed into strange hands and wandered down the centuries, but +its olden echoes linger still. Fragrance of Southern woods, coolness of +shaded waters, inspiration of mountain-breezes, all the secret forces of +Nature that the wood-nymph knew, and the joy, the passion, and the pain +that throb only in a woman's heart, lie still, silent under the silent +strings, but wakening into life at the touch of a royal hand. + +Do you not believe my story? But I have seen the viol and the royal +hand! + + + + +SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. + + + The poplar drops beside the way + Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray; + The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impatient for the laggard May. + + The honeysuckles lace the wall; + The hyacinths grow fair and tall; + And mellow sun and pleasant wind and odorous bees are over all. + + Down-looking in this snow-white bud, + How distant seems the war's red flood! + How far remote the streaming wounds, the sickening scent of human blood! + + For Nature does not recognize + This strife that rends the earth and skies; + No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes. + + She holds her even way the same, + Though navies sink or cities flame; + A snow-drop is a snow-drop still, despite the nation's joy or shame. + + When blood her grassy altar wets, + She sends the pitying violets + To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it with soft regrets. + + O crocuses with rain-wet eyes, + O tender-lipped anemones, + What do ye know of agony and death and blood-won victories? + + No shudder breaks your sunshine-trance, + Though near you rolls, with slow advance, + Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the anguish-laden ambulance. + + Yonder a white encampment hums; + The clash of martial music comes; + And now your startled stems are all a-tremble with the jar of drums. + + Whether it lessen or increase, + Or whether trumpets shout or cease, + Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy bees are murmuring, "Peace!" + + O flowers! the soul that faints or grieves + New comfort from your lips receives; + Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in your healing leaves. + + Help us to trust, still on and on, + That this dark night will soon be gone, + And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red trouble of the dawn,-- + + Dawn of a broader, whiter day + Than ever blessed us with its ray,-- + A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and wrong shall fade away. + + Then shall our nation break its bands, + And, silencing the envious lands, + Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spotless robe, and clean, white + hands. + + + + +THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.[25] + +[Concluding Chapter.] + + +The subject which I hoped to present intelligibly in three or four +articles has continually threatened to step out of the columns of a +magazine and the patience of its readers. The material which is at hand +for the service of the great points of the story, such as the Commercial +Difficulty, the Mulatto Question, the State of Colonial Parties, the +Effect of the French Revolution, the Imbroglio of Races, the Character +of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Present Condition of Hayti, and a +Bibliography of the whole subject, is now detached for perhaps a more +deliberate publication; and two or three points of immediate interest, +such as the French Cruelties, Emancipation and the Slave Insurrection, +and the Negroes as Soldiers, are grouped together for the purpose of +this closing article. + + +PLANTATION CRUELTIES. + +The social condition of the slaves cannot be fully understood without +some reference to the revolting facts connected with plantation +management. It is well to know what base and ingenious cruelties could +be tolerated by public opinion, and endured by the slaves without +exciting continual insurrections. Wonder at this sustained patience of +the blacks passes into rage and indignation long before the student of +this epoch reaches the eventual outbreaks of 1791: it seems as if a just +instinct of manhood should have more promptly doomed these houses of +iniquity, and handed them over to a midnight vengeance. And there +results a kind of disappointment from the discovery, that, when the +blacks finally began to burn and slaughter, they were not impelled by +the desire of liberty or the recollection of great crimes, but were +blind agents of a complicated situation. It is only in the remote +historical sense that Slavery provoked Insurrection. The first great +night of horror in San Domingo rose from circumstances that were not +explicitly chargeable to the absence of freedom or to the outrages of +the slaveholder. But if these things had not fuelled the lighted torches +and whetted the blades when grasped, it would have been strange and +monstrous indeed. Stranger still would it have been, if the flames of +that first night had not kindled in the nobler breasts among that +unchained multitude a determination never to endure plantation ferocity +again. The legitimate cause for rebelling then took the helm and guided +the rest of the story into dignity. + +The frequency of enfranchisement might mislead us into expecting that +the colonial system of slavery was tempered with humanity. It was rather +like that monarchy which the wit described as being "tempered by +assassination." The mulatto was by no means a proof that mercy and +justice regulated the plantation life. His enfranchisement reacted +cruelly upon the negro. It seemed as if the recognition of one domestic +sentiment hurt the master's feelings; the damage to his organization +broke out against the lower race in anger. The connections between black +and white offered no protection to the former, nor amelioration of her +lot. Indeed, the overseer, who desired always to be on good terms with +the agent or the proprietor of a plantation, was more severe towards the +unhappy object of his passion than to the other women, for fear of +incurring reproach or suspicion. When he became the owner of slaves, his +emancipating humor was no guaranty that they would receive a salutary +and benignant treatment. + +When a Frenchman undertakes to be cruel, he acts with great _esprit_. +There is spectacular ingenuity in the atrocities which he invents, and +even his ungovernable bursts of rage instinctively aim a _coup de +théâtre_ at his victim. The negro is sometimes bloodthirsty, and when he +is excited he will quaff at the opened vein; but he never saves up a man +for deliberate enjoyment of his sufferings. When the wild orgy becomes +sated, and the cause of it has been once liquidated, there is no further +danger from this disposition. But a French colonist, whether smiling or +sombre, was always disposed to be tormenting. The ownership of slaves +unmasked this tendency of a race which at home, in the streets of Paris +and the court-yard of the Abbaye and La Force, proved its ferocity and +simple thirst for blood. The story of the Princess Lamballe's death and +disfiguration shows the broad Gallic fancy which the sight of blood can +pique into action. But the every-day life of many plantations surpassed, +in minuteness and striking refinement of tormenting, all that the +_sans-culotte_ ever dared or the savage ever dreamed. + +Let a few cases be found sufficient to enlighten the reader upon this +point. They are specimens from a list of horrors which eye-witnesses, +inhabitants of the island, have preserved; and many of them, being found +in more than one authority, French as well as colored, are to be +regarded as current and unquestionable facts. + +The ordinary brutalities of slaveholding were rendered more acute by +this Creole temper. Whippings were carried to the point of death, for +the slave-vessel was always at the wharf to furnish short lives upon +long credit; starving was a common cure for obstinacy, brine and +red-pepper were liberally sprinkled upon quivering backs. Economy was +never a virtue of this profuse island. Lives were _sauce piquante_ to +luxury. + +The incarceration of slaves who had marooned, stolen vegetables, or +refused to work, had some features novel to the Bastille and the +Inquisition. A man would be let down into a stone case or cylinder just +large enough to receive his body: potted in this way, he remained till +the overseer considered that he had improved. Sometimes he was left too +long, and was found spoiled; for this mode of punishment soon ended a +man, because he could not move a limb or change his attitude. Dungeons +were constructed with iron rings so disposed along the wall that a man +was held in a sitting posture with nothing to sit upon but sharpened +stick: he was soon obliged to try it, and so oscillated between the two +tortures. Other cells were furnished with cases, of the size of a man, +that could be hermetically sealed: these were for suffocation. The +floors of some were kept submerged with a foot or two of water: the +negroes who came out of them were frequently crippled for life by the +dampness and cold. Iron cages, collars, and iron masks, clogs, fetters, +and thumb-screws were found upon numerous plantations, among the ruins +of the dungeons. + +The _quatre piquet_ was a favorite style of flogging. Each limb of the +victim was stretched to the stake of a frame which was capable of more +or less distention; around the middle went an iron circle which +prevented every motion. In this position he received his modicum of +lashes, every muscle swollen and distended, till the blood dripped from +the machine. After he was untied, the overseer dressed the wounds, +according to fancy, with pickled pimento, pepper, hot coals, boiling oil +or lard, sealing-wax, or gunpowder. Sometimes hot irons stanched the +flow of blood. + +M. Frossard[26] is authority for the story of a planter who administered +a hundred lashes to a negro who had broken a hoe-handle, then strewing +gunpowder in the furrows of the flesh, amused himself with setting the +trains on fire. + +M. de Crévecoeur put a negro who had killed an inhuman overseer into +an iron cage, so confined that the birds could have free access to him. +They fed daily upon the unfortunate man; his eyes were carried off, his +jaws laid bare, his arms torn to pieces, clouds of insects covered the +lacerated body and regaled upon his blood. + +Another planter, attests M. Frossard, after having lived several years +with a negress, deserted her for another, and wished to force her to +become the slave of her rival. Not being able to endure this +humiliation, she besought him to sell her. But the irritated Frenchman, +after inflicting various preparatory punishments, buried her alive, with +her head above ground, which he kept wet with _eau sucrée_ till the +insects had destroyed her. + +How piteous is the reflection that the slaves made a point of honor of +preserving their backs free from scars,--so that the lash inflicted a +double wound at every stroke! + +There was a planter who kept an iron box pierced with holes, into which +the slaves were put for trivial offences, and moved towards a hot fire, +till the torment threatened to destroy life. He considered this +punishment preferable to whipping, because it did not suspend the +slave's labors for so long a time. + +"What rascally sugar!" said Caradeux to his foreman; "the next time you +turn out the like, I will have you buried alive;--you know me." The +occasion came soon after, and the black was thrown into a dungeon. +Caradeux, says Malenfant, did not really wish to lose his black, yet +wished to preserve his character for severity. He invited a dozen ladies +to dinner, and during the repast informed them that he meant to execute +his foreman, and they should see the thing done. This was not an unusual +sight for ladies to witness: the Roman women never were more eager for +the agonies of the Coliseum. But on this occasion they demurred, and +asked pardon for the black. "Very well," said Caradeux; "remain at +table, and when you see me take out my handkerchief; run and solicit his +life." After the dessert, Caradeux repaired to the court, where the +negro had been obliged to dig his own grave and to get into it, which he +did with singing. The earth was thrown around him till the head only +appeared. Caradeux pulls out his handkerchief; the ladies run, throw +themselves at his feet; after much feigned reluctance, he exclaims,-- + +"I pardon you at the solicitation of these ladies." + +The negro answered,-- + +"You will not be Caradeux, if you pardon me." + +"What do you say?" cried the master, in a rage. + +"If you do not kill me, I swear by my god-mother that I will kill you." + +At this, Caradeux seized a huge stone, and hurled it at his head, and +the other blacks hastened to put an end to his suffering. + +Burning the negro alive was an occasional occurrence. Burying him alive +was more frequent. A favorite pastime was to bury him up to his neck, +and let the boys bowl at his head. Sometimes the head was covered with +molasses, and left to the insects. Pitying comrades were found to stone +the sufferer to death. One or two instances were known of planters who +rolled the bodies of slaves, raw and bloody from a whipping, among the +ant-hills. If a cattle-tender let a mule or ox come to harm, the animal +was sometimes killed and the man sewed up in the carcass. This was done +a few times in cases where the mule died of some epizoötic malady. + +Hamstringing negroes had always been practised against marooning, theft, +and other petty offences: an overseer seldom failed to bring down his +negro with a well-aimed hatchet. _Coupe-jarret_ was a phrase applied +during the revolutionary intrigues to those who were hampering a +movement which appeared to advance. + +Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who +lived at Grande-Riviére, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the +ears, then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed +the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was +one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his +pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor +struck him. + +Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are +upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with +the _bagasse_ or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' +heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them +slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an +occasional pastime. + +If a woman was fortunate enough to lose her babe, she was often thrown +into a cell till she chose to have another. Madame Bailly had a wooden +child made, which she fastened around the necks of her negresses, if +their children died, until they chose to replace them. These punishments +were devised to check infanticide, which was the natural relief of the +slave-mother. + +Venault de Charmilly, a planter of distinction, afterwards the +accomplished agent of the emigrant-interest at the court of St. James, +used to carry pincers in his pocket, to tear the ears or tongues of his +unfortunate slaves, if they did not hear him call, or if their replies +were unsatisfactory. He pulled teeth with the same instrument. This man +threw his postilion to the horses, literally tying him in their stall +till he was beaten by their hoofs to shreds. He was an able advocate of +slavery, and did much to poison the English mind, and to create a party +with the object of annexing San Domingo and restoring the colonial +system. + +Cocherel, a planter of Gonaïves, had a slave who played upon the violin. +After terrible floggings, he would compel this man to play, as a +punishment for having danced without music. He found it piquant to watch +the contest of pain and sorrow with the native love of melody. The cases +where French planters watched curiously the characteristics of their +various expedients for torture are so common that they furnish us with a +trait of French Creolism. A poor cook, for instance, was one day thrown +into an oven with a crackling heap of _bagasse_, because some article of +food reached the table underdone. As the lips curled and shrivelled away +from the teeth, his master, who was observing the effects of heat, +exclaimed,--"The rascal laughs!" + +But the most symbolical action, expressive of the colony's whole life, +was performed by one Corbierre, who punished his slaves by +blood-letting, and gave a humorous refinement to the sugar which he +manufactured by using this blood to assist in clarifying it. + +Let these instances suffice. The pen will not penetrate into the sorrows +which befell the slave concubine and mother. The form of woman was never +so mutilated and dishonored, the decencies of fetichism and savageism +were never so outraged, as by these slaveholding idolaters of the Virgin +and the Mother of God. + +The special cruelties, together with the names of the perpetrators, +which have been remembered and recorded, would form an appalling +catalogue for the largest slaveholding community in the world. But this +recorded cruelty, justly representative of similar acts which never came +to the ears of men, was committed by only forty thousand whites of both +sexes and all ages upon an area little larger than the State of Maine. +There was agony enough racking the bosoms of that half-million of slaves +to sate a hemisphere of slaveholding tyrants. But the public opinion of +the little coterie of villains was never startled. It is literally true +that not a single person was ever condemned to the penalties of the +_Code Noir_ for the commission of one of the crimes above mentioned. One +would think that the close recurrence, in time and space, of these acts +of crime would have beaten through even this Creole temperament into +some soft spot that belonged to the mother-country of God, if not of +France. Occasionally a tender heart went back to Paris to record its +sense of the necessity of some amelioration of these colonial +ferocities; but the words of humanity were still spoken in the interest +of slavery. It was for the sake of economy, and to secure a natural +local increase of the slave population, that these vague reports of +cruelty were suggested to the government. The planting interest procured +the suppression of one of the mildest and most judicious of the books +thus written, and had the author cast into prison. When the crack of the +planter's lash sounded in the purlieus of the Tuileries itself, humanity +had to wait till the Revolution had cleared out the Palace, the Church, +and the Courts, before its clear protest could reverberate against the +system of the colony. Then Grégoire, Lameth, Condorcet, Brissot, +Lafayette, and others, assailed the planting interest, and uttered the +bold generalization that either the colonies or the crimes must be +abandoned; for the restraining provisions of the _Code Noir_ were too +feeble for the sugar exigency, and had long ago become obsolete. There +was no police except for slaves, no inspectors of cultivation above the +agents and the overseers. He was considered a _bon blanc_, and a person +of benignity, whose slaves were seldom whipped to death. There could be +neither opinion nor economy to check these things, when "_La côte +d'Afrique est une bonne mère_" was the planter's daily consolation at +the loss of an expensive negro. + +Such slavery could not be improved; it might be abolished by law or +drowned in blood. There is a crowd of pamphlets that have come down to +us shrieking with the ineptitude of this period. It was popular to +accuse the society of the _Amis des Noirs_ of having ruined the colony +by inspiring among the slaves a vague restlessness which blossomed into +a desire for vengeance and liberty. But it is a sad fact that neither of +those great impulses was stirring in those black forms, monoliths of +scars and slave-brands. Not till their eyes had grown red at the sight +of blood shed at other suggestions, and their ears had devoured the +crackling of the canes and country-seats of their masters, did the +guiding spirit of Liberty emerge from the havoc, and respond with +Toussaint to the call of French humanity, by fighting for the Republic +and the Rights of Man. Suicide was the only insurrection that ever +seemed to the slave to promise liberty; for during the space of a +hundred years nothing more formidable than the two risings of Padre Jean +and Makandal had thrilled the consciences of the planters. If the latter +had preserved the unity of sentiment that belonged to the atrocious +unity of their interest, and had waived their pride for their safety, +they might have proclaimed decrees of emancipation with every morning's +peal of the plantation-bell, and the negroes would have replied every +morning, "_Vous maître_." + +There is but one other folly to match the accusation that the sentiment +of French Abolitionism excited the slaves to rise: that is, the +sentiment that a slave ought not to be excited to rise against such +"Horrors of San Domingo" as we have just recorded. The men who are +guilty of that sentimentality, while they smugly enjoy personal immunity +and the dear delights of home, deserve to be sold to a Caradeux or a +Legree. Let them be stretched upon the _quatre-piquet_ of a great people +in a war-humor, whose fathers once rose against the enemies that would +have bled only their purses, and hamstrung only their material growth. + +In the two decades between 1840 and 1860 the American Union was seldom +saved by a Northern statesman without the help of San Domingo. People in +cities, with a balance at the bank, stocks floating in the market, +little children going to primary schools, a well-filled wood-shed, and a +house that is not fire-proof, shudder when they hear that a great moral +principle has devastated properties and sent peaceful homes up in the +smoke of arson. Certainly the Union shall be preserved; at all events, +the wood-shed must be. Nothing shall be the midnight assassin of the +country until slavery itself is ready for the job. So the Northern +merchant kept his gold at par through dread of anti-slavery, and saved +the Union just long enough to pay seventy-five per cent, for the luxury +of the "Horrors." Did it ever once occur to him that his eminent +Northern statesman was pretending something that the South itself knew +to be false and never hypocritically urged against the anti-slavery men? +Southern men of intelligence had the best of reasons for understanding +the phenomena of San Domingo, and while the "Friends of the Black" were +dripping with innocent French blood in Northern speeches, the embryo +Secessionists at Nashville and Savannah strengthened their convictions +with the proper rendering of the same history. Take, as a specimen of +their tranquil frame of mind, the following view, which was intended to +correct a vague popular dread that in all probability was inspired by +Northern statesmen. It is from a wonderfully calm and judicious speech +delivered before the Nashville Convention, a dozen years ago, by General +Felix Huston of Mississippi. + + "This insurrection [of San Domingo] having occurred so near + to us, and being within the recollection of many persons + living, who heard the exaggerated accounts of the day, has + fastened itself on the public imagination, until it has + become a subject of frequent reference, and even Southern + twaddlers declaim about the Southern States being reduced to + the condition of St. Domingo, and Abolitionists triumphantly + point to it as a case where the negro race have asserted and + maintained their freedom. + + "Properly speaking, this was not a slave insurrection, + although it assumed that form after the island was thrown + into a revolutionary state. + + "The island of St. Domingo, in 1791, contained about seven + hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, about fifty thousand + of whom were whites, more than double that number of + mulattoes and of mixed blood, and the balance were negroes. + + "The French and Spanish planters had introduced a general + system of concubinage, and the consequence was a numerous + progeny of mulattoes, many of whom associated with the + whites nearly on terms of equality, were educated at home or + sent to Europe to be educated, and many of them were + wealthy, having been freed by their parents and their + property left to them. These things had lowered, the + character of the white proprietors, gradually bringing them + down to the level of the mulattoes, and lessening the + distance between them and the blacks; and in addition to + this, there were a number of the white population who were + poor and enervated, and rendered vicious by the low state of + social morals and influence of the climate. + + "In this state of affairs, when the French Revolution broke + out, the wild spirit of liberty caught to the island and + infected the mulattoes and the lower class of white + population, and they sought to equalize themselves with the + large proprietors. The foundations of society were broken up + by this intermediate class, and in the course of the + struggle they called in the blacks, and the two united, + exceeding the whites in the proportion of twelve to one, + expelled them from the island. Since that time a continual + struggle has been going on between the mulattoes and the + negroes, the latter having numbers and brute force, and the + former sustaining themselves by superior intelligence. + + "There never has been a formidable slave insurrection, + considered purely as such; and a comparison of our situation + with slavery as it has existed elsewhere ought to relieve + the minds of the most timid from any apprehension of danger + from our negroes, under any circumstances, in peace or war." + +This generally truthful statement, which needs but little modification, +shows that San Domingo was helping to destroy the Union at the South +while it was trying to save it at the North. The words of the +Secessionist were prophetic, and Slavery will continue to be the great +unimpaired war power of Southern institutions, till some color-bearer, +white or black, in the name of law and order, shakes the stars of +America over her inland fields. + + +AUGUST 22, 1791. + +When the French vessels, bringing news of the developing Revolution, +touched the wharves of Cap Français, a spark seemed to leap forth into +the colony, to run through all ranks and classes of men, setting the +Creole hearts afire, till it fell dead against the _gros peau_ and the +_peau fin_[27] of the black man. Three colonial parties vibrated with +expectations that were radically discordant when the cannon of the +people thundered against the Bastille. First in rank and assumption were +the old planters and proprietors, two-thirds of whom were at the time +absentees in France. They were, excepting a small minority, devoted +royalists, but desired colonial independence in order to enjoy a perfect +slaveholding authority. They were embittered by commercial restrictions, +and longed to be set free from the mother-country, that San Domingo +might be erected into a feudal kingdom with a court and gradation of +nobility, whose parchments, indeed, would have been black and engrossed +all over with despotism. They wanted the freedom of the seas and all the +ports of the world, not from a generous motive, nor from a policy that +looked beyond the single object of nourishing slavery at the cheapest +rates, to carry its products to the best markets in exchange for flour, +cloths, salted provisions, and all the necessaries of a plantation. The +revolutionary spirit of Prance was hailed by them, because it seemed to +give an opportunity to establish a government without a custom of Paris, +to check enfranchisements and crush out the dangerous familiarity of the +mulatto, to block with sugar-hogsheads the formidable movements in +France and England against the slave-trade. These men sometimes spoke as +republicans from their desire to act as despots; they succeeded in +getting their delegates admitted to seats in the National Assembly to +mix their intrigues with the current of events. Their "_Club Massiac_" +in Paris, so named from the proprietor at whose residence its meetings +were held, was composed of wealthy, adroit, and unscrupulous men, who +often showed what a subtle style of diplomacy a single interest will +create. It must be hard for bugs of a cosmopolitan mind to circumvent +the _formica leo_, whose sole object in lying still at the bottom of its +slippery tunnel is to catch its daily meal. + +If this great party of slave-owners had preserved unity upon all the +questions which the Revolution excited, their descendants might to-day +be the most troublesome enemies of our blockade. But history will not +admit an If. The unity which is natural to the slaveholding American was +impossible in San Domingo, owing to the existence of the mulattoes and +the little whites. + +A few intelligent proprietors had foreseen, many years previous to the +Revolution, that the continuance of their privileges depended upon the +good-will of the mulattoes and the restriction of enfranchisement. The +class of mixed blood was becoming large and formidable: of mulattoes and +free negroes there were nearly forty thousand. They were nominally free, +and had all the rights of property. A number of them were wealthy owners +of slaves. But they still bore upon their brows the shadow cast by +servitude, from which many of the mixed blood had not yet emerged. The +whites of all classes despised these men who reminded them of the color +and condition of their mothers. If a mulatto struck or insulted a white +man, he was subjected to severe penalties; no offices were open to him, +no doors of society, no career except that of trade or agriculture. This +was not well endured by a class which had inherited the fire and vanity +of their French fathers, with intellectual qualities that caught +passion and mobility from the drops of negro blood. Great numbers of +them had been carefully educated in France, whither they sent their own +children, if they could afford it, to catch the port and habits of free +citizens. They were very proud, high-strung, and restless, sombre in the +presence of contempt, lowering with some expectation. Frequent attempts +had been made by them to extend the area of their rights, but they met +with nothing but arrogant repulse. The guilty problem of the island was +not destined to be relieved or modified by common sense. The planters +should have lifted this social and political ostracism from the mulatto, +who loved to make money and to own slaves, and whose passion for livid +mistresses was as great as any Frenchman's. They were the natural allies +of the proprietors, and should have been erected into an intermediate +class, bound to the whites by intelligence and selfish interest, and +drawn upon the mother's side to soften the condition of the slave. This +policy was often pressed by French writers, and discussed with every +essential detail; but the descendants of the buccaneers were bent upon +playing out the island's tragedy. + +The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery +disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a +splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause, +one of their number, Vincent Ogé, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's, +and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in +emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the +miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it +occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it +constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in +consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These +distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in +their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly, +to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate +amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition +in fifteen years."[28] + +There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations, +but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe +of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar +of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims +were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of +the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of +these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the +subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to +become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among +them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of +color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Ogé exclaimed, "If +we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that +thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our +former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there +was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of +their grievances could subdue,--and that, if the planters should +persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire +would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be +extinguished."--This was the position of the Mulatto party. + +The third class, of Little Whites, comprised the mechanics and artisans +of every description, but also included all whites whose number of +slaves did not exceed twenty-four. This party likewise hailed the +Revolution, because it hated the pride and privileges of the great +proprietors. But it also hated the mulattoes so much that the obvious +policy of making common cause with them never seemed to be suggested to +it. Among the Little Whites were a goodly number of debtors, who hoped +by separation from the mother-country to cancel the burdens incurred for +slaves and plantation-necessaries; but the majority did not favor +colonial independence. Thus the name of Liberty was invoked by hostile +cliques for selfish objects, and the whole colony trembled with the +passion of its own elements. Beneath it all lay stretched the huge +Enceladus, unconscious of the power which by a single movement might +have forestalled eruption by ruin. But he gave no sign. + +Several mulattoes had been already hung for various acts of sympathy +with their class, when Ogé appeared upon the scene at the head of a +handful of armed slaves and mulattoes, and attacked the National Guard +of Cap Français. He was routed, after bravely fighting with partial +success, fled into the Spanish quarter, whence he was reclaimed in the +name of the king, and surrendered by the governor. Thirteen of his +followers were condemned to the galleys, twenty-two were hung, and Ogé +with his friend Chavannes was broken upon the wheel. A distinction of +color was made at the moment of their death: the scaffold upon which +they suffered was not allowed to be erected upon the same spot devoted +to the execution of whites. + +Now the National Guard in all the chief towns was divided into adherents +of the mother-country and sympathizers with colonial independence. In a +bloody street-fight which took place at Port-au-Prince, the latter were +defeated. Then both factions sought to gain a momentary preponderance by +allying themselves with the mulattoes: the latter joined the +metropolitan party, which in this moment of extremity still thought of +color, and served out to the volunteers _yellow pom-pons_, instead of +the white ones which distinguished themselves. The mulattoes instantly +broke up their ranks, and preserved neutrality. + +It would be tedious to relate the disturbances, popular executions, and +ferocious acts which took place in every quarter of the island. Murder +was inaugurated by the colonists themselves: the provincial faction +avenged their previous defeat, and were temporarily masters of the +colony. On the 15th of May, 1791, the National Assembly had passed a +decree, admitting, by a precise designation, all enfranchised of all +colors who were born of free parents to the right of suffrage. When this +reached the island, the whites were violently agitated, and many +outrages were committed against the people of color. The decree was +formally rejected, the mulattoes again flew to arms, and began to put +themselves into a condition to demand the rights which had been solemnly +conceded to them. In that decree not a word is said of the slaves: the +_Amis des Noirs_, and the debates of the National Assembly, stretched +out no hand towards that inarticulate and suffering mass. The colonists +themselves had been for months shaking a scarlet rag, as if they +deliberately meant to excite the first blind plunge of the brute from +its harness. + +The mulattoes now brought their slaves into headquarters at +Croix-des-Bouquets, and armed them. The whites followed this example, +and began to drill a body of slaves in Port-au-Prince. Amid this +passionate preoccupation of all minds, the ordinary discipline of the +plantations was relaxed, the labor languished, the negroes were ill-fed +and began to escape to the _mornes_, the subtle earth-currents carried +vague disquiet into the most solitary quarters. Then the negroes began +to assemble at midnight to subject themselves to the frenzy of their +priestesses, and to conduct the serpent-orgies. But it is not likely +that the extensive revolt in the Plaine du Cap would have taken place, +if an English negro, called Buckman, had not appeared upon the scene, to +give a direction to all these restless hearts, and to pour his own clear +indignation into them. No one can satisfactorily explain where he came +from. One writer will prove to you that he was an emissary of the +planting interest in Jamaica, which was willing to set the fatal example +of insurrection for the sake of destroying a rival colony. Another pen +is equally fertile with assurances that he was bought with the gold of +Pitt to be a political instrument of perfidious Albion. It is shown to +be more probable that he was the agent of the Spanish governor, whose +object was to effect a diversion in the interest of royalism. According +to another statement, he belonged to the Cudjoe band of Jamaica maroons, +which had forced a declaration of its independence from the governor of +that island. Buckman was acquainted with Creole French, and was in full +sympathy with the superstitious rites of his countrymen in San Domingo. +Putting aside the conjectures of the times, one thing is certain beyond +a doubt, that he was born of the moment, and sprang from the festering +history which white neglect and criminality had spread, as naturally as +the poisoned sting flutters from the swamps of summer. And he filled the +night of vengeance, which was accorded to him by laws that cannot be +repealed without making the whole life of the planet one sustained +expression of the wrath of God. + +A furious storm raged during the night of August 22: the blackness was +rent by the lightning that is known only to the hurricane-regions of the +earth. The negroes gathered upon the Morne Rouge, sacrificed a black +heifer with frantic dances which the elements seemed to electrify, +thunder emphasized the declaration of the priestess that the entrails +were satisfactory, and the quarters were thrown into a huge brazier to +be burned. At that moment a bird fell from the overhanging branch of a +tree directly into the cooking spell, and terrible shouts of +encouragement hailed the omen. Is it an old Pelasgic or a Thracian +forest grown mænadic over some forgotten vengeance of the early days? It +is the unalterable human nature, masked in the deeper colors of more +fervid skies, gathering a mighty breath into its lacerated bosom for a +rending of outrage and a lion's leap in the dark against its foe. + +"Listen!" cried Buckman. "The good God conceals himself in a cloud, He +mutters in the tempest. By the whites He commands crime, by us He +commands benefits. But God, who is good, ordains for us vengeance. Tear +down the figure of the white man's God which brings the tears to your +eyes. Hear! It is Liberty! It speaks to the hearts of us all." + +The morning broke clear, but the tempest had dropped from the skies to +earth. The costly habitations, whose cornerstones were dungeons, in +whose courts the gay guests of the planter used to season their dessert +with the punishments he had saved up for them, were carried off by +exulting flames. The great fields of cane, which pumped the earth's sap +and the negro's blood up for the slaveholder's caldron, went crackling +away with the houses which they furnished. Rich garments, dainty +upholstery, and the last fashions of Paris went parading on the negroes' +backs, and hid the marks of the floggings which earned them. The dead +women and children lay in the thickets where they had vainly implored +mercy. There are long careers of guiltiness whose devilish nature +becomes apparent only when innocence suffers with it. Then the cry of a +babe upon a negro's pike is the voice of God's judgment against a +century. + +Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from +the roofs of Cap Français broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and +murdered all they could find,--the paralytic old man in his bed, the +daughters in the same room, the men in the street,--murdered and +ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion +and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action +of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of +caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety +sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the +weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through +which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive +which heart was black and which was white. + +If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a +lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people, let them find +it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to +the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God +perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or +not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools +and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the +text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us +to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white +man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if +God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and +waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His +choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the +black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God. +In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the +story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream. + + +NEGRO SOLDIERS.[29] + +The native tribes of Africa differ as much in combative propensity and +ability for warlike enterprises as in their other traits. The people of +Wadai are distinguished for bravery above all their neighbors. The men +of Ashantee are great fighters, and have such a contempt for death that +they will continue their attacks upon a European intrenchment in spite +of appalling losses. A band that is overpowered will fight to the last +man; for it is the custom of the kingdom to punish cowardice with death. +They are almost the only negroes who will deliver battle in the open +field, in regular bodies with closed ranks. In Dahomey war is a passion +of the ruler and the people, and the year is divided between fighting +and feasting. The king's body-guard of five thousand unmarried women +preserves the tradition of bravery, as European regiments preserve their +flags. The mild Mandingos become obstinate in fight; they have minstrels +who accompany armies to war, and recite the deeds of former heroes; but +they are not capable of discipline. On the contrary, the negroes of +Fernando Po march and exercise with a great regard to order. In Ashantee +and upon the Gold Coast the negroes make use of horn signals in war to +transmit orders to a distance; and on the White Nile and in Kaffa +drummers are stationed in trees to telegraph commands. Great +circumspection is not universal; but the Veis maintain posts, and when +they are threatened, a watch is kept night and day. The negroes of Akkra +know the value of a ditched intrenchment. + +The English praise the negro soldiers whom they have in Sierra Leone for +good behavior, temperance, and discipline; and their Jolofs at the +Gambia execute complicated manoeuvres in a striking way. West-Indian +troops have performed many distinguished services, and English officers +say that they are as brave as Europeans; but in the heat of a fight they +are apt to grow intractable and to behave wildly. The troops which +Napoleon used in Calabria, drawn from the French Colonies, emulated the +French soldiers, and arrived at great distinction. + +D'Escayrac says that the native negro has eminent qualities for the +making of a good soldier,--dependence upon a superior, unquestioning +confidence in his sagacity, an enthusiastic courage which mounts to +great audacity, passiveness, and capacity for waiting. + +From this the Congos must be excepted. Large numbers of them deserted +General Dessalines in San Domingo, and fled to the mountains, frightened +at the daring of the French. Here, if brave, they might have been armed +and officered by Spaniards to effect dangerous movements in his rear. +But he knew their timidity, and gave himself no trouble about them. +There is a genealogy which derives Toussaint from a Congo grandfather, a +native prince of renown; but it was probably manufactured for him at the +suggestion of his own achievements. The sullen-looking Congo is really +gay, rollicking, disposed to idleness, careless and sensual, fatigued by +the smallest act of reflection; Toussaint was grave, reticent, +forecasting, tenacious, secretive, full of endurance and concentration, +rapid and brave in war.[30] What a confident and noble aspect he had, +when he left his guard and walked alone to the head of a column of old +troops of his who had deserted to Desfourneaux, and were about to +deliver their fire! "My children, will you fire upon your father?"--and +down went four regiments upon their knees. The white officers tried to +bring them under the fire of cannon, but it was too late. Here was a +greater risk than Napoleon ran, after landing at Fréjus, on his march +upon Paris. + +Contempt for death is a universal trait of the native African.[31] The +slaveholder says it is in consequence of his affinity to the brute, +which does not know how to estimate a danger, and whose nervous +organization is too dull to be thrilled and daunted in its presence. It +is really in consequence of his single-mindedness: the big necks lift +the blood, which is two degrees warmer than a white man's, and drench +the brain with an ecstasy of daring. If he can clearly see the probable +manner of his death, the blood is up and not down at the sight.[32] The +negro's nerves are very susceptible; in cool blood he is easily alarmed +at anything unexpected or threatening. His fancy is peopled with odd +fears; he shrinks at the prospect of a punishment more grotesque or +refined than usual. And when he becomes a Creole negro, his fancy is +always shooting timid glances beneath the yoke of Slavery. The negroes +and mulattoes at San Domingo looked impassively at hanging, breaking +upon the wheel, and quartering; but when the first guillotine was +imported and set in action, they and the Creole whites shrank appalled +to see the head disappear in the basket. It was too deft and sudden for +their taste, and this mode of execution was abandoned for the more +hearty and lacerating methods. + +When a negro has a motive, his nerves grow firm, his imagination escapes +before the rising passion, his contempt for death is not stolidity, but +inspiration. In the smouldering surface lies an ember capable of white +heat. That makes the negro soldier difficult to hold in hand or to call +off. He has no fancy for grim sitting, like the Indian, to die by +inches, though he can endure torture with tranquillity. He is too +tropical for that; and after the exultation of a fight, in which he has +been as savage as he can be, the process of torturing his foes seems +tame, and he seldom does it, except by way of close reprisals to prevent +the practice in his enemy. The French were invariably more cruel than +the negroes. + +Southern gentlemen think that the negro is incurably afraid of +fire-arms, and too clumsy to use them with effect. It is a great +mistake. White men who never touched a gun are equally clumsy and +nervous. When the slavers began to furnish the native tribes with +condemned muskets in exchange for slaves, many ludicrous scenes +occurred. The Senegambians considered that the object was to get as much +noise as possible out of the weapon. The people of Akkra planted the +stock against their hips, shut both eyes and fired; they would not take +aim, because it was their opinion that it brought certain death to see a +falling enemy. Other tribes thought a musket was possessed, and at the +moment of firing threw it violently away from them. When we consider the +quality of the weapons furnished, this action will appear laudable. But +as these superstitions disappeared, especially upon the Gold Coast and +in Ashantee, negroes have learned to use the musket properly. Among the +Gold-Coast negroes are good smiths, who have sometimes even made guns. +In the West Indies, the Creole negro has become a sharp-shooter, very +formidable on the skirts of woods and in the defiles of the _mornes_. He +learned to deliver volleys with precision, and to use the bayonet with +great valor. The old soldiers of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, veterans of +the Rhine and Italy, were never known to presume upon negro incapacity +to use a musket. The number of their dead and wounded taught them what +men who are determined to be free can do with the white man's weapons. + +Rainsford, who was an English captain of a West-Indian regiment, +describes a review of fifty thousand soldiers of Toussaint on the Plaine +du Cap. "Of the grandeur of the scene I had not the smallest conception. +Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual +exercise with a degree of expertness seldom witnessed, and performed +equally well several manoeuvres applicable to their method of +fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, +then, separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their +backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire the whole of the time, till +they were recalled; they then formed again, in an instant, into their +wonted regularity. This single manoeuvre was executed with such +facility and precision as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them +in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such +promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have +astonished any European soldier." + +These were the men whose previous lives had been spent at the +hoe-handle, and in feeding canes to the cylinders of the sugar-mill. + +Rainsford gives this general view of the operations of Toussaint's +forces:--"Though formed into regular divisions, the soldiers of the one +were trained to the duties of the other, and all understood the +management of artillery with the greatest accuracy. Their chief +dexterity, however, was in the use of the bayonet. With that dreadful +weapon fixed on muskets of extraordinary length in their hands, neither +cavalry nor artillery could subdue infantry, although of unequal +proportion; but when they were attacked in their defiles, no power could +overcome them. Infinitely more skillful than the Maroons of Jamaica in +their cock-pits, though not more favored by Nature, they found means to +place whole lines in ambush, continuing sometimes from one post to +another, and sometimes stretching from their camps in the form of a +horse-shoe. With these lines artillery was not used, to prevent their +being burdened or the chance of loss; but the surrounding heights of +every camp were well fortified, according to the experience and judgment +of different European engineers, with ordnance of the best kind, in +proper directions. The protection afforded by these outworks encouraged +the blacks to every exertion of skill or courage; while the alertness +constantly displayed embarrassed the enemy; who, frequently irritated, +or worn out with fatigue, flew in disorder to the attack, or retreated +with difficulty. Sometimes a regular battle or skirmish ensued, to +seduce the enemy to a confidence in their own superiority, when in a +moment reinforcements arose from an ambush in the vicinity, and turned +the fortune of the day. If black troops in the pay of the enemy were +despatched to reconnoitre when an ambush was probable, and were +discovered, not a man returned, from the hatred which their perfidy had +inspired; nor could an officer venture beyond the lines with impunity." + +The temporary successes enjoyed by the French General Le Clerc, which +led to the surrender of Toussaint and his subsequent deportation to +France, were owing to the defection of several black officers in command +of important posts, who delivered up all their troops and munitions to +the enemy. The whole of Toussaint's first line, protecting the +Artibonite and the mountains, was thus unexpectedly forced by the +French, who plied the blacks with suave proclamations, depreciating the +idea of a return to slavery. Money and promises of personal promotion +were also freely used. The negro is vain and very fond of pomp. This is +his weakest point. The Creole negro loved to make great expenditures, +and to imitate the lavish style of the slaveholders. So did many of the +mulattoes. Toussaint's officers were not all black, and the men of color +proved accessible to French cajolery. + +Take a single case to show how this change of sentiment was produced +without bribery. When the French expedition under Le Clere arrived, the +mulatto General Maurepas commanded at Port-de-Paix. He had not yet +learned whether Toussaint intended to rely upon the proclamation of +Bonaparte and to deliver up the military posts. General Humbert was sent +against him with a strong column, and demanded the surrender of the +fort. Said Maurapas,--"I am under the orders of Toussaint, who is my +chief; I cannot deliver the forts to you without his orders. Wait till I +receive his instructions; it will be only a matter of four-and-twenty +hours." Humbert, who knew that Toussaint was in full revolt, +replied,--"I have orders to attack." + +"Very well. I cannot surrender without an order from General Toussaint. +If you attack me, I shall be obliged to defend myself." + +"I also have my orders; I am forced to obey them." + +Maurepas retired, and took his station alone upon a rampart of the +works. Humbert's troops, numbering four thousand, opened fire. Maurepas +remains awhile in the storm of bullets to reconnoitre, then coolly +descends and opens his own fire. He had but seven hundred blacks and +sixty whites. The French attacked four times and were four times +repulsed, with the loss of fifteen hundred men. Humbert was obliged to +retreat, before the reinforcement which had been despatched under +General Debelle could reach him. Maurepas's orders were not to attack, +but to defend. So he instantly hastened to another post, which +intercepted the route by which General Debelle was coming, met him, and +fought him there, repulsed him, and took seven cannon. + +This was not an encouraging commencement for these children of the +French Revolution, who had beaten Suwarrow in Switzerland and blasted +the Mameluke cavalry with rolling fire, who had debouched from the St. +Bernard upon the plains of Piedmont in time to gather Austrian flags at +Marengo, and who added the name of Hohenlinden to the glory of Moreau. +Humbert himself, at the head of four thousand grenadiers, had restored +the day which preceded the surrender of the Russians at Zürich. + +Le Clerc was obliged to say that the First Consul never had the +intention of restoring slavery. Humbert himself carried this +proclamation to Maurepas, and with it gained admittance to the +intrenchments which he could not storm. This single defection placed +four thousand admirable troops, and the harbor of Port-de-Paix, in the +hands of the French, and exposed Toussaint's flank at Gonaïves; and its +moral effect was so great upon the blacks as to encourage Le Clerc to +persist in his enterprise. + +In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of +Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with +the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen +demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand +infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the +military department was in perfect order. There was an État-Major, +consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of +guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,--ten brigadier-generals +with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,--and a board of +health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six +surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also +thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 +francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; +officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and +private was 55 centimes per day. + +In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred +whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in +the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of +the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan. + +The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the +obstinate defence of Crête-à-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black +troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by +the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and +strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important +river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the +interior through the _mornes_, which are not many miles from the sea, +passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal +defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the +river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The +Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand +men accustomed to that kind of food. + +When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he +transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to +concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, +and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple +breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen +feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence +which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks +forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the +surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a +most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended to harass the +investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the +south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between +the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the +north,--a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French +columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many +different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The +first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn +up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one +or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The +French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged +with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. +Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the +French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. +General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were +stretched upon the field. + +The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that +opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had +to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced +and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "_En avant! Canons à +nous_," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the +supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the +redoubt was entered by the French. + +Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the +columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. +Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to +enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the +rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. +Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was +already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, +threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums +beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to +bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the +columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty +men, and two or three hundred to the latter. + +Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots +with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness. + +It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be +invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with +all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a +column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a +quarteroon named Lamartinière. + +While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of +the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their +lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The +soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which +carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" +they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the +soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments of _la +politique_?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and +adorers of Moreau had become _de trop_ in the Old World, and had been +sent to leave their bones in the defiles of _Pensez-y-bien_.[33] + +The investment of Crête-à-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an +engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were +established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got +into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little +redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the +fort of Bard, which held in check these very officers and men upon +their road to Marengo. + +Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, +and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten +feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the +Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three +hundred men, and gained nothing. + +"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there +were hardly twelve hundred men,[34] had already cost us more than +fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we +should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained +cannonade." + +The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. +Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, +was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The +enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the +tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into +the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his +who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes +the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a +grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes +simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The +soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then +comes the cry, "_Gare à la bombe!_" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden +balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers +come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the +excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted +effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers +make their wills with _sang froid_, as if expecting a tranquil +administration of their estates. + +During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, +and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the +blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the +French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their +fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt +with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great +that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. +Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the +ditch, and escapes under a volley. + +The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises +Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from +the north, while Lamartinière issues from the redoubt. During +Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of +Rochambeau's division. + +General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the +commandant of Crête-à-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a +remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more +than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his +garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of +Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a +magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great +calibre." + +Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, +attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Français, ravaged +the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep +open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if +fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the +harbor. + +After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of +the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into +the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he +kept the best troops of France besieged. "_Ah! ce gaillard_," the +French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the +blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, +after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven +thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803. + +One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an +intrenchment, called Verdière, occupied by the French, upon a hill +overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with +three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, +"horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: +the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of +the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a +fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand +deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with +anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A +ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, +he runs to the head of the troops. '_En avant! En avant!_' he repeats, +with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from +his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the +assault. '_En avant! En avant!_' + +"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: '_Bravo! +bravo! vivat! vivat!_' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching +the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdière pauses, an +officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised +blacks, and saluting, says,--'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the +French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just +covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he +turned his horse, reëntered the city, and the assault is renewed. +Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the +besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines +sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned +horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as +a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had +been killed." + +The valor and fighting qualities of the blacks in San Domingo were +nourished by the wars which sprang from their own necessities. They were +the native growths of the soil which had been long enriched by their +innocent blood; more blood must be invested in it, if they would own it. +Learning to fight was equivalent to learning to live. Their cause was +neither represented nor championed by a single power on earth, and +nothing but the hope of making enormous profits out of their despair led +Anglo-American schooners to run English and French blockades, to land +arms and powder in the little coves of the island. Will the negro fight +as well, if the motive and the exigency are inferior? + +We make a present to the Southern negro of an excellent chance for +fighting, with our compliments. Some of us do it with our curses. The +war does not spring for them out of enthusiasm and despair which seize +their hearts at once, as they view a degradation from which they flee +and a liberty to which they are all hurrying. They are asked to fight +for us as well as for themselves, and this asking is, like emancipation, +a military necessity. The motive lacks the perfect form and +incandescence, like that of a star leaping from a molten sun, which +lighted battle-ardors in the poor slaves of San Domingo. And we even +hedge about this invitation to bleed for us with conditions which are +evidently dictated by a suspicion that the motive is not great enough to +make the negro depend upon himself. If the war does not entirely sweep +away these poor beginnings and thrust white and black together into the +arms of thrilling danger, we need not expect great fighting from him. He +may not disgrace himself, but he will not ennoble the republic till his +heart's core is the war's core, and the colors of two races run into +one. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this magazine. + +[26] _La Cause des Esclaves Nègres et des Habitans de la Guinée, portée +au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la Politique_: I. 335; II. +66. + +[27] _Gros peau_, thick skin, was the French equivalent to _Bozal_: +_peau fin_ was the Creole negro. + +[28] Clarkson's _History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade_, Vol. II. +p. 134. + +[29] _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. Zweiter +Theil: die Negervölker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very full, +minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the +manners and habits of native Africans. + +_Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique._ +Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally +very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier. + +_Le Système Colonial dévoilé._ Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible +account of the plantation cruelties. + +_Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti._ Par l'Adjutant-Général +Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from +Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a +mulatto. + +_Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire +Historique et Politique._ Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la +Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man. + +_L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise._ Pamphlet. The vindication of +Sonthonax for declaring emancipation. + +_Colonies Étrangères et Haïti._ Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, +but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto. + +_Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue._ Paris, 1795. Journalistic, +with the coloring of the day. + +_Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches +faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau._ Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, +Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself. + +_Voyages d'un Naturaliste._ 3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but +filled with curious information. + +_Expédition à St. Domingue._ Par A. Metral. Useful. + +_The Empire of Hayti._ By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian +Regiment. Occasionally valuable. + +[30] The independent Congos in the interior are more active and +courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have +been subjected by the Portuguese. + +[31] When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, upon the +advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine with a +lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he remained all +night; but when the English came later than was expected, his match had +burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or devotion to one? + +[32] Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French artillery +service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince held the +whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named +Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed +upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were +bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead +comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. +This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks +lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force +into the city. + +[33] _Think twice before you try me_: the name of a _morne_ of +extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the +French columns. + +[34] Negro authorities say 750. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Sunshine in Thought._ By CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, Author of + "Meister Karl's Sketch-Book," and Translator of "Heine's + Pictures of Travel." New York: Charles T. Evans. 16mo. + +We do not exactly know how to characterize this jubilant volume. The +author, not content to denounce generally the poets of sentimentality +and the prophets of despair, has evidently a science of Joy latent in +his mind, of which his rich, discursive, and somewhat rollicking +sentences give but an imperfect exposition. He is in search of an ideal +law of Cheerfulness, which neither history nor literature fully +illustrates, but which he still seeks with an undoubting faith. Every +transient glimpse of his law he eagerly seizes, whether indicated in +events or in persons. And it must be admitted that he is not ignorant +either of the great annalists or the great writers of the world. He +knows Herodotus as well as he knows Hume, Thucydides as intimately as +Gibbon. Xenophon and Plutarch are as familiar to him as Michelet, +Thiers, and Guizot. He has studied Aristænetus and Lucian as closely as +Horace Walpole and Thackeray,--is as ready to quote from Plato as from +Rabelais,--and throws the results of his wide study, with an occasional +riotous disregard of prim literary proprieties, into a fierce defiance +of everything which makes against his favorite theory, that there is +nothing in pure theology, sound ethics, and healthy literature, nothing +in the historic records of human life, which can justify the discontent +of the sentimentalist or the scorn of the misanthrope. + +Engaged thus in an almost Quixotic assault on the palpable miseries of +human existence,--miseries which are as much acknowledged by Homer as by +Euripides, by Ariosto as by Dante, by Shakspeare as by Milton, by Goethe +as by Lamartine,--he has a difficult work to perform. Still he does not +bate a jot of heart and hope. He discriminates, with the art of a true +critic, between objective representations of human life and subjective +protests against human limitations, errors, miseries, and sins. As far +as either representation embodies the human principle of Joy,--whether +Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, Christian or Pagan,--he is content +with the evidence. The moment a writer of either school insinuates a +principle or sentiment of Despair, whether he be a dramatist or a +sentimentalist, the author enters his earnest protest. Classical and +Romantic poets, romancers and historians, when they slip into +misery-mongers, are equally the objects of his denunciations. Keats and +Tennyson fare nearly as ill as Byron and Heine. Mr. Leland feels assured +that the human race is entitled to joy, and there is something almost +comical in his passionate assault on the morbid genius of the world. He +seems to say, "Why do you not accept the conditions of happiness? The +conditions are simple, and nothing but your pestilent wilfulness +prevents your compliance with them." + +This "pestilent wilfulness" is really the key to the whole position. All +objective as well as subjective writers have been impotent to provide +the way by which the seeker after perfect and permanent content can +attain and embody it. It has been sought through wit, humor, fancy, +imagination, reason; but it has been sought in vain. Our author, who, +after nearly exhausting all the concrete representatives of the +philosophy of Joy, admits that nobody embodies his ideal of happiness, +surrenders his ideal, as far as it has been practically expressed in +life or thought. Rabelais dissatisfies him; Scarron dissatisfies him; +Molière, Swift, Sterne, not to mention others, dissatisfy him. Every +ally he brings forward to sustain his position is reduced by analysis +into a partial enemy of his creed. But while we cannot concur in Mr. +Leland's theory in his exclusive statement of it, and confess to a +strong liking for many writers whom he considers effeminate, we +cordially agree with him in his plea for "Sunshine in Thought," and +sympathize in his vigorous and valorous assault on the morbid elements +of our modern literature. We think that poets should be as cheerful as +possible; whereas some of them seem to think it is their duty to be as +fretful as possible, and to make misery an invariable accompaniment of +genius. The primary object of all good literature is to invigorate and +to cheer, not to weaken and depress; it should communicate mental and +moral life, as well as convey sentiments and ideas,--should brace and +strengthen the mind, as well as fill it; and when it whimpers and wails, +when it teaches despair as philosophy, especially when it uses the +enchantments of imagination to weaken the active powers, its effect is +mischievous. Woe, considered as a luxury, is the most expensive of all +luxuries; and there is danger to the mental and moral health even in the +pensive sadness which, to some readers, sheds such a charm over the +meditations of that kind of genius which is rather thoughtful than full +of thought. For the melodious miseries which mediocrity mimics, for the +wretchedness which some fifth-rate rhymers assume in order to make +themselves interesting, there can, of course, be no toleration. Mr. +Leland pounds them as with the hammer of Thor, and would certainly beat +out their brains, had not Nature fortunately neglected to put such +perilous matter into craniums exposed to such ponderous blows. + +Apart from the general theory and purpose of the book, there is a great +deal of talent and learning exhibited in the illustrations of the +subject. The remarks on Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, and +Heine,--half analysis, half picture,--are very striking; and there are, +throughout the volume, continual flashes of suggestive thought and vivid +portraiture, which both delight and detain the reader. The style is that +of animated conversation,--the conversation of a man whose veins are as +full of blood as his mind is of ideas, who is hilarious from abounding +health, and whose occasional boisterousness of manner proceeds from the +robustness of his make and the cheer of his soul. The whole volume tends +to create in thought that "sunshine" which it so joyously recommends and +celebrates. The reader is warmed by the ardor and earnestness with which +propositions he may distrust are urged upon his attention, and closes +the volume with that feeling of pleased excitement which always comes +from contact with a fresh and original mind. + + + _The Gentleman._ By GEORGE H. CALVERT. Boston: Ticknor & + Fields. + +Paradoxical as it may appear, we believe there never was a time when the +true and pure standard of gentlemanhood could be more impressively +raised and upheld in this republic than now. The vast and keen civil +conflict which so deeply agitates our political life has laid bare the +groundwork and brought to the surface the latent elements of our social +life, so that a new, an obvious, and a searching test is instinctively +applied to character; as in all times of profound moral excitement, +_shams_ grow fantastic and contemptible, and _principles_ of action and +being rise to superlative worth. The question, What constitutes the +Gentleman? suggested at first by the preposterous and exclusive claims +thereto arrogantly put forth by a little community, in justification of +profane and destructive violence to a nation's welfare, has come to be +regarded as embracing all the obligations, responsibilities, and +humanities that make up and certify Christian manhood and genuine +patriotism; the wide and deep significance of a word too often +confounded with mere manners is thus practically found to indicate the +most vital elements of personal worth and social well-being. +Accordingly, a comprehensive, philosophical definition and illustration +of the Gentleman, in the ideal grace and greatness and in the real +authority and use of that so much misunderstood and seldom achieved +character, is doubly welcome at this hour, the strife and discussion +whereof bring out in such strong relief the true _animus_ and equipment +of statesmen, soldiers, citizens, men and women, and force us to realize +the poverty of soul, the inherent baseness, or the magnanimity and +rectitude of our fellow-creatures, with a vividness never before +experienced. How indispensable to the welfare of the State is a society +based on higher motives than those of material ambition, and how +impossible is the existence of such a society, except through individual +probity and disinterestedness, is a lesson written in blood and tears +before our eyes to-day; and thrice welcome, we repeat, is the clear and +emphatic exposition of the Gentleman, as an incarnation of the justice, +love, and honor, whereon, in the last analysis, rest the hopes and +welfare of the nation. No ethical or æsthetical treatise could be more +seasonable than this of Mr. Calvert's. We regard it as the best +lay-sermon thus far evoked by the moral exigencies of the hour; however +appropriate it may also be and is to any and all times and readers of +taste and thought, a superficial, merely dilettante essay on such a +subject and at such a time would repel instead of alluring. + +The charming little volume before us, while made genially attractive by +occasional playfulness and anecdote, is yet pervaded by an earnestness +born of strong conviction and deep sympathies. It analyzes the springs +of character, traces conduct to its elemental source, and follows it to +its ultimate influence. To a concise style it unites an expansive +spirit; with a tone of rich and high culture it blends the vivacity and +grace of the most genial colloquy. From the etymology of the word to the +humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent +discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in +society, in domestic life, and in literature,--and as he lives, a grand +and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. Beginning with +the meaning, origin, and use of the word Gentleman, Mr. Calvert gives a +critical analysis of its historical personation. As a chevalier type, in +such men as Sidney and Bayard. Its ethical and æsthetical meaning is +finely exemplified in the contrast between Charles Lamb and George IV., +Leicester and Hampden, Washington and Napoleon. The Gentleman in St. +Paul is well illustrated. The relation of this character to antiquity is +defined with a scholar's zest: whatever of its force and flavor is +discernible in Socrates and Brutus is gracefully indicated; the +deficiency of Homer's heroes, excepting Hector, therein, is ably +demonstrated. These and like illustrations of so prolific a theme +inevitably suggest episodes of argument, incidental, yet essential to +the main question; and the just and benign remarks on the Duel, the +Position of Women in Ancient and Modern Society, and the Influence of +Christianity upon Manners, are striking in their scope and style, and +breathe the lofty and tender spirit of that Faith which inculcates +_disinterestedness_ as the latent and lasting inspiration of the +Gentleman. Perhaps the most delectable illustrations, which give both +form and beauty to this essay, are those drawn from modern literature: +they are choice specimens of criticism, and full of subtile +discrimination in tracing the relation of literature to life. We would +instance especially the chapters on Shakspeare's Gentleman; the +recognition of the Gentleman in Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and +Don Quixote; and the admirable distinction pointed out between the +characters of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There is no part of the +volume more worthy attention than the remarks of a "high-bred tone in +writing." The hollowness of Chesterfield's code is keenly exposed; Honor +and Vulgarity are freshly and ably defined; Fashion, Pride, and Vanity, +the conventional elements of the Gentleman, are treated with +philosophical justice; the favorite characters of fiction, and the most +renowned poets and heroes, beaux and braves, pass before us, and are +subjected to the test of that Christian ideal of the Gentleman so +clearly defined and firmly applied by the intrepid author; and many a +disguised coxcomb is stripped of his borrowed plumes, imperial +_parvenus_ exposed as charlatans in manners as well as morals, and +heroic, but modest souls, of whom the world's court-calendar gives no +hint, stand forth exemplars of the highest, because the most soulful +breeding. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. +68, June, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 35226-8.txt or 35226-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/2/35226/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 11, No. 68, June, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2011 [EBook #35226] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>THE</h4> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2> + +<h3>VOL. XI.—JUNE, 1863.—NO. LXVIII.</h3> + +<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by <span class="smcap">Tichnor 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="#WEAK_LUNGS_AND_HOW_TO_MAKE_THEM_STRONG"><b>WEAK LUNGS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#VIOLET-PLANTING"><b>VIOLET-PLANTING.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#PAUL_BLECKER"><b>PAUL BLECKER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_HANCOCK_HOUSE_AND_ITS_FOUNDER"><b>THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WHY_THOMAS_WAS_DISCHARGED"><b>WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#LIGHT_AND_DARK"><b>LIGHT AND DARK.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#WET-WEATHER_WORK"><b>WET-WEATHER WORK.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_MEMBER_FROM_FOXDEN"><b>THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MOUNTAINS_AND_THEIR_ORIGIN"><b>MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CAMILLAS_CONCERT"><b>CAMILLA'S CONCERT.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#SPRING_AT_THE_CAPITAL"><b>SPRING AT THE CAPITAL.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_HORRORS_OF_SAN_DOMINGO25"><b>THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WEAK_LUNGS_AND_HOW_TO_MAKE_THEM_STRONG" id="WEAK_LUNGS_AND_HOW_TO_MAKE_THEM_STRONG"></a>WEAK LUNGS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG.</h2> + + +<p>The highest medical authorities of this century have expressed the +opinion that tubercular disease of the various tissues is justly +chargeable with one-third of the deaths among the youth and adults of +the civilized world. The seat of this tubercular disease is, in great +part, in the lungs.</p> + +<p>Before the taint is localized, it is comparatively easy to remove it. If +in regard to most other maladies it may be said that "an ounce of +prevention is worth a pound of cure," in reference to tubercular +consumption it may be truly declared that an ounce of prevention is +worth tons of cure.</p> + +<p>Had the talent and time which have been given to the treatment of +consumption been bestowed upon its causes and prevention, the percentage +of mortality from this dreaded disease would have been greatly reduced.</p> + + +<h4>NATURE OF CONSUMPTION.</h4> + +<p>Genuine consumption does not originate in a cold, an inflammation, or a +hemorrhage, but in tubercles. And these tubercles are only secondary +causes. The primary cause is a certain morbid condition of the organism, +known as the tubercular or scrofulous diathesis. This morbid condition +of the general system is sometimes hereditary, but much more frequently +the result of unphysiological habits. Those cases to which our own +errors give rise may be prevented, and a large proportion of those who +have inherited consumptive taint may by wise hygiene be saved.</p> + +<p><i>Consumption is not a Local Disease.</i>—It is thought to be a malady of +the lungs. This notion has led to most of the mistakes in its treatment.</p> + +<p>Salt rheum appears on the hand. Some ignorant physician says, "It is a +disease of the skin." An ointment is applied; the eruption disappears. +Soon, perchance, the same scrofulous taint appears in the lungs in the +form of tubercles. The doctor cannot get at it there with his ointment, +and resorts to inhalation. He is still determined to apply his drug to +the local manifestation.</p> + +<p>Salt rheum is not a disease of the skin. It is a disease of the system, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span>showing itself at the skin. Consumption is not a disease of the lungs. +It is a disease of the system, showing itself in the lungs.</p> + +<p>A ship's crew is seized with some fearful malady. They hang out a flag +of distress. Another ship passes near the infected vessel. Its captain +discovers the flag of distress. A boat's crew is sent to cut it down. +The captain turns to his passengers with the triumphant exclamation, "We +have saved them! All signs of distress have disappeared!"</p> + +<p>A human body is diseased in every part. A flag of distress is hung out +in the form of some malady at the surface. Some physician whose thinking +is on the surface of things applies an ointment, which compels the +malady to go back within the body again. Then he cries, "I have cured +him; see, it is all gone!"</p> + +<p>It may be said, that, when the disease attacks the lungs, it must be +driven from that vital organ at any sacrifice. I reply, if the drug +vapors which are inhaled could disperse the tuberculous deposit,—which +is impossible,—the tubercle could not be transferred to any other +internal organ where it would do less harm. No other internal organ can +bear tuberculous deposit or ulceration with less danger to life.</p> + +<p>In 1847, two brothers, bank-officers, afflicted with chronic +inflammation of the eyes, came under my care. I repeatedly prescribed +for them, but their eyes got no better. Indeed, they had little hope of +relief; for, during their years of suffering, many physicians had +treated them without avail. At length I told them there was no hope but +in absence from their business, and such recreation as would elevate the +general tone. A few months of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment in the +country sufficed to remove the redness and weakness from their eyes. As +I have argued, the disease was not one of the eyes, but of the entire +system, which had assumed a local expression.</p> + +<p>This dependence of particular upon general disease is a common idea with +the people. A young man begins business with a large capital. He falls +into dissipation. In ten years it exhausts his fortune. When at last we +see him begging for bread, we do not say this exhibition of his poverty +is his financial disease. His financial <i>constitution</i> has been ruined. +The begging is only an unpleasant exhibition of that ruin. During this +course of dissipation, the young man, in addition to the exhaustion of +his fortune, ruins his health. His lungs fall into consumption. Some +doctor may tell you it is disease of the lungs. But it is no more +disease of the lungs than was begging the man's financial malady. In +either case, the apparent disease is only an exhibition of the +constitutional malady.</p> + +<p>In brief, a local disease is an impossibility. Every disease must be +systemic before it can assume any local expression. Or, in other words, +every local pathological manifestation is an expression of systemic +pathological conditions.</p> + +<p>Now what is the practical value of this argument? I reply: So long as +people believe bronchitis to be a disease of the throat, or consumption +a disease of the lungs, so long will they labor under the hallucination +that a cure is to be found in applications to these parts. But when they +are convinced that these diseases are local expressions of morbid +conditions pervading the whole organism, then whatever will invigorate +their general health, as Nature's hygienic agents, will receive their +constant and earnest attention.</p> + + +<h4>CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION.</h4> + +<p>Sir James Clarke says,—"It may be fairly questioned whether the +proportion of cures of confirmed consumption is greater at the present +day than in the time of Hippocrates: and although the public may +continue to be the dupes of boasting charlatans, I am persuaded that no +essential progress has been made or <i>can be made</i> in the cure of +consumption, until the disease has been treated upon different +principles from what it hitherto has been. If the labor and ingenuity +which have been misapplied in fruitless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span> efforts to cure an irremediable +condition of the lungs had been rightly directed to the investigation of +the causes and nature of tuberculous disease, the subject of our inquiry +would have been regarded in a very different light from that in which it +is at the present period."</p> + +<p>While I shall not attempt a discussion of all the causes of <i>phthisis +pulmonalis</i>, I shall, in a brief and familiar way, consider the more +obvious sources of this terrible malady, and particularly those which +all classes may remove or avoid.</p> + +<p><i>Impure Air a Cause of Consumption.</i>—In discussing the causes of a +disease whose principal expression is in the lungs, nothing can be more +legitimate than a consideration of the air we breathe. In full +respiration, it penetrates every one of the many millions of air-cells.</p> + +<p><i>Dust.</i>—Every species of dust must prove injurious. Workers in those +factories where tools are ground and polished soon die of pulmonary +disease. The dust of cotton and woollen factories, that of the street, +and that which is constantly rising from our carpets, are all +mischievous. M. Benoiston found among cotton-spinners the annual +mortality from consumption to be 18 in a thousand; among coal-men, 41; +among those breathing an atmosphere charged with mineral dust, 30, and +with dust from animal matter, as hair, wool, bristles, feathers, 54 per +thousand: of these last the greatest mortality was among workers in +feathers; least among workers in wool. The average liability to +consumption among persons breathing the kinds of dust named was 24 per +thousand, or 2.40 per cent. In a community where many flints were made, +there was great mortality from consumption, the average length of life +being only 19 years.</p> + +<p><i>Gases.</i>—Among the poisonous gases which infest our atmosphere, +carbonic acid deserves special consideration. The principal result of +all respiration and combustion, it exists in minute quantities +everywhere, but when it accumulates to the extent of one or two per +cent, it seriously compromises health. I have seen the last half of an +eloquent sermon entirely lost upon the congregation; carbonic acid had +so accumulated that it operated like a moderate dose of opium. No +peroration would arouse them. Nothing but open windows could start +life's currents. In lectures before lyceums, I often have a quarrel with +the managers about ventilation. There is, even among the more +intelligent, a strange indifference to the subject.</p> + +<p>The following fact graphically illustrates the influence of carbonic +acid on human life.</p> + +<p>A young Frenchman, M. Deal, finding his hopes of cutting a figure in the +world rather dubious, resolved to commit suicide; but that he might not +leave the world without producing a sensation and flourishing in the +newspapers, he resolved to kill himself with carbonic acid. So, shutting +himself up in a close room, he succeeded in his purpose, leaving to the +world the following account, which was found near his dead body, the +next morning.</p> + +<p>"I have thought it useful, in the interest of science, to make known the +effects of charcoal upon man. I place a lamp, a candle, and a watch on +my table, and commence the ceremony.</p> + +<p>"It is a quarter past ten. I have just lighted the stove; the charcoal +burns feebly.</p> + +<p>"Twenty minutes past ten. The pulse is calm, and beats at its usual +rate.</p> + +<p>"Thirty minutes past ten. A thick vapor gradually fills the room; the +candle is nearly extinguished; I begin to feel a violent headache; my +eyes fill with tears; I feel a general sense of discomfort; the pulse is +agitated.</p> + +<p>"Forty minutes past ten. My candle has gone out; the lamp still burns; +the veins at my temple throb as if they would burst; I feel very sleepy; +I suffer horribly in the stomach; my pulse is at eighty.</p> + +<p>"Fifty minutes past ten. I am almost stifled; strange ideas assail +me.... I can scarcely breathe.... I shall not go far.... There are +symptoms of madness....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Eleven o'clock. I can scarcely write.... My sight is troubled.... My +lamp is going out.... I did not think it would be such agony to die.... +Ten...."</p> + +<p>Here followed some quite illegible characters. Life had ebbed. The +following morning he was found on the floor.</p> + +<p>The steamer Londonderry left Liverpool for Sligo, on Friday, December +2d, 1848, with two hundred passengers, mostly emigrants. A storm soon +came on. The captain ordered the passengers into the steerage cabin, +which was eighteen feet long, eleven wide, and seven high. The hatches +were closed, and a tarpaulin fastened over this only entrance to the +cabin.</p> + +<p>The poor creatures were now condemned to breathe the same air over and +over again. Then followed a dreadful scene. The groans of the dying, the +curses and shrieks of those not yet in the agonies of death, must have +been inconceivably horrible. The struggling mass at length burst open +the hatches, and the mate was called to gaze at the fearful spectacle. +Seventy-two were already dead, many were dying, their bodies convulsed, +the blood starting from their nostrils, eyes, and ears.</p> + +<p>It does not appear that the captain designed to suffocate his +passengers, but that he was simply ignorant of the fact that air which +has passed to and fro in the lungs becomes a deadly poison.</p> + +<p>The victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta and of the Steamer +Londonderry, with the thousand other instances in which immediate death +has resulted from carbonic acid, are terrible examples in the history of +human suffering; but these cases are all as nothing, compared with those +of the millions who nightly sleep in unventilated rooms, from which they +escape with life, but not without serious injury. As a medical man, I +have visited thousands of sick persons, and have not found one hundred +of them in a pure atmosphere. I have often returned from church +seriously doubting whether I had not committed a sin in exposing myself +to its poisonous air. There are in our great cities churches costing +fifty thousand dollars, in the construction of which not fifty dollars +were expended in providing means for ventilation. Ten thousand dollars +for ornament, but not ten dollars for pure air! Parlors with +furnace-heat and a number of gas-burners (each of which consumes as much +oxygen as several men) are made as close as possible, and a party of +ladies and gentlemen spend half the night in them. In 1861 I visited a +legislative hall. The legislature was in session. I remained half an +hour in the most impure air I ever attempted to breathe. If the laws +which emanated from such an atmosphere were good, it is a remarkable +instance of the mental and moral rising above a depraved physical. Our +school-houses are, some of them, so vile in this respect that I would +prefer to have my son remain in utter ignorance of books, rather than +breathe, during six hours of every day, so poisonous an atmosphere. +Theatres and concert-rooms are so foul that only reckless people can +continue to visit them. Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not +because of the sitting, but because of the devitalized air. While +crossing the ocean in the Cunard steamer Africa, and again in the +Collins steamer Baltic, I was constantly amazed that men who knew enough +to construct such noble ships did not know enough to furnish air to the +passengers. The distresses of sea-sickness are greatly intensified by +the sickening atmosphere which pervades the ship. Were carbonic acid +black, what a contrast would be presented between the air of our hotels +and their elaborate ornamentation!</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to say that every place I have mentioned might be +cheaply and completely ventilated.</p> + +<p>Consumption originates in the tubercular diathesis. This diathesis is +produced by those agencies which deprave the blood and waste vitality. +Of these agencies none is so universal and potent as impure air. When we +consider, that, besides mingling momentarily with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span> blood of the +entire system, it is in direct and constant contact with every part of +the lungs, we cannot fail to infer that foul air must play a most +important part in that local expression of the tubercular taint known as +pulmonary consumption.</p> + +<p>The author of an excellent work on consumption declares,—</p> + +<p>"Wholesome air is equally essential with wholesome food; hence it is +that crowding individuals together in close, ill-ventilated apartments, +as is often the case in boarding-schools, manufactories, and +work-houses, is extremely prejudicial, both as a predisposing and +exciting cause of tubercular disease."</p> + +<p>The great Baudeloque considers impure air the only real cause of +scrofula, other causes assisting. He thinks that no scrofula could be +developed without this cause, whatever others might be in operation.</p> + +<p>An English writer who was physician to the Princess Victoria +says,—"There can be no doubt that the confined air of gloomy alleys, +manufactories, work-houses, and schools, and of our nurseries and very +sitting-rooms, is a powerful means of augmenting the hereditary +predisposition to scrofula, and of inducing such a disposition <i>de +novo</i>."</p> + +<p>To drink from the same tumbler, to eat from the same plate, to wear the +same under-clothes, to wash in the same water, even with the cleanest of +friends, would offend most people. But these are as alabaster whiteness +and absolute purity, compared with the common practice of crowding into +unventilated rooms, and thus sucking into the innermost parts of our +vital organs the foulest secretions from each other's skins and lungs. I +wish it were possible for these vile exhalations to be imbued with some +dark color, if but temporarily. Then decency would join with reason in +demanding a pure atmosphere.</p> + + +<h4>NIGHT AIR.</h4> + +<p>Consumptives, and all invalids, and indeed persons in health, are +cautioned to avoid the night air. Do those who offer this advice forget +that there is no other air at night but "night air"? Certainly we cannot +breathe day air during the night. Do they mean that we should shut +ourselves up in air-tight rooms, and breathe over and over again, +through half the twenty-four hours, the atmosphere we have already +poisoned? We have only the choice between night air pure and night air +poisoned with the exhalations from our skins and lungs, perhaps from +lungs already diseased. A writer pertinently speaks on this point after +the following fashion:—</p> + +<p>"Man acts strangely. Although a current of fresh air is the very life of +his lungs, he seems indefatigable in the exercise of his inventive +powers to deprive himself of this heavenly blessing. Thus, he carefully +closes his bed-chamber against its entrance, and prefers that his lungs +should receive the mixed effluvia from his cellar and larder, and from a +patent little modern aquarius, in lieu of it. Why should man be so +terrified at the admission of night air into any of his apartments? It +is Nature's ever-flowing current, and never carries the destroying angel +with it. See how soundly the delicate little wren and tender robin sleep +under its full and immediate influence, and how fresh and vigorous and +joyous they rise amid the surrounding dew-drops of the morning. Although +exposed all night long to the heaven, their lungs are never out of +order; and this we know by daily repetition of the song. Look at the +new-born hare, without any nest to go to. It lives and thrives and +becomes strong and playful under the unmitigated inclemency of the +falling dews of night. I have a turkey full eight years old that has not +passed a single night in shelter. He roosts in a cherry-tree, and is in +primest health the year through. Three fowls, preferring this to the +warm perches in the hen-house, took up their quarters with him early in +October, and have never gone to any other roosting-place. The cow and +the horse sleep safely on the ground, and the roebuck lies down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span> to rest +on the dewy mountain-top. I myself can sleep all night long, bareheaded, +under the full moon's watery beams, without any fear of danger, and pass +the day in wet shoes without catching cold. Coughs and colds are +generally caught in the transition from an over-heated room to a cold +apartment; but there would be no danger in this movement, if ventilation +were properly attended to,—a precaution little thought of nowadays."</p> + +<p>Dr. James Blake advises the consumptive to join with several friends, +procure horses and wagons, and set off upon a long journey, sleeping in +the open air, no matter what the weather. He seems to think this the +only way in which it is possible to induce the consumptive to sleep in +the fresh air. Doctor Jackson gives the case of a consumptive young man +(he does not state the condition of his lungs) who was cured by sleeping +in the open air on a hay-stack. This advice and experience do not quite +harmonize with the common terror of night air.</p> + +<p>But while I believe that breathing the pure out-door air all night is an +important curative means in this disease, I do not believe that sleeping +in the open fields of a stormy night is the <i>best means</i> for securing +pure night air, in the case of a feeble woman; on the contrary, I think +it might be more pleasantly, and quite as effectually, secured in a +comfortable house, with open windows and an open fire.</p> + +<p>No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their +houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;—not because +houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows +are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended +against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more +corrupts the air, which has done duty already—to how many lungs, for +how many hours?</p> + +<p>Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him +use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient +put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors +and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his +lungs and system were famishing!</p> + +<p>I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an +out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this +class,—but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon +abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains, +in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts.</p> + + +<h4>MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE.</h4> + +<p>It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the +consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is, +nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the +cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much +less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the +western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown.</p> + +<p>Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable +part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of +facts, we might, <i>a priori</i>, argue, that excessive dryness of the air +would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time +immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and +inflammation of the respiratory organs.</p> + +<p>A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the +wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has +not injured them,—that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant +days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more +moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs.</p> + +<p>There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for +keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet +carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span> +Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands.</p> + +<p>That point of temperature at which the moisture of the air first becomes +visible is known as the dew-point. According to one authority, the mean +dew-point of England, from the first of November to the last of March, +is about 35°; that of our Northern States about 16°. Now suppose a house +in England is kept at a temperature of 70°, the drying power would there +be represented by 35. A house with the same temperature in Albany, for +example, would possess a drying power of 54. This great contrast in the +atmosphere of the two countries is strikingly illustrated by the +difference between the plump body and smooth skin of the Englishman, and +the lean, juiceless body, and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is +also shown by the well-known difference in the influence of house-heat +upon furniture. Our chairs and sofas and wood-work warp and shrink, +while nothing of the sort occurs in England.</p> + +<p>As we cannot increase the amount of moisture in the atmosphere of our +continent, we must limit our practical efforts to the air of our houses. +If we use a stove, its entire-upper surface may be made a reservoir for +water; ornamental work, of but little cost, may be used to conceal it. +The furnace may be made to send up, with its heat, many gallons of water +daily, in the form of vapor. In justice to stoves and furnaces, I must +say here, that, in the opportunity to do this, they possess one +advantage over open fire-places.</p> + +<p>By adding artificial moisture in this way to the air of our houses, we +not only save our furniture from drying and shrinking, but protect our +skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs from undue dryness, and from the +affections to which it would give rise. It is found necessary, in our +cloth-manufactories, to maintain a moist atmosphere in order to +successful spinning. Intelligent managers have assured me that coughs +and throat difficulties are comparatively rare in the spinning +department.</p> + +<p>We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is +comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove, +is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its +boiling kettles moistens the air.</p> + +<p>Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years +without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your +parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of +that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that +the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. The dry heat of the +parlor produced headache, irritability, and perhaps a sense of stricture +in the chest. If we would avoid these, a dry chapped skin, an irritable +nervous system, and a dry hacking cough, we must add the needed humidity +by artificial means.</p> + + +<h4>CLIMATE</h4> + +<p>The influence of climate in the production of tuberculosis was formerly +much exaggerated. Removal to a warm latitude, so generally prescribed +some years ago, is now rarely advised. Although the bland atmosphere and +out-of-door life of the tropics may often check the progress of the +malady, yet the constitution is generally so enervated that the return +to home and friends involves often not only a return of the malady, but +its more rapid progress. At present, a winter at Lake Superior, or other +region where the cold is intense and uniform, is the popular +prescription. I do not doubt the value of the expedient in many cases. +But the consumptive who can afford a winter neither in the Mediterranean +nor at the frigid North may comfort himself that the value of such trips +has been greatly overrated. Advice to the phthisical to spend a season a +thousand miles from home is, to a large majority of them, not unlike +that of the whimsical London doctor to the rag-picker he found coughing +in the streets:—"That's a bad cough, a bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span> cough, you have. I advise +you to make a journey on the Continent; and, in order to secure all the +advantages, you had better travel in your own carriage." Happily for +those with short purses, health in this, as in most other cases, is more +easily found at home.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that the prejudice against our New-England climate, +entertained by consumptives, is well-founded. The slight percentage of +difference against us, as compared with the people of other parts of the +country, in the number of deaths from consumption, is to be traced, I +believe, not so much to our climate as to our manufactories. New England +contains nearly all the great factories, labor in which is so +prejudicial to health,—as well as a greater number of furnaces, +air-tight stoves, and close houses.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that the sudden changes of the New-England climate are +disastrous to the consumptive who is well protected. While it is true +that our climate provokes a greater number of colds than that of +Florida, it is not less true that our atmosphere is more invigorating.</p> + +<p>"The Climate of the United States," by Dr. Samuel Forry, of the United +States Army, one of the best works of the kind ever published, gives a +great number of facts, interesting in this connection. His statistics +are gathered exclusively from the army. The men of the army are, in +great part, of the same age, from the same rank in life, of the same +habits, and have the same clothing, food, and labor, and when sick the +same treatment. The influence of climate upon human health may, +therefore, be ascertained with more accuracy from careful observations +among this class of men than from any other source. In comparing the +populations of New York and New Orleans, for instance, it is almost +impossible to make accurate allowance for the manifold differences in +habits, diet, occupation, etc.</p> + +<p>Dr. Forry shows conclusively, that, while colds and influenzas are more +common in the northern branches of the regular army, as 552 to 271, +consumption is more common in the southern, in the proportion of 10-1/2 +to 7-2/3. In the southern divisions there are 708 cases of fever of +various sorts to 192 in the northern. "We may safely infer," he says, +"that whatever tends to impair the constitution, as fevers, tends to +develop consumption in every class which is predisposed, and in all +climates and countries." Dr. Forry's tables present some curious facts. +One which will most impress the general reader is, that rheumatism is +more common at Key West than on the coast of New England. But it will +not surprise the reflecting, that a change of 5° at Key West is felt as +much as one of 20° at Boston. The slight changes, however, do not +equally purify the atmosphere and invigorate the body.</p> + + +<h4>DRESS</h4> + +<p>No subject is so intimately connected with the health of the respiratory +apparatus as dress. And, as bearing upon pulmonary consumption, there +are certain errors in the dress of children which must be noticed. I +believe I echo the voice of my profession, when I declare that the seeds +of consumption are planted in thousands by these mistakes in dress +during infancy and childhood. To correct these, permit me a few +practical suggestions.</p> + +<p>The skirt-bands must be left very loose. If you would give the baby's +lungs and heart the best chance for development, the dress about the +chest and waist should be so loose, that, if the child be held up by the +shoulders, its entire dress, except as sustained by the shoulders, will +fall to the floor. With such a dress the blood is so much sooner +oxygenated, that, other things being equal, the characteristic dark red +color of the skin will disappear much sooner than with a close dress.</p> + +<p>The bones surrounding the small, feeble lungs, now for the first time +beginning to move, are so soft and pliable, that, under the slightest +pressure, they will yield, and the capacity of the lungs be reduced. Yet +I have seen the nurse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span> use the entire strength of her fingers in the +first application of the skirt-bands. No thoughtful person, acquainted +with the anatomy of the thorax in a new-born babe, can escape the +conclusion that its vitality is seriously compromised by this pressure +upon the principal organs of that vitality. In many instances I have +seen the character of the little one's respiration and pulse decidedly +affected by enlarging the skirt-bands.</p> + +<p>Mothers, if you think all this pressure necessary to give your babes a +form, as I have heard some of you say, you forget that the Creator of +your child has all wisdom and skill, and that any changes in the baby's +form and proportions must prove only mischievous. And perhaps you may +not feel your pride hurt by the suggestion, that His taste is quite +equal to yours. That a corset or other machine is needed to give a human +being a form, as is so often suggested, is an imputation on the Creator +which no thoughtful and conscientious person can indulge.</p> + +<p><i>Dress of Children's Arms.</i>—Prominent among the errors in the dress of +children is the custom of leaving their arms nude.</p> + +<p>I speak of the dress for the damp and cold seasons. It should be added, +that during the cool summer evenings too much care cannot be exercised +in protecting the baby's arms and shoulders. If the mother desires to +exhibit her darling's beautiful skin, let her cut out a bit of the dress +near its heart, and when the neighbors come in, let her show the skin +thus exposed to the company. This is so near the central furnace of the +body that it has no chance to get cold; but in the case of the arms and +legs, we have parts far removed from the furnace, and such parts require +special protection.</p> + +<p>Take the glass tube of the thermometer out of the frame, and put the +bulb in your baby's mouth. The mercury-rises to 98°. Now, on a cool +evening, place the same bulb in its little hand; (I am supposing it has +naked arms;) the mercury will sink to 60° or less. Need I say that all +the blood which has to make its way through the diminutive and tortuous +vessels of those cold arms must become nearly as cold as the arms and +hands themselves? And need I add, that, as the cold currents of blood +come from both arms back into the vital organs, they play the mischief +there?</p> + +<p>If you would preserve your child from croup, pneumonia, and a score of +other grave affections, you should keep its arms warm. Thick woollen +sleeves, fitting the little dimpled arms down to the hands, at least, +constitute the true covering.</p> + +<p>A distinguished physician of Paris declared just before his death,—"I +believe that during the twenty-six years that I have practised my +profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne to the +cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms."</p> + +<p>When in Harvard College, many years ago, I heard the eminent Dr. Warren +say,—"Boston sacrifices hundreds of babes every year by not clothing +their arms."</p> + +<p>What has been said of the dress of children is none the less applicable +to the dress of adults. One of the gravest mistakes in the dress of +women is the very thin covering of their arms and legs. A young lady +once asked me what she could do for her very thin arms. She said she was +ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and +found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make +muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly,—but exercise makes them +grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise +will do less to give those cold, naked arms circulation than would a +single month, were they warmly clad.</p> + +<p>The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A +cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty +and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know our +servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise, +acquire large, fine arms, in spite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span> of their nakedness; and if our young +ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful +classes, they may have as fine arms; but even then it is doubtful if +they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach, +without more dress upon the arms and legs.</p> + +<p>Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that +has the latter has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your +body. Now place it upon your arm. If you find the temperature of the +body over 90° and that of your arm under 60°, you have lost the +equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing +headache; or the chest too much, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain +in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach too much, +producing indigestion. Any or all these difficulties are temporarily +relieved by immersion of the hands or feet in hot water, and permanently +relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the +derivation permanent.</p> + +<p>The most earnest efforts looking towards dress-reform have had reference +to the length of the skirt. I think it is one of woman's first duties to +make herself beautiful. The long skirt, the trail even, is in fine +taste. Among the dress features of the stage none is so beautiful. The +artist is ever delighted to introduce it in his pictures of woman. For +the drawing-room, it is superb. When we meet on dress occasions, I +cannot see why we may not introduce this exquisite feature. If it is +said that expense and inconvenience are involved, I reply, so they are +in paintings and statuary.</p> + +<p>For church and afternoon-sittings, skirts that nearly touch the floor +seem to me in good taste; but for the street, when snowy or muddy, for +the active duties of house-keeping, for the gymnasium, and for +mountain-trips, it need not be argued, with those whose brains are not +befogged by fashion, that the skirts should fall to about the knee.</p> + +<p>Dr. Clarke says,—"Since the free expansion of the chest, or, in other +words, the unimpeded action of the respiratory organs, is essential to +health, the employment of tight stays and those forms of dress which +interfere with these natural actions must be injurious, and cannot +therefore be too strongly censured."</p> + +<p>The celebrated Dr. James Johnson declares,—"The growth of the whole +body and the freedom of all its functions so much depend upon perfect +digestion, that every impediment to that digestion, such as compression +of the middle of the body, must inevitably derange the whole +constitution. Although the evils of tight lacing are as patent as the +sun at noonday, I have never known its commission to be acknowledged by +any fair dame. It is considered essential to a fine figure, yet I never +could discover any marks of stays in the statues of the Medicean Venus, +or the Apollo. And I venture to aver that the Cyprian goddess was not in +the habit of drawing her zone as tight as the modern fair ones, else the +sculptor would have recorded the cincture in marble. The comfort and +motions of the foot are not more abridged and cramped by the Chinese +shoe than are respiration and digestion by the stay." Thus wrote the +physician to the father of the present queen of England.</p> + +<p>A former professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the +university of Vermont says,—"Undue confinement of the chest must at all +periods of life be prejudicial; hence the practice of tight lacing we +almost always find classed among the causes of phthisis, as well as of +numerous other ills." And he adds,—"It is surely an erroneous notion +that women need the support of stays."</p> + + +<h4>BEST MATERIAL FOR DRESS.</h4> + +<p>In all seasons of the year, and in all climates, the best material for +dress, for old and young, for strong and weak, is woollen. It is the +poorest conductor of heat, and therefore secures the most equable +temperature. This is the principal object of dress. The superiority of +woollen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span> clothing for babes is even greater in July than in January. In +the warmest days a single thickness of soft flannel will suffice. But if +linen or cotton be worn, the garment is soon moistened by perspiration, +and two or three additional thicknesses are needed to protect the child +against the ill-effects of a draught.</p> + +<p>In warm weather we find it necessary to wear woollen garments in the +gymnasium, as a protection against a chill from draughts while +perspiring. Our soldiers in the South find flannel their best friend, +securing them against the extremes and exposures of their camp and field +life. Blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-men, and others exposed to the +highest temperatures, find woollen indispensable.</p> + +<p>Few practices will do so much to secure the comfort and protect the +health of young children as dressing them in flannel night and day, the +year round. It may be objected that flannel irritates a delicate skin. +This is often so, as the skin is now treated. But there is no baby's +skin so thin and delicate that daily bathing and faithful friction may +not remove this extreme susceptibility. And as the skin is the organ +upon which the outer world makes its impressions, nothing is more +important than that all morbid susceptibility should be removed.</p> + +<p>An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its +mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one +of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react +upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of +the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially +need a vigorous treatment of the skin.</p> + +<p>Professor Dunglison says,—"The best clothing to protect us from +external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one +that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case +with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over +them when they expose themselves to the sun.</p> + +<p>Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most +precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much +to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the +vicissitudes of weather."</p> + +<p>Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the +Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool."</p> + +<p>Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in +preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and +drains.</p> + +<p>Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the +icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return +to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and +while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the +loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of +flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had +every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his +flannels.</p> + +<p>A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and +those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of +flannel.</p> + +<p>Dr. Willich says,—"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the +covering of those animals most resembling man in structure."</p> + +<p>Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all +seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to +which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness.</p> + +<p>The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous, +those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all +invalids.</p> + +<p>Another writer says that desperate diseases would be prevented, and many +valuable lives saved, by its more universal use.</p> + +<p>A distinguished American physician says that flannel next the skin is of +service to the consumptive by the irritation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span> it produces, as well as +the defence it affords against the cold.</p> + +<p>An English authority says,—"Experience has so fully evinced the utility +of covering the skin with flannel, that no person habituated to its use, +in our damp climate, can be persuaded to dispense with it at any season +of the year."</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE</h4> + +<p>Motion is the great law of the universe. It is the first instinct of +animal life. When it ceases, life ceases. The degree of life may be +measured by the amount of normal motion. When the life-forces run low, +the natural and most effectual method of invigorating those forces is +found in motion.</p> + +<p>The popular education of our children is a lamentable violation of this +law. The young child, left in freedom, keeps its nurse on the <i>qui vive</i> +during every waking hour by its uncontrollable activity. The effort +which our school-system makes to crush out this instinct, by compelling +children to sit on hard chairs, bent over desks, motionless six hours a +day, is, considered in its influence upon the vitality of the nation, +the saddest of all possible mistakes.</p> + +<p>A radical change in this respect is imperatively demanded by the growing +intelligence of the people. The Germans,—God bless them!—having given +more faithful study to the various problems of human development, have +devised better modes. The Kindergarten, one of the many beautiful +blossoms of the genius of that noble people, is being transplanted to +this country. Wise parents, thank Heaven, and take heart. Miss Peabody's +Kindergarten, in Boston, should be visited by the friends of education.</p> + +<p>Nothing at this hour is so much needed in the development of the young +as some system of physical training, which, under competent masters, may +be introduced as a part of the daily drill into all our schools, public +and private. The routine should be so arranged that study and physical +exercise should alternate in periods not longer than half an hour +throughout the day. For example: the school opens at 9 o'clock. The +first half-hour is devoted to study and recitation. Let the second be +given to vigorous training in the gymnasium under a drill-master, and to +music. The third to study and recitation. The fourth to drill, in which +those with weak stomachs form a class by themselves, with special +exercises; those with weak chests another; those with weak spines still +another: all classified and treated according to their several needs. +The fifth half-hour to study and recitation. The sixth to declamation, +singing, or culture of the vocal organs, in general and special ways. +The seventh and eighth half-hours to study, conversation, etc. And again +in the afternoon an alternation of intellectual and physical exercises, +the latter so ordered as to bring into play every muscle, and thus +secure the symmetrical development of the body. Who can doubt that under +this system greater progress would be made in intellectual culture than +at present? The mind would find more effective tools for its work. But, +with an incredulous shake of the head, the people say, "Yes, this is all +very fine, but quite impracticable," If by this they mean that it is not +practicable until the public conscience is better enlightened, I grant +the force of the objection. But if they mean to say, that, with a due +appreciation of physical culture, such a school is an impracticability, +I am confident they are mistaken. The order I suggest could be +introduced in a week in any existing school, did the parents and +teachers so will. I am happy to be able to say that such a school as I +have described, possessing all the best facilities for classical and +scientific instruction, and under the management of eminent educators, +will be opened in an American city within the present year. The school +has been determined upon from the conviction that only in beginning with +the rising generation can the results of physical culture, or the system +combining both physical and intellectual culture, in their natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span> +relations, be thorough and satisfactory, and that the results of this +experiment would do more than all that can be said or written to arouse +public attention.</p> + +<p>Sweetser says,—"Were I required to name the remedy which promises most +aid in the onset of consumption, I should say, daily gentle and +protracted exercise in a mild and equable atmosphere.... Exercise, +moreover, determines the blood to the surface of the body, rendering the +cutaneous functions more active and healthful, and may in this way also +contribute to the advantage of the lungs."</p> + +<p>Dr. Parrish says that "vigorous and free exposure to the air is by far +the most efficient remedy in pulmonary consumption."</p> + +<p>Dr. Pitcher states that "the consumptive Indians of the Osage tribe have +their symptoms suspended during their semi-annual buffalo-hunts, but +that these soon return on becoming again inactive in their towns."</p> + +<p>Dr. Rush informs us that he saw three persons who had been cured of +consumption by the hardships of military life in the Revolutionary War. +The same distinguished authority affirms that "the remedy for +consumption must be sought in those exercises and employments which give +the greatest vigor to the constitution."</p> + +<p>Dr. Chambers, physician to St. Mary's Hospital, says,—"If we examine +the history of those who have lived longest with consumption, we shall +not find them to have been those who have lived in-doors, hanging their +lives on their thermometers." He gives the case of a friend of his "who +from his youth has had tubercular disease, but has kept hounds, +contested elections, sat in Parliament, but never allows any one to +doctor his chest."</p> + +<p>Lord Bacon asserted that "there was no disease among pupils that +gymnastics and calisthenics could not cure." And Galen declared "him to +be the best physician who was the best teacher of gymnastics." While +Dryden, long ago, sang,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The wise for cure on <i>exercise</i> depend."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Consumptives are advised to ride on horseback, to make long journeys in +the saddle. This is doubtless one of the most valuable exercises. There +are numerous well-authenticated instances of cures by its means, even in +the advanced stages of the disease. But many persons cannot avail +themselves of its advantages. In our cities, not one phthisical invalid +in ten, especially among women, can command facilities for daily +horseback-riding, still less can they take long journeys.</p> + +<p>Hunting, fishing, and mountain-air are advised. But how can many who +reside in towns and cities, and who most need muscular training, secure +such recreations?</p> + +<p>Walking is very generally prescribed, and is doubtless the most +available of the exercises named. But in the case of women, the present +mode of dress seriously interferes with the ease and physiological +benefits of this exercise; and few would exchange the long skirt for the +short one with pantalets or Turkish trousers. And yet this change is +indispensable to the best results.</p> + +<p>While I would encourage all out-door exercises and amusements, it is +evident that exercises which can be introduced into every house, which +may be practised by persons of both sexes, all ages and degrees of +strength, and which possess such fascination as shall make them +permanently attractive, are greatly to be desired, to meet wants not +otherwise supplied.</p> + +<p>Many exercises have been advised with reference to general health and +strength. I submit a series possessing peculiar virtues for the +consumptive. To him all exercises are not equally profitable. Ten +movements of a sort adapted to his special needs are worth a hundred not +so adapted. He has a narrow chest and drooping shoulders. This +distortion results in displacement of the lungs. And yet he may have +legs and hips comparatively vigorous. Ten movements concentrated upon +those muscles whose deficiency permits the drooping of the shoulders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span> +will be more valuable than a hundred for the legs. There are several +hundred muscles in the human body. In every case of consumption certain +groups of these muscles are defective. Restoration of the lost symmetry +calls for those exercises which will develop the defective groups. +Prescribing a walk for a patient whose legs are already vigorous, but +whose arms and shoulders are contracted and weak, is like prescribing a +medicine because it <i>is a medicine</i>, without regard to the nature of the +malady.</p> + +<p>A blister applied to the chest relieves pain within. It accomplishes +this by drawing the blood to the surface, and thus subtracting from the +congestion at the point of disease. If the blister were applied to the +foot or leg, it would not sensibly relieve the congestion in the chest.</p> + +<p>If, instead of applying a blister, we use exercise as the remedial +measure, and by drawing blood into the muscles we would relieve the +congestion within, the importance of subtracting from the vessels which +bear the blood to the diseased part is not less than in the case of the +blister. For the relief or cure of disease in any of the chest organs a +few well-directed movements of those muscles about the chest which lack +circulation will accomplish more than hours of walking.</p> + +<p>The intelligent physician, in prescribing muscular training, will not +say, simply and generally, "I advise you to exercise," but he will +indicate the particular exercises applicable to the case. He will first +thoughtfully ask, "What group of muscles is defective?" When he has +answered this question accurately, he is prepared for a second,—"What +exercises will bring into direct training the defective group?" When +these points are settled, he can direct the training wisely. To +recommend horseback-riding—good as it is—for <i>all</i> consumptives, is +not a whit more discriminating than to prescribe a particular variety of +food for all invalids. The medical man who has a general formula for a +certain class of patients is hardly more thoughtful than the vender of +the "all-healing ointment."</p> + +<p>Little or no attention has been given to the vital subject of exercise +as a curative means. In many cases treated by Ling's methods, when +skilfully applied, the results have been so marvellous that medical men +who had not studied the philosophy of the Movement Cure have attributed +the rapid improvement to Animal Magnetism. They could not conceive that +muscular exercise alone could produce such wonderful results.</p> + +<p>Symmetry of body and mind is vital to health. Its loss in the mind leads +not unfrequently to insanity,—its loss in the body to numberless +maladies. The great defect in our system of education lies just here. +There is no discrimination between the members of a class, part of which +needs one kind of culture to produce symmetry and health, while another +part needs quite another. The gymnasium, where all perform the same +exercises, may be charged with the same radical defect. In a school for +thorough mental or physical training, pupils must be classified and +trained with reference to their individual needs. This principle +underlies the successful treatment of consumption. He who would +contribute to its cure by exercise—the most efficient of all possible +remedies—must not say to his patients simply, "Exercise, exercise, +exercise," but he must distinctly mark out those exercises which are +precisely adapted to the case of each.</p> + +<p>As an additional reason for discrimination in prescribing physical +exercises for consumptives, it may be mentioned that in almost every +patient belonging to this class there are complications with other +diseases each of which requires consideration.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISES POSSESSING PECULIAR VALUE FOR CONSUMPTIVES.</h4> + +<p>Most consumptive invalids are indisposed to exercise, and particularly +indisposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span> to employ their arms. Many attempt training of the shoulders +and chest, and abandon it in disgust. But if in the systematic +performance of the exercises other persons are interested, the patient +cannot withdraw. Besides, those exercises in which others participate +have social attractions, to which consumptives, as a class, are +peculiarly susceptible.</p> + +<p>For example, a consumptive young lady has brothers who assist her in +certain prescribed exercises. These are to be executed twice a day, at +hours when the brothers are at home. There is an affectionate interest +in the group with reference to the pleasant duty. It is not forgotten. +Suppose the brother is the patient, the sisters or mother will act as +assistants. In every family such exercises are sure of the proper +attention. I need scarcely say, that, if the patient undertake to +exercise alone, with dumb-bells or some similar means, it will soon grow +tiresome, and be abandoned.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is a matter of no small moment that other members of the +family—who are not unlikely to be predisposed to the same malady—will +thus secure a series of profitable exercises. I must add my conviction, +that by no other variety of training can the efforts be so accurately +directed to the muscles whose weakness permits the distortion of chest +which is often the exciting cause of the malady.</p> + +<p>With a good-sized room, and open windows, the air may be pure, while the +exercise will prove the occasion of a thorough ventilation of the house.</p> + +<p>I am indebted to Friedrich Robert Nitzsche of Dresden for the drawings +of the accompanying cuts. His works are invaluable.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 229px;"> +<img src="images/p671-illo1.jpg" width="229" height="448" alt="Fig. 1." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 1.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 1. Assistant, standing behind the patient, grasps his hands. +Patient draws up the hands, as shown in the dotted lines, assistant +resisting. Patient forces his hands back again to the first position, +assistant resisting. Repeat five times.</p> + +<p>In this, as in the other exercises advised, <i>the resistance should be +adapted to the patient's strength</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 276px;"> +<img src="images/p671-illo2.jpg" width="276" height="448" alt="Fig. 2." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 2.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 2. Assistant, standing behind the patient, who is seated, grasps +his uplifted hands. Patient draws down the hands, as shown by the dotted +lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces the hands back to the first +position, assistant resisting. Repeat three times.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 294px;"> +<img src="images/p672-illo1.jpg" width="294" height="448" alt="Fig. 3." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 3.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 3 shows an improvement on Fig. 2 for those cases in which, either +from the strength of the patient or the weakness of the assistant, it +might prove more agreeable to employ two assistants.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 330px;"> +<img src="images/p672-illo2.jpg" width="330" height="448" alt="Fig. 4." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 4.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/p672-illo3.jpg" width="336" height="358" alt="Fig. 5." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 5.</span> +</div> + +<p>Figs. 4 and 5 represent an exercise which hardly needs description. The +patient should exert the positive force in both directions, the +assistants resisting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/p673-illo1.jpg" width="336" height="443" alt="Fig. 6." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 6.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/p673-illo2.jpg" width="336" height="336" alt="Fig. 7." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 7.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 6 or 7 may be used next in order.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/p674-illo1.jpg" width="336" height="429" alt="Fig. 8" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 8</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 335px;"> +<img src="images/p674-illo2.jpg" width="335" height="448" alt="Fig. 9" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 9</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 8 shows an exercise valuable in the treatment of drooping +shoulders. When the patient has raised his arms, as in the dotted lines, +he may bring them back to the horizontal in front, without the +interference of the assistant.</p> + +<p>Fig. 9 illustrates an exercise which may be used twenty or thirty times, +if managed with gentleness.</p> + +<p>I cannot here undertake to say how often these exercises should be +employed, nor in what cases; they are given merely as suggestive. A +complete series of "Mutual Help Exercises," adapted to the treatment of +the consumptive, includes a large number, many of which are not only +valuable, but cannot fail to deeply interest all concerned.</p> + +<p>If to the Mutual Help Exercises it is desired to add those in which the +health-seeker can work alone, I would suggest the new exercises with the +wooden dumbbell, wand, and club, and the one hundred and seven exercises +with Schreber's Pangymnastikon.</p> + +<p>Consumption—genuine tuberculous consumption—can be cured, even in the +stage of softening or abscess. Dr. J. Hughes Bennett, Professor Calkins, +Dr. Parrish, Dr. Carswell, Laennec, Professor Lee, Dr. Abernethy, Sir +James Clarke, and fifty other distinguished authors, declare their faith +in its curability.</p> + +<p>In not less than a thousand <i>post-mortem</i> examinations, the lungs have +exhibited scars, concretions, or other indubitable evidences of recovery +from genuine consumption. I have cured many cases with exercise and +other hygienic agents.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VIOLET-PLANTING" id="VIOLET-PLANTING"></a>VIOLET-PLANTING.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">The heavy apple-trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are shaking off their snow in breezy play;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">The frail anemones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lanterned with white the chestnut-branches wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">And all the woods are gay.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Come, children, come away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we will make a flower-bed to-day<br /></span> +<span class="i12">About our dear one's grave!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">So noble and so fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How would they haste to bloom and weep above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart that loved them with so fond a love!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">Come, children, come!<br /></span> +<span class="i10">From the sweet, ferny meads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein he used to walk in days of yore,—<br /></span> +<span class="i10">From the green path that leads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the long dusty road seems wearisome,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Up to his father's door,—<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Gather the tender shoots<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of budding promise, fragrance, and delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Fresh-sprouting violet-roots,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">That, when the first June night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall draw about his bed its fragrant gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This grave-mound may be bathed in balmy bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With loving memories eloquently dumb.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Come, children, come!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">No more, alas, alas!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O fairest blossoms which the wild bee sips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along your pleasant places shall he pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere from your freshened leaves the night-dew drips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Culling your blooms in handfuls from the grass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pressing your tender faces to his lips,—<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Ah, never any more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I recall, a little while before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He passed behind this mystery of death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How, bringing home great handfuls, won away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dark wood-haunts where he loved to stray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until his dewy garments were replete<br /></span> +<span class="i12">With wafts of odorous breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">With sods all mossy-sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all awake and purple with new bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He filled and crowded every window-seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Until each pleasant room<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Was fragrant with your mystical perfume:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now vainly do I watch beside the door,—<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Ah, never any more!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">Alas, how could I know<br /></span> +<span class="i12">That I so soon should strew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your blossoms, warm with tears, above his head?<br /></span> +<span class="i12">That your wet roots would cling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the hand that wears his bridal ring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he who placed it there lay cold and dead?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">O violets, live and grow,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">That, ere the bright days go,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This turf may be with rarest beauty crowned!—<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Nay, shrink not from my touch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these are careful and most loving hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Fearing and hoping much,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which thus disturb your fair and wondering bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to transfer them to more holy ground.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Dear violets, bloom and live!<br /></span> +<span class="i10">To this beloved tomb<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Your beauty and your bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are the most precious tribute we can give.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, oh, if your sweet soul of odor goes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blended with the clear trills of singing-birds,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Farther than my poor speech<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Or wailing cry can reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into that realm of shadowy repose<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Toward which I blindly yearn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Praying in silence, "Oh, my love, return!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet dare not try to touch with groping words,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">So far it seems, and sweet,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That realm wherein I may not hope to be<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Until my wayworn feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put off the shoes of this mortality,—<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Oh, let your incense-breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laden with all this weight of love and woe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For him who went away so long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Bridge for me Time and Death!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">Blow, violets, blow!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tell him in your blooming, o'er and o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How in the places which he used to know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His name is still breathed fondly as of yore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell him how often, in the dear old ways<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Where bloomed our yesterdays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The radiant days which I shall find no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">My lingering footsteps shake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dew-drops from your leaves, for his dear sake.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Wake, blue eyes, wake!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">The earliest breath of June<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blows the white tassels from the cherry-boughs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the deepest shadow of the noon<br /></span> +<span class="i12">The mild-eyed oxen browse.<br /></span> +<span class="i12">How tranquilly he sleeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, whom so bitterly we mourn as dead!—<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Although the new month sweeps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The over-blossomed spring-flower from his bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Giving fresh buds therefor,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Although beside him still Love waits and weeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i12">And yonder goes the war.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">Wake, violets, wake!<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Open your blue eyes wide!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watch faithfully his lonely pillow here;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Let no rude foot-fall break<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your slender stems, nor crush your leaves aside;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">See that no harm comes near<br /></span> +<span class="i12">The dust to me so dear;—<br /></span> +<span class="i14">O violets, hear!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clouds hang low and heavy with warm rain,—<br /></span> +<span class="i12">And when I come again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, with your blossoms his loved grave shall be<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Blue as the marvellous sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laving the borders of his Italy!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PAUL_BLECKER" id="PAUL_BLECKER"></a>PAUL BLECKER.</h2> + +<h3>PART II.</h3> + + +<p>You do not like this Lizzy Gurney? I know. There are a dozen healthy +girls in that country-town whose histories would have been pleasanter to +write and to read. I chose hers purposely. I chose a bilious, morbid +woman to talk to you of, because American women are bilious and morbid. +Men all cling desperately to the old book-type of women, delicate, +sunny, helpless. I confess to even a man's hungry partiality for +them,—these roses of humanity, their genus and species emphasized by +but the faintest differing pungency of temper and common sense,—mere +crumpling of the rose-leaves. But how many of them do you meet on the +street?</p> + +<p>McKinstry (with most men) kept this ideal in his brain, and bestowed it +on every woman in a street-car possessed of soft eyes, gaiter-boots, and +a blush. Dr. Blecker (with all women) saw through that mask, and knew +them as they are. He knew there was no more prurient sign of the age of +groping and essay in which we live than the unrest and diseased brains +of its women.</p> + +<p>Lizzy Gurney was but like nine-tenths of the unmarried young girls of +the Northern States; there was some inactive, dumb power within,—she +called it genius; there was a consciousness that with a man's body she +would have been more of a man than her brother; there was, stronger than +all, the unconquerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span> craving of Nature for a husband's and child's +love,—she, powerless. So it found vent in this girl, as in the others, +in perpetual self-analyzing, in an hysteric clinging to one creed after +another,—in embracing the chimera of the Woman's-Rights prophets with +her brain, and thrusting it aside with her heart: after a while, to +lapse all into a marriage, made in heaven or hell, as the case might be.</p> + +<p>Dr. Blecker used no delicate euphuism in talking of women, which, maybe, +was as well. He knew, that, more than men, though quietly, they are +facing the problem of their lives, their unused powers, their sham +marriages, and speak of these things to their own souls with strong, +plebeian words. So much his Northern education opened his eyes to see, +but he stopped there; if he had been a clear-sighted truth-seeker, he +would have known that some day the problem would be solved, and by no +foul Free Love-ism. But Paul was enough Southerner by birth to shrink +from all inquiry or disquiet in women. If there were any problem of life +for them, Grey Gurney held it solved in her nature: that was all he +cared to know. Did she?</p> + +<p>After the regiment was gone, she went into the old work,—cooking, +sewing, nursing Pen. Very little of her brain or heart was needed for +that; the heavy surplus lay dormant. No matter; God knew. Jesus waited +thirty years in a carpenter's shop before He began His work,—to teach +<i>us</i> to wait: hardest lesson of all. Grey understood that well. Not only +at night or morning, but through the day, at the machine, or singing +songs to Pen, she used to tell her story over and over to this Jesus, +her Elder Brother, as she loved to call Him: <i>He</i> would not be tired of +hearing it, how happy she was,—she knew. She did not often speak of the +war to Him,—knowing how stupid she was, near-sighted, apt to be +prejudiced,—afraid to pray for one side or the other, there was such +bitter wrong on both; she knew it all lay in His hand, though; so she +was dumb, only saying, "<i>He</i> knows." But for herself, out of the need of +her woman's nature, she used to say, "I can do more than I do here. Give +me room, Lord. Let me be Paul Blecker's wife, for I love him." She +blushed, when even praying that silently in her heart. Then she used to +sing gayer songs, and have a good romp with the children and Pen in the +evenings, being so sure it would all come right. How, nobody could see: +who could keep this house up, with the ten hungry mouths, if she were +gone? But she only changed the song to an earnest hearty hymn, with the +thought of that. It would come at last: <i>He</i> knew.</p> + +<p>Was the problem solved in her?</p> + +<p>It being so sure a thing to her that this was one day to be, she began +in a shy way to prepare for it,—after the day's work was done to the +last stitch, taking from the bottom of her work-basket certain pieces of +muslin that fitted herself, and sewing on them in the quiet of her own +room. She did not sing when she worked at these; her cheeks burned, +though, and there was a happy shining in her eyes bright enough for +tears.</p> + +<p>Sitting, sewing there, when that July night came, she had no prescience +that her trial day was at hand: for to stoop-shouldered women over +machines, as well as to Job, a trial day does come, when Satan obtains +leave in heaven to work his will on them, straining the fibre they are +made of, that God may see what work they are fit for in the lives to +come. This was the way it came to the girl. That morning, when she was +stretching out some muslin to bleach in a light summer shower, there was +a skirmish down yonder in among some of the low coal-hills along the +Shenandoah, and half a dozen men were brought wounded in to Harper's +Ferry. There was no hospital there then; one of the half-burnt +Government offices was used for the purpose; and as the surgeon at that +post, Dr. Blecker, was one of the wounded, young Dr. Nott came over from +the next camp to see to them. His first cases: he had opened an office +only for six months, out in Portage, Ohio, before he got into the army; +in those six months he played chess principally, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span> did the poetry for +the weekly paper,—his tastes being innocent: the war has been a grand +outlet into a career for doctors and chaplains of that calibre. Dr. +Nott, coming into the low arsenal-room that night, stopped to brush the +clay off his trousers before going his rounds, and to whisk the attar of +rose from his handkerchief. "No fever? All wounds?" of the orderly who +carried the flaring tallow candle.</p> + +<p>All wounds: few of them, but those desperate. Even the vapid eyes of +Nott grew grave before he was through, and he ceased tipping on his +toes, and tittering: he was a good-hearted fellow, at bottom, growing +silent altogether when he came to operate on the surgeon, who had waited +until the last. "The ball is out, Dr. Blecker,"—looking up at length, +but not meeting the wounded man's eye.</p> + +<p>"I know. Cross the bandage now. You'll send a despatch for me, Nott? +There is some one I want to see, before——I'll hold out two or three +days?"</p> + +<p>"Pooh, pooh! Not so bad as that. We'll hope at least, Dr. Blecker, not +so bad as that. I've paper and pencil here." So Dr. Blecker sent the +despatch.</p> + +<p>It was a hot July night, soon after the seven days' slaughter at +Richmond. You remember how the air for weeks after that lay torpid with +a suppressed heat,—as though the very earth held her breath to hear the +sharp tidings of death. It never was fully told aloud,—whispered +only,—and even that hoarse whisper soon died out. We were growing used +to the taste of blood by that time, in North and South, like bulls in a +Spanish arena. This night, and in one or two following it, the ashy +sultriness overhead was hint of some latent storm. It is one of the vats +of the world where storms are brewed,—Harper's Ferry: stagnant +mountain-air shut in by circling peaks whose edges cut into the sky; the +sun looking straight down with a torrid compelling eye into the water +all the day long, until at evening it goes wearily up to him in a pale +sigh of mist, lingering to rest and say good-bye among the wooded sides +of the hills. Our hill-storms are generally bred there: it was not +without a certain meaning that the political cloud took its rise in this +town, whose thunder has shaken the continent with its bruit.</p> + +<p>Paul Blecker lay by a window: he could see the tempest gathering for +days: it was a stimulus that pleased him well. Death, or that nearness +to it which his wound had brought, fired his brain with a rare life, +like some wine of the old gods. The earth-life cleared to him, so tired +he grew then of paltry words and thoughts, standing closer to the inner +real truth of things. So, when he had said to the only creature who +cared for him, "They say I will not live, come and stay with me," he +never had doubted, as a more vulgar man might have done, that she would +come,—never doubted either, that, if it were true that he should die, +she would come again after him some day, to work and love yonder with +him,—his wife. Nature sends this calmness, quiet reliance on the real +verities of life, down there into that border-ground of death,—kind, as +is her wont to be. When the third day was near its close, he knew she +would come that night; half smiling to himself, as he thought of what an +ignorant, scared traveller she would be; wishing he could have seen her +bear down all difficulties in that turbulent house with her child-like +"He wants me,—I must go." How kind people would be to her on the road, +hearing her uncertain timid voice! Why, that woman might pass through +the whole army, even Blenker's division, unscathed: no roughness could +touch her, remembering the loving trust in her little freckled face, and +how innocently her soul looked out of her hazel eyes. He used to call +her Una sometimes: it was the only pet name he gave her. She was in the +Virginia mountains now. If he could but have been with her when she +first saw them! She would understand there why God took his prophets up +into the heights when He would talk to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span></p> + +<p>So thinking vaguely, but always of her, not of the fate that waited him, +if he should die. Literally, the woman was dearer to him than his own +soul.</p> + +<p>The room was low-ceiled, but broad, with windows opening on each side. +Overhead the light broke in through broken chinks in the rafters,—the +house being, in fact, but a ruin.</p> + +<p>A dozen low cots were scattered about the bare floor: on one a man lay +dead, ready for burial in the morning; on the others the men who were +wounded with him, bearing trouble cheerfully enough, trying, some of +them, to hum a chorus to "We're marching along," which the sentry sang +below.</p> + +<p>The room was dark: he was glad of that; when she came, she could not see +his altered face: only a dull sconce spattered at one end, under which +an orderly nodded over a dirty game of solitaire.</p> + +<p>Outside, he could see the reddish shadow of the sky on the mountains: a +dark shadow, making the unending forests look like dusky battalions of +giants scaling the heights. Below, the great tide of water swelled and +frothed angrily, trying to bury and hide the traces of the battles +fought on its shore: ruined bridges, masses of masonry, blackened beams +of cars and engines. One might fancy that Nature, in her grand +temperance, was ashamed of man's petty rage, and was striving to hide it +even from himself. Laurel and sumach bushes were thrusting green foliage +and maroon velvet flowers over the sand ledges on the rock where the +Confederate cannon had been placed; and even over the great masses of +burnt brick and granite that choked the valley, the delicate moss, +undaunted and indefatigable, was beginning to work its veiling way. Near +him he saw a small square building, uninjured,—the one in which John +Brown had been held prisoner: the Federal troops used it as a +guard-house now for captured Confederates.</p> + +<p>One of these men, a guerrilla, being sick, had been brought in to the +hospital, and lay in the bed next to Blecker's,—a raw-boned, +wooden-faced man, with oiled yellow whiskers, and cold, gray, sensual +eye: complaining incessantly in a whining voice,—a treacherous humbug +of a voice, Blecker fancied: it irritated him.</p> + +<p>"Move that man's bed away from mine to-morrow," he said to the nurse +that evening. "If I must die, let me hear something at the last that has +grit in it."</p> + +<p>He heard the man curse him; but even that was softly done.</p> + +<p>The storm was gathering slowly. Low, sharp gusts of wind crept along the +ground at intervals, curdling the surface of the water, shivering the +grass: far-off moans in the mountain-passes, beyond the Maryland +Heights, heard in the dead silence: abrupt frightened tremors in the +near bushes and tree-tops, then the endless forests swaying with a +sullen roar. The valley darkened quickly into night; a pale greenish +light, faint and fierce, began to flash in the north.</p> + +<p>"Thunder-storm coming," said the sleepy orderly, Sam, coming closer to +fasten the window.</p> + +<p>"Let it be open," said Blecker, trying nervously to rise on one arm. "It +is ten o'clock. I must hear the train come in."</p> + +<p>The man turned away, stopping by the bed of the prisoner to gossip +awhile before going down to camp. He thought, as they talked in a +desultory way, as men do, thrown together in the army, of who and what +they had been, that the Yankee doctor listened attentively, starting +forward, and throwing off the bed-clothes.</p> + +<p>"But he was an uneasy chap always, always," thought Sam, "as my old +woman would say,—in a kippage about somethin' or other. But darned ef +this a'n't somethin' more 'n usual,"—catching a glimpse of Blecker's +face turned toward the prisoner, a curious tigerish look in his +half-closed eyes.</p> + +<p>The whistle of the train was heard that moment far-off in the gorge. +Blecker did not heed it, beckoning silently to the orderly.</p> + +<p>"Go for the Colonel, for Sheppard," in a breathless way; "bring some +men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span> stout fellows that can lift. Quick, Sam, for God's sake!"</p> + +<p>The man obeyed, glancing at the prisoner, who lay with his eyes closed +as though asleep.</p> + +<p>"Blecker glowers at him as though he were the Devil,"—stopping outside +to light a cigar at the oil-lamp. "That little doctor has murder writ in +his face plain as print this minute."</p> + +<p>Sam may not have been wrong. Paul Blecker was virulent in hates, loves, +or opinions: in this sudden madness of a moment that possessed him, if +his feet would have dragged him to that bed yonder, and his wrists been +strong enough, he would have wrung the soul out of the man's body, and +flung him from his way. Looking at the limbs stretched out under the +sheet, the face, an obscene face, even with the eyes closed, as at a +deadly something that had suddenly reared itself between him and his +chance of heaven. The man was Grey Gurney's husband. She was coming: in +a moment, it might be, would be here. She thought that man dead. She +always should think him dead. He held back his breath in his clinched +teeth: that was all the sign of passion; his brain was never cooler, +more alert.</p> + +<p>Sheppard, the colonel of the regiment, a thick-set, burly little fellow, +with stubbly black whiskers and honest eyes, came stumping down the +room.</p> + +<p>"What is it, hey? Life and death, Blecker?"</p> + +<p>"More, to me," with a smile. "Make your men remove that man Gurney into +the lower ward. Don't stop to question, Colonel: I'll explain +afterwards. I'm surgeon of this post."</p> + +<p>"You're crotchety as a woman, Paul," laughed the other, as he gave the +order.</p> + +<p>"What d' ye mean to do, old fellow, with this wound of yours? Go under +for it, as you said at first?"</p> + +<p>"This morning I would have told you yes. I don't know now. I can't +afford to leave the world just yet. I'll fight death to the last +breath." Watching the removal of the prisoner as he spoke; when the door +closed on him, letting his head fall on the pillow with a sigh of +relief. "Sheppard, there was another matter I wished to see you about. +Your mother came to see me yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our +broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"——</p> + +<p>"Very good;—but there was another favor I wished to ask."</p> + +<p>"Well?"—staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor +crotchety Blecker's face grew.</p> + +<p>"By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you +told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I +believe."</p> + +<p>The redness grew hotter.</p> + +<p>"It was that I meant to ask of her,—you knew?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good +and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate +it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for +mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? +Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow +already!"</p> + +<p>Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long +hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his +very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the +prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him +dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for +that crime, he took it on his own soul,—now. And so turned with a smile +to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, +hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs +shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of +nursing; 's got no notion of dying."</p> + +<p>"I knew he wouldn't die," she said, half to herself, not speaking to +Paul,—only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span> he held both her hands in his, and looked in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Sheppard, after the first glance over the little brown figure and the +face under the Shaker hood, had stood, hat in hand, with something of +the same home-trusty smile he gave his wife on his mouth. The little +square-built body in black seeded silk and widow's cap, that had +convoyed the girl in, touched the Colonel's elbow, and they turned their +backs to the bed,—talking of hot coffee and sandwiches. Paul drew her +down.</p> + +<p>"My wife, Grey? <i>Mine?</i>" his breath thin and cold,—because no oath now +could make that sure.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Paul."</p> + +<p>He shut his eyes. She wondered that he did not smile when she put her +timorous fingers in his tangled hair. He thought he would die, maybe. He +could not die. Her feet seemed to take firmer root into the ground. A +clammy damp broke out over her body. He did not know how she had +wrestled in prayer; he did not believe in prayer. He could not die. That +which a believer asked of God, believing He would grant, was granted. +She held him in life by her hand on Christ's arm.</p> + +<p>"Were you afraid to travel alone, eh?"</p> + +<p>Grey looked up. The little figure facing her had a body that somehow put +you in mind of unraised dough: and there was nothing spongy or porous or +delusive in the solid little soul either, inside of the body,—that was +plain. She looked as if Kentucky had sent her out, a tight, right, +compact drill-sergeant, an embodiment of Western reason, to try by +herself at drum-head court-martial the whole rank and file of +Northernisms, airy and intangible illusions. Nothing about her that did +not summon you to stand and deliver common sense; the faint down on her +upper-lip, the clog-soled shoes, the stiff dress, the rope of a gold +watch-chain, the single pure diamond blazing on one chubby white hand, +the general effect of a lager-bier keg, unmovable, self-poised, the +round black eyes, the two black puffs of hair on each temple, said with +one voice, "No fooling now; no chance for humbug here." Why should there +be? One of the Shelbys; well-built in bone and blood, honest, +educated,—mule-raisers; courted by General Sheppard according to form, +a modest, industrious girl, a dignified, eminently sensible wife, a +blindly loving mother, a shrewd business-woman as a widow. Her son was a +Christian, her slaves were fat and contented, her mules the best stock +imported. She hated the Abolitionists, lank, uncombed, ill-bred +fanatics; despised the Secessionists as disappointed Democrats; clung +desperately to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the +laws, not knowing she was holding to the most airy and illusive nothings +of all. So she was here with Pratt, her son, at Harper's Ferry, nursing +the sick, keeping a sharp eye on the stock her overseer sold to +Government, looking into the face of every Rebel prisoner brought in, +with a very woman's sick heart, but colder growing eyes. For Buckner, +you know, had induced Harry to go into the Southern army. Harry Clay, +(they lived near Ashland,)—Harry was his mother's pet, before this, the +youngest. If he was wounded, like to die, not all their guerrillas or +pickets should keep her back; though, when he was well, she would leave +him without a word. He had gone, like the prodigal son, to fill his +belly with the husks the swine did eat,—and not until he came back, +like the prodigal son, would she forgive him. But if he was wounded—If +Grey had stopped one hour before coming to this man she loved, she would +have despised her.</p> + +<p>"Were you afraid to travel alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I brought Pen for company, Paul. You did not see that I +brought Pen."</p> + +<p>But Pen shied from the outstretched hand, and had recourse to a vial of +spirituous-looking liquorice-water.</p> + +<p>It was raining now, heavily. By some occult influence, Mrs. Sheppard had +caused a table to spring up beside the bed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span> whereon a cozy +round-stomached oil-lamp burned and flared in the wind, in a jolly, +drunken fashion, and a coffee-pot sent out mellow whiffs of brown steam.</p> + +<p>"It's Mocha, my dear,—not rye. I mean to support my Government, and +I'll not shirk the duty when it comes to taxes on coffee. So you were +afraid? It's the great glory of our country that a woman can travel +unprotected from one end to——Well. But you are young and silly yet."</p> + +<p>And she handed Grey a cup with a relaxing mouth, which showed, that, +though she were a woman herself, capable of swallowing pills without +jelly, she did not hope for as much from weaker human nature.</p> + +<p>Paul Blecker had not heard the thunder the first hour Grey was there, +nor seen the livid flashes lighting up those savagest heights in the +mountains: his eye was fixed on that yellow door yonder in the +flickering darkness of the room, and on the possibility that lay beyond +it.</p> + +<p>Now, while Grey, growing used to her new home, talked to Pen and her +hostess, Paul's thoughts came in cheerier and warmer: noting how the +rain plashed like a wide sweep of loneliness outside, forcing all +brightness and comfort in,—how the red lamp-light glowed, how even the +pale faces of the men, in the cold beds yonder, grew less dour and +rigid, looking at them; hearing the low chirp of Grey's voice now and +then,—her eyes turned always on him, watchful, still. It was like home, +that broad, half-burnt arsenal-room. Even the comfortable little black +figure, sturdily clicking steel needles through an uncompromising pair +of gray socks, fitted well and with meaning into the picture, and burly +Pratt Sheppard holding little Pen on his knee, his grizzly black brows +knitted. Because Mary, down at home there, was nursing his baby boy now, +most likely, just as he held this one. His baby was only a few months +old: he had never seen it: perhaps he might never see it.</p> + +<p>"She looks like Mary, a bit, mother, eh?"—nodding to Grey, and +steadying one foot on the rung of his chair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sheppard shot a sharp glance.</p> + +<p>"About the nose? Mary's is sharper."</p> + +<p>"The forehead, <i>I</i> think. Hair has the same curly twist."</p> + +<p>Grey, hearing the whisper, colored, and laughed, and presently took off +the Shaker hood.</p> + +<p>"'Pon my soul, mother, it's a remarkable likeness.—You're <i>not</i> related +to the Furnesses, Miss Gurney,—Furnesses of Tennessee?"</p> + +<p>"Pratt sees his wife in every woman he meets," said his mother, toeing +off her sock.</p> + +<p>She had not much patience with Pratt's wife-worship: some of these days +he'd be sold to those Furnesses, soul and body. They were a mawkish, +"genteel" set: from genteel people might the Lord deliver her!</p> + +<p>"Does the boy look like this one at all, mother?—I never saw my boy, +Miss Gurney,"—explaining. "Fellows are shirking so now, I won't ask for +a furlough."</p> + +<p>"The child's a Shelby, out and out,"—angrily enough. "Look here, Dr. +Blecker,"—pulling up her skirt, to come at an enormous pocket in her +petticoat. "Here's the daguerreotype, taken when he was just four weeks +old, and there's Pratt's eyes and chin to a T. D'ye see? Pratt <i>was</i> a +fine child,—weighed fourteen pounds. But he was colicky to the last +degree. And as for croup——Does your Pen have croup, Miss Grey? Sit +here. These men won't care to hear our talk."</p> + +<p>They did care to hear it. It was not altogether because Blecker was +weakened by sickness that he lay there listening and talking so +earnestly about their home and Grey's, the boy and Mary,—telling +trifles, too, which he remembered, of his own childhood. It was such a +new, cordial, heartsome life which this bit of innocent gossip opened to +him. What a happy fellow old Pratt was, with his wife and child! Good +fighter, too. Well, some day, maybe, he, too—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>They were all quiet that night, coming closer together, maybe because +they heard the rain rushing down the gorges, and knew what ruin and +grief and slaughter waited without. Looking back at that night often +through the vacancy of coming days, Paul used to say, "I was at home +then," and after that try to whistle its thought off in a tune. He never +had been at home before.</p> + +<p>So, after that night, the summer days crept on, and out of sight: the +sea of air in which the earth lay coloring and massing the sunlight down +into its thin ether, until it ebbed slowly away again in yellow glows, +tinctured with smells of harvest-fields and forests, clear and pungent, +more rare than that of flowers. Here and there a harvest-field in the +States was made foul with powder, mud,—the grain flat under broken +artillery-wheels, canteens, out of which oozed the few drops of whiskey, +torn rags of flesh, and beyond, heaped in some unploughed furrow, a +dozen, a hundred, thousands, it may be, of useless bodies, dead to no +end. Up yonder in New England, or down in some sugar-plantation, or +along the Lakes, some woman's heart let the fresh life slip out of it, +to go down into the grave with that dead flesh, to grovel there, while +she dragged her tired feet the rest of the way through the world. Her +pain was blind; but that was all that was blind. The wind, touching the +crimson moccasin-flower in the ditch, and the shining red drops beside +it, said only, "It is the same color; God wills they shall be there," +and went unsaddened on its appointed way. The white flesh, the curly +hair, (every ring of that hair the woman yonder knew by heart,) gave +back their color cheerily in the sunlight, and sank into the earth to +begin their new work of roots and blossoming, and the soul passed as +quietly into the next wider range of labor and of rest. And God's +eternal laws of sequence and order worked calmly, and remained under +all.</p> + +<p>This world without the valley grew widely vague to Blecker, as he lay +there for weeks. These battles he read of every morning subserved no +end: the cause stood motionless; only so many blue-coated machines +rendered useless: but behind the machines—what? That was what touched +him now: every hour some touch of Grey's, some word of the home-loving +Kentuckians, even Pen's giant-stories, told as he sat perched on +Blecker's bolster, made him think of this, when he read of a battle. So +many thousand somethings dead, who pulled a trigger well or ill, for +money or otherwise; so much brute force lost; behind that, a home +somewhere, clinging little hands, a man's aspirations, millions of fears +and hopes, religion, chances of a better foothold in the next life. It +was that background, after all, the home-life, the notions of purity, +honor, bravery absorbed there, that made the man a man in the +battle-field.</p> + +<p>So, lying on the straw mattress there, this man, who had been making +himself from the first, got into the core of the matter at last, into +his own soul-life, brought himself up face to face with God and the +Devil, letting the outside world, the great war, drift out of sight for +the time. His battle-field was here in this ruined plat of houses, +prisoned by peaks that touched the sky. The issues of the great +struggles without were not in his hands; this was. What should he do +with this woman, with himself?</p> + +<p>He gained strength day by day. They did not know it, he was so grave and +still, not joining in the hearty, cheery life of the arsenal-room; for +Mrs. Sheppard had swept the half-drunken Dutch nurses out of the +hospital, and she and Grey took charge of the dozen wounded men (many +dainty modiste-made ladies find that they are God-made women in this +war). So the room had whitened and brightened every day; the red, +unshaved faces slept sounder on their clean pillows; the men ate with a +relish; and Grey, being the best of listeners, had carried from every +bed a story of some home in Iowa or Georgia or the North. Only behind +the yellow door yonder she never went. Blecker had ordered that,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span> and +she obeyed like a child in everything.</p> + +<p>So like a child, that Mrs. Sheppard, very tender of her, yet treated her +with as much deference as she might a mild kitten. That girl was just as +anxious that Bill Sanders's broth should be properly salted, and Pen's +pinafore white, as she was to know Banks's position. Pish! Yet Mrs. +Sheppard told Pen pages of "Mother Goose" in the evenings, that the girl +might have time to read to Doctor Blecker. She loved him as well as if +he were her husband; and a good wife she would be to him! Paul, looking +at the two, as they sat by his bedside, knew better than she; saw +clearly in which woman lay the spring of steel, that he never could +bend, if her sense of right touched it. He used to hold her freckled +little hands, growing yellow and rough with the hard work, in his, +wondering what God meant him to do. If they both could lie dead together +in that great grave-pit behind the Virginia Heights, it would have been +relief to him. If he should let her go blindfold into whatever hell lay +beyond death, it would be more merciful to her than to give her to her +husband yonder. For himself—No, he would think only of her, how she +could be pure and happy. Yet bigamy? No theory, no creed could put that +word out of his brain, when he looked into her eyes. Never were eyes so +genial or so pure. The man Gurney, he learned from Sheppard and Nott, +recovered but slowly; yet there was no time to lose; a trivial accident +might reveal all to her. Whatever struggle was in Blecker's mind came to +an end at last; he would go through with what he purposed; if there were +crime in it, he took it to his own soul's reckoning, as he said before.</p> + +<p>It was a cool morning in early August, when the Doctor first crept out +of bed; a nipping north-wind, with a breath of far-off frost in it, just +enough to redden the protruding cheek of the round gum-trees on the +mountain-ledges and make them burn and flame in among the swelling green +of the forests. He dragged himself slowly to the wooden steps and waited +in the sunshine. The day would be short, but the great work of his life +should be done in it.</p> + +<p>"Sheppard!" he called, seeing the two square, black figures of the +Colonel and his mother trotting across the sunny street.</p> + +<p>"Hillo! you'll report yourself ready for service soon, at this rate, +Doctor."</p> + +<p>"In a week. That man Gurney. When can he be removed?"</p> + +<p>"What interest can you have in that dirty log, Blecker? I've noticed the +man since you asked of him. He's only a Northern rogue weakened into a +Southern bully."</p> + +<p>"I know. But his family are known to me. I have an order for his +exchange: it came yesterday. He holds rank as captain in the other +service, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—but he's in no hurry to leave his bed, Nott tells me."</p> + +<p>"This order may quicken his recovery, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>Sheppard laughed.</p> + +<p>"You are anxious to restore him to his chances of promotion down yonder; +yet I fancied I saw no especial love for him in your eyes, heh? Maybe +you'd promote him to the front rank, as was done with Uriah,—what d' ye +say, Paul?"</p> + +<p>He went on laughing, without waiting for an answer.</p> + +<p>"As was done with Uriah?" Pah, what folly was this? He took out his +handkerchief, wiping his face and neck; he felt cold and damp,—from +weakness, it might be.</p> + +<p>"You will tell that man Gurney, Sam," beckoning to the orderly who was +loitering near, "that an order for his exchange is made out, when he is +able to avail himself of it."</p> + +<p>"Won't you see him yerself, Doctor?" insinuated Sam. "He's a weak +critter, an' 'll be monstrous thankful, I'm thinkin'."</p> + +<p>Blecker shook his head and turned off,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span> waiting for Mrs. Sheppard. She +was on the sidewalk, laying down the law to the chaplain, who, with his +gilt-banded cap, looked amazingly like a footman. The lady's tones had +the Kentucky, loud, mellow ring; her foot tapped, and her nervous +fingers emphasized the words against her palm.</p> + +<p>"Ill-bred," thought the young man; but he bowed, smiling suavely. "If I +have been derelict in duty, Madam, I will be judged by a Higher Power."</p> + +<p>"But it's my way, young Sir, to go to the root of the matter, when I see +things rotting,—be it a potato-field or a church. We're plain-tongued +in my State. And I think the Higher Power needs a mouth-piece just now."</p> + +<p>And something nobler of mien than good-breeding gave to Sarah Sheppard's +earnest, pursy little figure meaning just then, before which the flimsy +student of the Thirty-Nine Articles stood silent.</p> + +<p>"I'm an old woman, young man; you're a boy, and the white cravat about +your neck gives me no more respect for you than the bit of down on your +chin, so long as you are unworthy to wear either. We Virginians and +Kentuckians may be shelled up yet in our old-fogy notions; it's likely, +as you say. We don't understand the rights of man, maybe, or know just +where Humanity has got to in its progress. But we've a grip on the +old-fashioned Christianity, and we mean to make it new again. And when I +see hundreds of young, penniless preachers, and old, placeless +preachers, shoving into the army for the fat salaries, drinking, +card-playing with the men, preaching murder instead of Christ's gospel +of peace, I'll speak, though I am a woman. I'll call them the Devil's +servants instead of the Lord's, and his best and helpfullest servants, +too, nowadays. If there's a time when a man's soul cries out to get a +clear sight of God, it's when he's standing up for what he thinks right, +with his face to the foe, and his country behind him. And it's not the +droning, slovenly prayers nor hashed-up political speeches of such men +as you, that will show Him to them. Oh, my son!" putting her hand on the +young man's arm, her voice unsteady, choking a minute, "I wish you'd be +earnest, a peace-teacher like your Master. It's no wonder the men +complain of the Federal chaplains as shams and humbugs. I don't know how +it is on the other side. I've a son there,—Harry. I'd like to think +he'd hear some live words of great truth before he goes into battle. Not +vapid gabbling over the stale, worn-out cant, nor abuse of the enemy. +When he's lying there, the blood coming from his heart on the sod, life +won't be stale to him, nor death, nor the helping blood of the cross. +And for his enemy, when he lies dead there, my Harry, would God love his +soul better because it came to Him filled with hate of his brother?"</p> + +<p>She was half talking to herself now, and the young man drew his +coat-sleeve out of her hold and slipped away. Afterwards he said that +old lady was half-Secesh, because she had a son in the Rebel army; but I +think her words left some meaning in his brain other than that.</p> + +<p>She met Blecker, her face redder, her eyebrows blacker than usual.</p> + +<p>"You up and out, Doctor Blecker? Very well! You'll pay for it in fever +to-morrow. But every young man is wiser in his own conceit, to-day, than +seven men that can render a reason. It was not so in my day. Young +people knew their age. I never sat down before my mother without +permission granted, nor had an opinion of my own."</p> + +<p>She stood silent a moment, cooling.</p> + +<p>"Pha, pha! I'm a foolish old body. Fretting and fuming to no purpose, +likely. There's Pratt, now, laughing, down the street. 'Mother, if +you're going to have one of your brigazoos with that young parson, I'm +off,' he says. He says,—'You're not in your own country, where the +Shelbys rule the roast.' What if I'm not, Doctor Blecker? Truth's truth. +I'm tired of cant, whether it belongs to the New-England new age of +reason, their Humanity and Fourierism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span> and Broad-Church and Free-Love, +or what not, or our own Southern hard-bit, tight-reined men's creeds. +Not God's,—driving men headlong into one pit, all but a penned-up +dozen. I'm going back of all churches to the words of Jesus. There's my +platform. But you said you wanted to speak with me. What's <i>your</i> +trouble?"</p> + +<p>Blecker hesitated,—not knowing how this sturdy interpreter of the words +of Jesus would look on his marriage with another man's wife, if she +understood the matter clearly. He fumbled his cravat a minute, feeling +alone, as if the earth and heaven were vacant,—no background for him to +lean against. Men usually do stand thus solitary, when they are left to +choose by God.</p> + +<p>"You're hard on the young fellow, Mrs. Sheppard. I wish for my own sake +he was a better specimen of his cloth. There's no one else here to marry +me."</p> + +<p>"Tut! no difference what <i>he</i> is,"—growing graver, as she spoke. "God's +blessing comes pure, if the lips are not the cleanest that speak it. You +are resolved, then, on your course, as you spoke to me last night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am, if Grey will listen to reason. You and the Colonel leave +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she cannot stay here behind me, to a certainty. Pratt is +ordered off, and I must go see to my three-year-olds. Morgan will have +them before I know what I'm about. I'll take the girl back to Wheeling, +so far on her way home. As to this marriage"——</p> + +<p>She stopped, with her fingers on her chin. The Doctor laughed to +himself. She was deciding on Grey's fate and his, as if they were a pair +of her three-year-olds that Government wanted to buy.</p> + +<p>"It's unseemly, when the child's father is not here. That's how it seems +to me, Dr. Blecker. As for love, and that, it will keep. Pha, pha! +There's one suggestion of weight in favor of it. If you were killed in +battle, the girl would have some provision as your widow that she could +not have now. D'ye see?"</p> + +<p>Blecker laughed uneasily.</p> + +<p>"I see; you come at the bone of the matter, certainly. I have concluded, +Mrs. Sheppard, Grey must go with you; but she shall leave here as my +wife. If there is any evil consequence, it shall come to me."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence. He avoided the searching black eyes fixed +on his face.</p> + +<p>"It is not for me to judge in this matter," she said, with some reserve. +"The girl is a good girl, however, and I will try and take the place of +a mother to her. You have reasons for this haste unknown to me, +probably. When do you wish the ceremony, and where, Doctor? The church +up yonder," sliding into her easy, dogmatic tone again; "it's one of the +few whole roofs in the place. That is best,—yes. And for time, say +sunset. That will suit me. I must go write to that do nothing M'Key +about the trousers for Pratt's men. They're boxed up in New York yet: +and then I've to see to getting a supply of blue pills. If you'll only +give one to each man two nights before going into battle, just enough to +stir their livers up, you'll find it work like a charm in helping them +to fight. Sundown,—yes. I cannot attend to it possibly before."</p> + +<p>"It was the time I had fixed upon, if Grey consents."</p> + +<p>"Pah! she's a bit of linen rag, that child. You can turn her round your +finger, and you know it. You will find her down on the shore, I think. I +must go and tell my young parson he had better read over the ceremony +once or twice to be posted up in it."</p> + +<p>"To be sure, Pratt," she said, a few moments after, as she detailed the +intended programme to the Colonel, farther down the street,—"to be +sure, it's too hasty. I have not had time to give it consideration as I +ought. These wartimes, my brain is so thronged night and day. But I +think it's a good match. There's an honest, downright vein in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span> young +Blecker that'll make a healthy life. Wants birth, to be sure. Girl's got +that. You needn't sneer, Pratt. It is only men and women that come of +the old rooted families, bad or good, that are self-poised. Made men +always have an unsteady flicker, a hitch in their brains +somewhere,—like your Doctor, eh? Grey's out of one of the solid old +Pennsylvania stocks. Better blooded the mule, the easier goer, fast or +not."</p> + +<p>She shut her porte-monnaie with a click, and repinned her little veil +that struck out behind her, stiff, pennant-wise, as she walked.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've no time now. I'm going to drop in and see that Gurney, and +tell him he's exchanged. And the sooner he's up and out, the better for +him. Dyspepsia's what ails <i>him</i>. I'll get him out for a walk to-day. 'S +cool and bracing."</p> + +<p>It was a bracing day, the current of wind coming in between the Maryland +Heights fresh and vigorous, driving rifts of gray cloud across the +transparent blue overhead. A healthy, growing day, the farmers called +it; one did fancy, too, that the late crops, sowed after the last +skirmish about the town, did thrust out their green blades more +hopefully to-day than before; the Indian corn fattened and yellowed +under its tresses of soft sun-burnt silk. Grey, going with Pen that +afternoon through a great field of it, caught the clean, damp perfume of +its husk; it put her in mind of long ago, somehow, when she was no older +than Pen. So she stopped to gather the scarlet poppies along the fence, +to make "court-ladies" out of them for him, as she used to do for +herself in those old times.</p> + +<p>"Make me some shawls for them," said Pen, presenting her some +lilac-leaves, which she proceeded to ornament by biting patterns with +her teeth.</p> + +<p>"Oth said, if I eat poppy-seeds, I'd sleep, an' never waken again. Is +that true, Sis?"</p> + +<p>"I believe it is. I don't know."</p> + +<p>Death and eternal sleeps were dim, far-off matters to Grey always,—very +trivial to-day. She was a healthy, strong-nerved woman, loving God and +her kin with every breath of her body, not likely to trouble herself +about death, or ever to take her life as a mean, stingy makeshift and +cheat, a mere rotten bridge to carry her over to something better, as +more spiritually-minded women do. It was altogether good and great; +every minute she wanted a firmer hold on it, to wring more work and +pleasure out of it. She was so glad to live. God was in this world. +Sure. She knew that, every moment she prayed. In the other? Yes; but +then that was shadowy, and there were no shadows nor affinity for them +in Grey. This was a certainty,—here. And to-day——So content to be +alive to-day, that a something dumb in her brown eyes made Pen, looking +up, laugh out loud.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, Sis. You're a mighty good old Sis to-day. Let's go down to the +river."</p> + +<p>They went down by the upper road, leaving the town behind them. The road +was only a wide, rutted cow-path on the side of the hill. Here and there +a broken artillery-wheel, or bomb-shell, or a ragged soldier's jacket +lay among the purple iron-weed. She would not see them—to-day. Instead, +she saw how dark the maple-leaves were growing,—it was nearly time for +them to turn now; the air was clear and strong this morning, as if it +brought a new lease of life into the world; on the hill-banks, brown and +ash-colored lichen, and every shade of green, from pale apple-tint to +the blackish shadows like moss in October, caught the sunshine, in the +cheeriest fashion. Yellow butterflies chased each other about the grass, +tipsily; the underbrush was full of birds, chattering, chirping calls, +stopping now and then to thrill the air up to heaven with a sudden +shiver of delight,—so glad even they were to be alive. Mere flecks of +birds, some of them, bits of shining blue and scarlet and brown, +trembling in and out of the bushes: chippeys, for instance,—you +know?—so contemptibly little; it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span> ridiculous, in these sad times, +to see how much joy they made their small bodies hold. But it isn't +their fault that they only have instinct, and not reason. I'm afraid +Grey, with most women, was very near their predicament. That day was so +healthy, though, that the very bees got out of their drowsiness, and +made a sort of song of their everlasting hum; and that old coffin-maker +of a woodpecker in the hollow beech down by the bridge set to work at +his funereal "thud, thud," with such sudden vigor, it sounded like a +heartsome drum, actually, beating the reveille. Not much need of that: +Grey thought the whole world was quite awake: looking up to the +mountains, she did not feel their awful significance of rest, as Paul +Blecker might have done. They only looked to her like the arms this +world had to lift up to heaven its forests and flowers,—to say, "See +how glad and beautiful I am!" Why, up there in those barest peaks above +the clouds she had seen delicate little lakes nestling, brimming with +light and lilies.</p> + +<p>They came to the river, she and Pen, where it bends through the gorge, +and sat down there under a ledge of sandstone, one groping finger of the +sunshine coming in to hold her freckled cheek and soft reddish hair. +They say the sun does shine the same on just and unjust; but he likes +best to linger, I know, on things wholesome and pure like this girl. +When Pen began to play "jacks" with the smooth stones on the shore, she +spread out her skirt for him to sit on,—to keep him close, hugging him +now and then, with the tears coming to her eyes: because she had seen +Paul an hour before, and promised all he asked. And Pen was the only +thing there of home, you know. And on this her wedding-day she loved +them all with a hungry pain, somehow, as never before. She was going +back to-morrow; she could work and help them just as before; and yet a +gulf seemed opening between them forever. She had been selfish and +petulant,—she saw that now; sometimes impatient with her old father's +trumpery rocks, or Lizzy's discontent; in a rage, often, at Joseph. Now +she saw how hardly life had dealt with them, how poor and bare their +lives were. <i>She</i> might have made them warmer and softer, if she had +chosen. Please God, she would try, when she went home again,—wiping the +hot tears off, and kissing Pen's dismal face, until he rebelled. The +shadows were lengthening, the rock above her threw a jagged, black +boundary about her feet. When the sun was behind yon farthest hill she +was going back, up to the little church, with Pen; then she would give +herself to her master, forever.</p> + +<p>Whatever feeling this brought into her soul, she kept it there silent, +not coming to her face as the other had done in blushes or tears. She +waited, her hands clutched together, watching the slow sinking of the +sun. Not even to Paul had she said what this hour was to her. She had +come a long journey; this was the end.</p> + +<p>"I would like to be alone until the time comes," she had said, and had +left him. He did not know what he was to the girl; she loved him, +moderately, he thought, with a temperate appreciation that taunted his +hot passion. She did not choose that even he should know with what +desperate abandonment of self she had absorbed his life into hers. She +chose to be alone, shrinking, with a sort of hatred, from the vulgar or +strange eyes that would follow her into the church. In this beginning of +her new life she wanted to be alone with God and this soul, only kinsman +of her own. If they could but go, Paul and she, up into one of these +mountain-peaks, with Him that made them very near, and there give +themselves to each other, before God, forever!</p> + +<p>She sat, her hands clasped about her knees, looking into the gurgling +water. The cool, ashen hue that precedes sunset in the mountains began +to creep through the air. The child had crouched down at her feet, and +fallen into a half doze. It was so still that she heard far down the +path a man's footsteps crushing the sand, coming close. She did not +turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span> her head,—only the sudden blood dyed her face and neck.</p> + +<p>"Paul!"</p> + +<p>She knew he was coming for her. No answer. She stood up then, and looked +around. It was the prisoner Gurney, leaning against the rock, +motionless, only that he twisted a silk handkerchief nervously in his +hand, looking down at it, and crunching tobacco vehemently in his teeth.</p> + +<p>"I've met you at last, Grey. I knew you were at the Ferry."</p> + +<p>The girl said nothing. Sudden death, or a mortal thrust of Fate, like +this, brings only dumb astonishment at first: no pain. She put her +fingers to her throat: there was a lump in it, choking her. He laughed, +uneasily.</p> + +<p>"It's a devilish cool welcome, considering you are my wife."</p> + +<p>Pen woke and began to cry. She patted his shoulder in a dazed way, her +eyes never leaving the man's face; then she went close, and caught him +by the arm.</p> + +<p>"It is flesh and blood,"—shaking her off. "I'm not dead. You thought I +was dead, did you? I got that letter written from Cuba,"—toying with +his whiskers, with a complacent smirk. "That was the sharpest dodge of +my life, Grey. Fact is, I was damnably in debt, and tied up with your +people, and I cut loose. So, eh? What d' ye think of it, Puss?" putting +his hand on her arm. "<i>Wife</i>, eh?"</p> + +<p>She drew back against the sandstone with a hoarse whisper of a cry such +as can leave a woman's lips but once or twice in a lifetime: an animal +tortured near its death utters something like it, trying to speak.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, I don't want to incommode you,"—shifting his feet +uncertainly. "I—it's not my will I came across you. Single life suits +me. And you too, heh? I've been rollicking round these four years,—Tom +Crane and I: you don't know Tom, though. Plains,—Valparaiso,—New +Orleans. Well, I'm going to see this shindy out in the States now. Tom's +in it, head-devil of a guerrilla-band. <i>I</i> keep safe. Let Jack Gurney +alone for keeping a whole skin! But, eh, Grey?"—mounting a pair of +gold-rimmed eye-glasses over his thick nose. "You've grown. Different +woman, by George! Nothing but a puling, gawky girl, when I went away. +Your eyes and skin have got color,—luscious-looking: why, your eyes +flash like a young bison's we trapped out in Nevada. Come, kiss me, +Grey. Eh?"—looking in the brown eyes that met his, and stopping short +in his approach.</p> + +<p>Of the man and woman standing there face to face the woman's soul was +the more guilty, it may be, in God's eyes, that minute. She loathed him +with such intensity of hatred. The leer in his eyes was that of a fiend, +to her. In which she was wrong. There are no thorough-bred villains, out +of novels: even Judas had a redeeming trait (out of which he hanged +himself). This man Gurney had a weak, incomplete brain, strong sensual +instincts, and thick blood thirsty for excitement,—all, probably, you +could justly say of Nero. He did not care especially to torment the +woman,—would rather she were happy than not,—unless, indeed, he needed +her pain. So he stopped, regarding her. Enough of a true voluptuary, +too, to shun turmoil.</p> + +<p>"There! hush! For God's sake don't begin to cry out. I'm weak yet; can't +bear noise."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to cry," her voice so low he had to stoop to hear. +Something, too, in her heart that made her push Pen from her, when he +fumbled to unclasp her clinched hands,—some feeling she knew to be so +foul she dared not touch him.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to claim me as your wife, John?"</p> + +<p>He did not reply immediately; leisurely inspecting her from head to +foot, as she stood bent, her eyes lying like a dead weight on his, +patting and curling his yellow whiskers meanwhile.</p> + +<p>"Wife, heh? I don't know. Your face is getting gray. Where's that +pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</a></span> color gone you had a bit ago, Puss? By George!"—laughing,—"I +don't think it would need much more temptation to make a murderer out of +you. I did not expect you to remember the old days so well. I was hard +on you then,"—stopping, with a look of half admiration, half fear, to +criticize her again. "Well, well, I'll be serious. Will I claim you +again? N—o. On the whole, I believe not. I'll be candid, Grey,—I +always was a candid man, you know. I'd like well enough to have the +taming of you. It would keep a man alive to play Petruchio to such a +Kate, 'pon honor! But I do hate the trammels,—I've cut loose so long, +you see. You're not enough to tempt a fellow to hang out as family man +again. It's the cursedest slavery! So I think," poising his ringed +finders on his chin, thoughtfully, "we'd best settle it this way. I'll +take my exchange and go South, and we'll keep our own counsel. Nobody's +wiser. If it suits you to say I'm dead, why, I'm dead at your service. I +won't trouble you again. Or if you would rather, you can sue out a +divorce in some of the States,—wilful desertion, etc. I'm willing."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"In any case you are free."</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands.</p> + +<p>"I am never free again! never again!"—sobs coming now, shaking her +body. She crouched down on the ground, burying her head out of sight.</p> + +<p>"Tut! tut! A scene, after all! I tell you, girl, I'll do what you wish."</p> + +<p>She raised her head.</p> + +<p>"If you were <i>dead</i>, John Gurney! That is all. I was going to be a pure, +good, happy woman, and now"——</p> + +<p>Her eyes closed, her head fell slowly on her breast, her hands and face +gray with the mottled blood blued under the eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, damn it! Poor thing! She won't know anything for a bit," said +Gurney, laying her head back against the sandstone. "I'll be off. What a +devil she is, to be sure! Boy, you'd best put some water on your +sister's face in a minute or two,"—to the whimpering Pen. "If I was +safe out of this scrape, and off from the Ferry"——</p> + +<p>And thrusting his eye-glass into his pocket, he went up the hill, still +chafing his whiskers. Near the town he met Paul Blecker. The sun was +nearly down. The Doctor stopped short, looking at the man's face +fixedly. He found nothing there, but a vapid self-complacency.</p> + +<p>"He has not seen her," said Paul, hurrying on. "Another hour, and I am +safe."</p> + +<p>But Gurney had a keen twinkle in his eye.</p> + +<p>"It's not the first time that fellow has looked as if he would like to +see my throat cut," he muttered. "I begin to understand, eh? If he has a +mind to the girl, I'm not safe. Jack Gurney, you'd best vamose this +ranch to-night. Sheppard will parole me to headquarters, and then for an +exchange."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_HANCOCK_HOUSE_AND_ITS_FOUNDER" id="THE_HANCOCK_HOUSE_AND_ITS_FOUNDER"></a>THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Every man's proper mansion-house and home, being the +Theater of his hospitality, the seate of selfe-fruition, the +comfortablest part of his own life, the noblest of his +sonne's inheritance, a kind of private princedome, nay, to +the possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, may +well deserve, by these attributes, according to the degree +of the master, to be decently and delightfully +adorned."—<span class="smcap">Sir Henry Wotton</span>.</p></div> + + +<p>In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, <i>Ætatis suæ</i> 60, took it +upon himself to publish a plan of "The <i>Town</i> of <span class="smcap">Boston</span> in New-England. +<i>Engraven</i> and <i>printed</i> by Fra: Dewing and Sold by <i>Capt. Bonner and +Will<sup>m.</sup> Price</i>, against y<sup>e</sup> Town House." From the explanation given +on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42, +Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near +12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the +Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary +grandeur,—the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and +far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of +Beacon Hill,—a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing +settlement.</p> + +<p>Fifteen years later, a great improvement began to be visible in this +hitherto neglected suburb. The whole southerly slope of the hill had +been purchased in 1735 by a citizen of renown, and soon a fair stone +mansion began to show its elegant proportions on the most eligible spot +near its centre. By this time, as we have it, on the authority of no +less reputable a chronicler than Mr. John Oldmixon, "the Conversation of +the Town of Boston is as polite as in most of the Cities and Towns of +England; many of their merchants having traded into Europe, and those +that stayed at home having the Advantage of Society with travellers" +(including, of course, Mr. Oldmixon himself). "So that a gentleman from +London would almost think himself at home at Boston," (this is in Mr. +Anthony Trollope's own vein,) "when he observes the numbers of people, +their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and +conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most +considerable tradesman in London." <i>Primus inter pares</i>, however, stood +the builder of the house on Beacon Hill, and there seems to be little +doubt that Mr. Hancock's doings on his fine estate created a great stir +of admiration, and that the new stone house was thought to be a very +grand and famous affair in the infant metropolis of New England, in the +year 1737.</p> + +<p>The precise period which brought Mr. Hancock to undertake the building +of the house in Beacon Street was one in which it might not have been +altogether uninteresting to have lived. The affairs of the mother +country had been carried on for nearly twenty years of comparative +peace, under the dexterous guidance of Sir Robert Walpole,—that +cleverest, if not most scrupulous, minister of the British crown,—while +my Lord Bolingbroke—permitted to return from France, but living under a +qualified attainder, and closely watched by the keen-sighted +minister—was occupying himself in writing his bitter and uncompromising +pamphlets against the government of the House of Hanover. The minister's +son Horace, an elegant, indolent youth, fresh from Cambridge, was +travelling on the Continent in company with a shy and sensitive man of +letters, not much known at the time,—by the name of Gray. This +gentleman gained no small credit, however, some ten or twelve years +afterwards, by the publication of "An Elegy written in a Country +Churchyard,"—a piece which, notwithstanding the remote date of its +appearance, it is possible that some of our readers may have chanced to +come across in the course of their literary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</a></span> researches. Giddiness, loss +of memory, and other alarming symptoms of mental disorder had begun to +attack the great intellect of Dr. Swift, and forced him to lay aside the +pen which for nearly half a century had been alternately the scourge and +the support of the perplexed cabinets of the time. His friend Mr. Pope, +however, was living quite snug and comfortable, on the profits of his +translations, at his pretty villa at Twickenham, and adding to his fame +and means by the publication of his "Correspondence" and his "Universal +Prayer." The learned Rector of Broughton, Dr. Warburton, encouraged by +the advice of friends, had just brought out his first volume of "The +Divine Legation of Moses"; the Bishop of Bristol had carried his great +"Analogy of Religion" through the press the year before; Dr. Watts was +getting old and infirm, but still engaged in his thirty years' visit to +his friend Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, of Abney Park, Stoke +Newington. That remarkable young Scotchman, David Hume, was paying his +respects to the sensational philosophy of Locke in a series of essays +which "spread consternation through every region of existing +speculation"; Adam Smith was a promising pupil under Hutcheson,—the +father of Scotch metaphysics,—at the University of Glasgow. General +Fielding's son Henry—but just married—was spending his charming young +wife's portion of fifteen hundred pounds in the careless hospitality of +his Derbyshire house-keeping,—three years' experience of which, +however, reduced him to the necessity of undertaking his first novel for +the booksellers, in the story of "Joseph Andrews." Captain Cook, at the +age of thirteen, was a restless apprentice to a haberdasher near Whitby. +And although "the age of steam" had certainly not then arrived, it must +yet be allowed—in the words of the Highland vagrant to Cameron of +Lochiel, not long after—that already</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Coming events cast their shadows before,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>since we find that there lay in his nursery, in the family of Town +Councillor Watt, the Bailie of Greenock, in the spring of the year 1736, +a quiet, delicate, little Scotch baby, complacently sucking the tiny +fist destined in after years to grasp and imprison that fearful vapory +demon whose struggle for escape from his life-long captivity now +furnishes the motive-power for the most mighty undertakings of man +throughout the civilized world. It would surely have been something, we +think,—the opportunity to have seen all these, from Bolingbroke in his +library to James Watt in his cradle.</p> + +<p>Turning to affairs somewhat nearer home, perhaps a slight glance at +"y<sup>e</sup> conversation and way of living" of the good people of Boston, +during the years that Mr. Hancock was carrying on his building and +getting himself gradually settled in its comforts, may help us to +conceive a better idea of the form and pressure of the age. Well,—Mr. +Peter Faneuil was just then laboring to persuade the town that it might +not be the worst thing they could do to accept the gift of a handsome +new Town-Hall which he was very desirous to build for them,—an opinion +so furiously combated and opposed by the conservatives and practical men +of that day, that Mr. Faneuil succeeded in carrying his revolutionary +measure, at last, in the open town-meeting, by a majority of only seven +votes (a much larger majority, however, it is but fair to observe, than +that which adopted a decent City-Hall for the same municipality only +last year). Whitefield was preaching on the Common, in front of Mr. +Hancock's premises, to audiences of twenty thousand people, "as some +compute," "poor deluded souls," says the unemotional Dr. Douglass, +writing at the period, "whose time is their only Estate; called off to +these exhortations, to the private detriment of their families, and +great Damage to the Public: <i>thus perhaps every such exhortation of his +was about £1000 damage to Boston</i>." Governor Belcher, who came home from +England with the same instructions as Governor which he was sent out to +oppose as envoy, had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span> superseded in his high office by "William +Shirley, Esquire,—esteemed for his gentlemanly deportment." Watchmen +were required "<i>in a moderate tone</i> to cry the time o' night, and give +an Account of the Weather as they walk't their rounds after twelve +o'clock." The men that had been raised in town for the ill-starred +expedition to Carthagena were being drilled on the Common,—and Hancock, +writing to a friend, tells him, "We have the pleasure of Seeing 'em +Disciplin'd every Day from 5 in morning to 8, & from 5 afternoon 'till +night, before our house,—many Gentle<sup>n</sup> & others Daily fill y<sup>e</sup> +Common,—& wee have not y<sup>e</sup> Less Company for it, but a quicker draft +for Wine & Cider." Annually, on the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes, the +Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender were burned on the Common, amidst +much noise and rioting, often degenerating into the tapping of claret +and solid cracking of crowns between the North End and South End +champions,—who made this always their field-day, <i>par excellence</i>,—to +the great worriment of the Town Constables, and the infinite wrath and +disgust of the Select Men. And, finally, we remark, "the goodness of the +pavement in Boston might compare with most in London, for to gallop a +Horse on it is three Shillings and fourpence Forfeit!"</p> + +<p>Such were the curious and simple, but, withal, rather cozy and jolly old +years in which the Hancock House was planned and built and first +occupied. Always a really fine residence, it is now the sole relic of +the family mansions of the <i>old</i> Town of Boston, as in many respects it +has long been the most noted and interesting of them all. One hundred +and twenty-seven years have passed away since its erection, and old +Captain Bonner's map now requires a pretty close study to enable our +modern eyes to recognize any clue to its present locality. It stands, in +fact, a solitary monumental pillar in the stream of time,—a link to +connect the present with the eventful past; and the prospect of its +expected removal—though not, we trust, of its demolition—may render +the present a fitting opportunity to call up some few of the quaint old +reminiscences with which it is connected.</p> + +<p>We have now before us, as we write, the original Contract or Indenture +for the freestone work of the venerable structure. It is a document +certainly not without a curious interest to those of us who have passed +and repassed so often in our daily walks the gray old relic of New +England's antiquity, to the very inception of which this faded paper +reverts. It is an agreement made between Mr. Thomas Hancock and one +"Thomas Johnson of Middleton in the County of Hartford and Colony of +Connecticut In New-England, Stone-Cutter." By this instrument the +Connecticut brown-stone man of that day binds himself to "Supply and +Furnish the said Thomas Hancock with as much Connecticut Stone as Shall +be Sufficient to Beatify and build Four Corners, One Large Front Door, +Nine Front Windows and a Facie for the Front and back Part Over the +Lower Story Windows of a certain Stone House which the Said Thomas +Hancock is about to Erect on a Certain Piece of Land Situate near Beacon +Hill in Boston aforesaid; as also So much of said Connecticut Stone as +shall be Sufficient to make a water Table round the Said House, which +Said Stone the Said Johnson Covenants and Agrees shall be well Cut, +fitted and polished, workmanlike and According to the Rules of Art every +way Agreeable, & to the Liking and Satisfaction of Mr. Hancock." The +stone is to be delivered to Mr. Hancock's order at Boston, all "In Good +Order and Condition, not Touched with the Salt Water, and at the proper +Cost, Charge and Risque of the s<sup>d</sup> Johnson." The consideration paid to +Johnson is fixed at "the Sum of three hundred Pounds <i>in Goods</i> as the +Said Stone Cutter's work is Carryed on." The latter stipulation as to +the payment would be curious enough at the present day, though it +appears to have been not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span> uncommon at the time this contract was +executed. The perusal of Mr. Thomas Hancock's letter-book, however, now +also lying before us, will not leave one in any need of this additional +proof of the old Boston merchant's keen eye always to a business profit.</p> + +<p>The Indenture is written in a clear, round, mercantile hand,—evidently +Mr. Hancock's own, but his <i>best</i>, by comparison with the +letter-book,—the leading words of the principal paragraphs being +garnished with masterly flourishes, and the top of the paper "indented" +by cutting with a knife so as to fit or "tally," after the fashion of +those days, with the corresponding copy delivered to Johnson. It has +been indorsed and filed away with evident care, and is consequently now +in a state of absolute and perfect preservation. With the exception, +however, of that little matter of the <i>store-pay</i>, and of the wording of +the date of its execution, which is given as the "Tenth Year of the +Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God of +Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.," +the document differs but little in its phraseology—so conservative is +the letter of the law of real estate—from those in use for precisely +such contracts in the year 1863.</p> + +<p>"Thomas Hancock, of Boston in the County of Suffolk and Province of the +Massachusetts Bay in New England, Merchant," as he is named and +described in the paper before us, was the founder of the fortunes of the +family, and a man of the most considerable note and importance in his +day. He was the son of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, of Lexington, in +which town he was born on the 13th of July, 1703. He was sent to Boston +early in life to learn the business of a stationer,—with which calling +those of bookseller and bookbinder were then combined,—and served his +time accordingly with the leading provincial bibliopole of the day, "the +enterprising Bookseller Henchman," who died in 1761. Quick, active, +thrifty, young Hancock soon made his way in the world,—his famous +bookstore in Ann Street was known as the "Stationers' Arms" as early as +1729; the industrious apprentice in due course married his master's fair +daughter Lydia; and so our Thomas Hancock went on his way to credit and +fortune, and last and best of all to house-building after his own mind, +"the comfortablest part of his own life," with strides quite as easy and +certain as did his contemporary, the Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., +of London,—whose career was, at that very time, so impressing itself +upon the notice of that eminent hand, Mr. William Hogarth, of Leicester +Fields in the Parish of St. Martin's, as to lead him to depict its +events in the remarkable series of prints, "Industry and Idleness," in +which they are now handed down for the admiration of posterity. And what +the great painter tells us of his hero is equally true of ours,—that, +"by taking good courses, and pursuing those points for which he was put +apprentice, he became a valuable man, and an ornament to his country."</p> + +<p>The pursuits connected with book-making were not, however, without their +trials and troubles, even at that early day. From some of Hancock's +letters for the year 1736, we find that one Cox was a sad thorn in his +side, a grievous lion in his daily path. His chief correspondent among +the booksellers in London at this period was Mr. Thomas Longman,—the +founder of the renowned house of Longmans of our own time,—and to him +Hancock often pours out his trials and grievances in the quaint and +pointed style of the business letters of "The Spectator's" own day. +Under date of April 10, 1736, for instance, he writes,—"I cannot Think +of Doing much more in the Book way at present, unless Cox Recalls his +Agent, which I am Certain He never will if you give up this point," (<i>i. +e.</i> of making larger consignments to Hancock on his own account,) "as I +can Improve my Money In other Goods from Great Brittan to so much better +Advantage." Yet, he continues, "I am unwilling Quite to Quit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</a></span> The Book +branch of Trade, and you Can't but be Senceable that it was my Regard to +you has Occasioned it's being forced from me in this way."</p> + +<p>About the month of May, 1738, Cox appears to have become wellnigh +intolerable. On the 24th of that month our bookseller writes to +Longman,—"Cox has Sent some more Books here this Spring, & I Cannot +Learn that he's Called his man home Yet. I am a Great Sufferer by him, +as well as you, having above £250 Sterling in Books by me, before what +Came from you now." Sometimes, however, Cox makes a slight mistake, and +then our bookseller again takes heart of courage. Thus, under date of +October 29, 1739, he again writes to Longman,—"Cox's man Caine in +Hall's ship about a month Agoe, brought Eight Trunks and a Box or two of +Books, has opened his Shop, but makes no Great Figure & is but little +taken Notice off, <i>which is a a Good Symtom of a bad Sortment</i>,—his +Return here was Surprising to me; truly I did not Expect it. At present +I don't know how to Govern myself as to the Book Trade, <i>but am willing +to do the Needful to Discountenance him</i>, and will write you again in +little Time." But, alas! by the 10th of December following, Cox had +rallied bravely, and, accordingly, Hancock again writes in despair,—"I +know not how to Conduct my Affairs as to the Book Trade. Cox's Shop is +opened, & he has a pretty Good Collection of Books. He brought with him +8 Trunks, & 4 Came in y<sup>e</sup> next Ship. His Coming is A Great Damage to +me, having many Books by me unsold for Years past, & most all which I +had of you this Year. I am Ready Sometimes to Give up that part of my +Business, & I think I should have done it ere now, were I not in hopes +of Serving you in that Branch of Trade. <i>Could you propose any Scheem to +discountenance our Common Enemy I will Gladly Joyn you</i>. I fear he will +have more Goods in the Next Ship. I have Nothing to Add at this time +only that I am with Great Esteem Your Assur<sup>d</sup> Fr<sup>d</sup> &c. T. H."</p> + +<p>We may remark, that, if Longman were not by this time brought to be +fully <i>Senceable</i> of the sacrifices which had been made here for his +interest, it was assuredly through no fault of his Boston customer. In a +letter dated April 30, 1736, Hancock had felt emboldened to inform +him,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have Occasion for Tillotson's Works, Rapine's History of +England, Chamber's Dictionary & Burkitt on N. Testament for +my own use, and as the Burthen of y<sup>e</sup> two Last years Sale +of Books & Returns for them has mostly Laine on my Self, & +as I have rec'd no Commitions, Some Debts yet outstanding, +and many books by me now on Sold, which shall be glad to +Sell for what I allowed you & now have paid for,—I say if +you'l please make a Present to me of y<sup>e</sup> above named, or +any part of 'em They will be very Acceptable to me. My Last +to you was of y<sup>e</sup> 10th & 14th Instent, which hope you have +Rec'd ere This & I am</p> + +<p class="sig">"Your obliged Humb. Serv. +"T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>Once only, in the whole correspondence, are we able to find that this +interloping caitiff of Cox's was fairly circumvented. With what an +inward glow of satisfaction must our Boston bookseller have found +himself sufficiently master of the situation to be able to write to +Longman (under date of May 10th, 1739),—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Pr. this Conveyance Messr<sup>s.</sup> Joseph Paine & Son of London +have Orders from this place to buy £50. Sterling worth of +Books; I have Engaged Mr. Cushing, who writes to Paine to +Order him to buy them of you, & that you would Use them +well, which I Desire you to Doe; it will be ready money & I +was Loth you should miss of it, (this is the Case,—<i>Cox's +man</i> had Engaged to Send for them & let the Gentleman have +'em at the Sterling Cost,) but the Gentleman being my +friend, I interposed, & So Strongly Sollicited on your +behalf that I fix't it right at last & you may Certainly +depend on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> the Comition, tho' it may be needful you See Mr. +Paine as Soon as this Comes to hand. Pray procure me such a +Bible as you think may suit me & Send when Oppertunity +offers.</p> + +<p class="sig"> +"I am S<sup>r.</sup> &c. &c. T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just +published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an +acknowledgment of this letter about the <i>Comition</i> in more ways than +one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the +absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority, +gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty +to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least, +as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be +allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three +different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very +little thought at any time,—taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and +really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the βατραχομυομαχια and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how +grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> That +such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we +freely admit,—nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to +maintain,—but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and +a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as +the generality of his neighbors.</p> + +<p>There is one most extraordinary <i>escapade</i> of his, however, in this line +of performance, which we do not know how we <i>can</i> undertake wholly to +defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of +Exchange, he writes,—"As to the £100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above +mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that +Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,—he being the +<i>Topinest</i> merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra<sup>y</sup> for +it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective <i>topping</i>, +our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of +the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"—rather too +much, indeed, even for 1739.</p> + +<p>That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the +cacography of his time, we give <i>verbatim</i> the following letter from +Christopher Kilby,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> a letter among many of the same sort found with +Mr. Hancock's papers.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="sig"> +"<i>London, 15 February 1727.</i></p> + + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Honest Fr<sup>d</sup></span>. This not only advises you of my arrival but +acknowledges the rec<sup>t</sup> of your favour. By your desire I +waited upon Mr. Cox, & have told him and every body else, +where it was necessary, as much as you desired, & account it +part of my Felicity that I have so worthy a friend as Mr. +Hancock. When you arrive here you'l find things vastly +beyond your imagination,—I shall give you no other +Character of England than this, that it is beyond +expression, greater and finer than any thing I could ever +form an Idea of. I wish you may arrive before I leave it, +that you may with me, gaze and Wonder at a place that wee +can neither of us give a good Discripsion of. Pray present +my Services to Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> Wood, Mr. Cunnington, and if Mr. +Leverett be not so engaged at the Annual meeting in Choosing +Hogg Constables &c. that to mention it to him might be an +interruption in so important affairs, my Service to him +also,—but rather than he shou'd loose any part of his +Pleasure while you take up his Time in doing it, I begg +you'l wait till a more leisure opportunity, when you may +assure him that I am at his Service in anything but being +Bread Weigher, Hogg Constable or any of those honourable +posts of pleasure & profit. I have nothing more to add but +Service to all friends, & assurance of my being</p> + + +<p class="sig">"Your sincere friend & very<br /> +"humble Servant,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Chris<sup>r.</sup> Kilby</span>."<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>There is a letter in another book—Mr. Hancock's letter-book from 1740 +to 1744—in which poetical justice to the arch-disturber of his peace is +feelingly recorded. Cox<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> comes to grief at last,—surely, though late. +Observe with what placid resignation Hancock regards his rival's mishap. +The letter is to Longman, and bears date April 21st, 1742.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"——Thomas Cox has sent Orders to a Gentle<sup>n</sup> here to +Receive from his man all his Effects,—the Shop is +Accordingly Shutt up, & I am told his man is absconded & has +Carried of all the money, I hear to the value of £500 +Sterling; of Consequence a very bad Acco<sup>tt</sup> must be +rendered to his Master & no doubt 't will put a final Stop +to his unjust proceedings & Trade to New-Eng<sup>d.</sup> <i>I pray +God it may have this long wished for Effect</i>, the Good +fruits of which, I hope you & we shall soon partake of."</p></div> + +<p>The correspondence with Longman is kept up with great activity through +the whole of the first third of the volume before us. Gradually, +however, Hancock had been growing into a larger way of business, and his +Bills of Exchange for £500 and £600, drawn generally by Mr. Peter +Faneuil,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> begin to be of more frequent occurrence,—bills which he +writes his London correspondents "are Certainly very Good, & will meet +with Due Honour." We read here and there of ventures to <i>Medara</i> and to +<i>Surranam</i>, and of certain consignments of "Geese and Hogges to y<sup>e</sup> +New Found Land." "Be so Good," he says, in a letter of May 17th, 1740, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span>to a friend then staying in London, "as to Interist me in y<sup>e</sup> half of +8 or 10 Ticketts when any Lottery's going on, you think may doe, and am +oblidged to you for mentioning your Kind intention herein. Please God +y<sup>e</sup> Young Eagle, Philip Dumerisque Com<sup>r</sup> comes well home, and I +believe I shall make no bad voyage." It is easy to see that the snug +little business of the "Stationers' Arms" is soon to be given up, for +what Drake<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> describes as "the more extensive field of mercantile +enterprise."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> By this time, too, the signs of the French War began to +loom alarmingly upon the horizon of the little colony, and Hancock rose +with the occasion to the character of a man of large and grave affairs. +Cox's man, and his Trunks and Sortments of Books, appear, after this, to +have but little of his attention. There was need of raising troops, and +of fitting out vessels; and when the famous expedition against Louisburg +was determined on, Hancock had a large share in the matter of providing +its munitions and equipment. His correspondence with Sir William +Pepperell in these great affairs still lies preserved in good order in +boxes in the attic of the old mansion.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, as he rose in the world, he had been laying out his grounds, +and building and furnishing his house; his first letter from which is +addressed to his "Dear Friend," Christopher Kilby, then in London, and +is dated, rather grandly, "At my house in Beacon Street, Boston y<sup>e</sup> +22<sup>d</sup> Mar. 1739-40." Let us look back, then, a little over the yellow, +time-stained record of the letter-book before us, and see what were the +experiences of a gentleman, in building and planting in Beacon Street, +so long before our grandfathers were born.</p> + +<p>Under date of the 5th of July, 1736, Hancock writes to his friend and +constant correspondent in London, "Mr. Francis Wilks Esq<sup>r</sup>,"<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +inclosing a letter to one James Glin at Stepney, with orders for some +trees, concerning which he tells Wilks, "I am advised to have 'em +bought,—but if you Can find any man Will Serve us Better I Leave it to +your Pleasure." He must have thought it a great pity, from the sequel of +this affair, that Mr. Wilks's Pleasure did not happen to lie in another +direction. "I am Recommended by Mr. Tho<sup>s.</sup> Hubbard of This Town," runs +the letter inclosed to Glin, "to you for A number of Fruit Trees,—be +pleased to waite on Mr. Wilks for the Inv<sup>o</sup> of them & Let me have +y<sup>e</sup> best Fruit, & pack<sup>t</sup> in y<sup>e</sup> best manner, & All numbered, with +an Acco<sup>t</sup> of y<sup>e</sup> Same. I pray you be very Carefull That y<sup>e</sup> Trees +be Took up in y<sup>e</sup> Right Season, and if these Answer my Expectations I +shall want more, & 't will Ly in my way to Recommend Some Friends to +you. I Intreat the Fruit may be the best of their Kind, the Trees +handsome Stock, well Pack't, All N<sup>o</sup>'d & Tally'd, & particular Inv<sup>o</sup> +of 'em. I am S<sup>r.</sup> &c. &c. T. H."</p> + +<p>This careful order was evidently duly executed by the nurseryman, and at +first all appears to have gone smoothly enough, since, on the 20th of +December following, (1736,) we find another letter to Glin, as +follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My Trees and Seeds pr. Cap<sup>t.</sup> Bennett Came Safe to +hand and I Like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span> them very well. I Return you my hearty +Thanks for the Plumb Tree & Tulip Roots you were pleased to +make a Present off, which are very Acceptable to me. I have +Sent my friend Mr. Wilks a mem<sup>o</sup> to procure for me 2 or 3 +Doz. Yew Trees Some Hollys & Jessamin Vines & if you have +any Particular Curious Things not of a high price will +Beautifie a flower Garden, Send a Sample with the price or a +Catalogue of 'em; pray Send me a Catalogue also of what +Fruit you have that are Dwarf Trees and Espaliers. I shall +want Some next Fall for a Garden I am Going to lay out next +Spring. My Gardens all Lye on the South Side of a hill, with +the most Beautifull Assent to the Top & it's Allowed on all +hands the Kingdom of England don't afford So Fine a Prospect +as I have both of Land and water. Neither do I intend to +Spare any Cost or Pains in making my Gardens Beautifull or +Profitable. If you have any Knowlidge of S<sup>r</sup> John James he +has been on the Spott & is perfectly acquainted with its +Situation & I believe has as high an Opinion of it as myself +& will give it as Great a Carrictor. Let me know also what +you'l Take for 100 Small Yew Trees in the Rough, which I'd +Frame up here to my own Fancy. If I can Do you any Service +here I shall be Glad & be Assured I'll not forgett your +Favour,—which being y<sup>e</sup> needful Concludes,</p> + +<p class="sig">"S<sup>r.</sup><br /> +"Your most Ob<sup>edt.</sup> Servant,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Tho<sup>s.</sup> Hancock</span>."<br /></p> +</div> + +<p>But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the +force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to +blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The +maxim, "<i>L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose</i>," was found to be as +inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true +that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of +arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of +Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the +grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock, +therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural +disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate +nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most +righteous indignation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I Rec<sup>d.</sup> your Letter & your Baskett of flowers per. +Capt. Morris, & have Desired Francis Wilks Esq<sup>r</sup> to pay +you £26 for them <i>Though they are Every one Dead</i>. The Trees +I Rec<sup>d</sup> Last Year are above half Dead too,—the Hollys all +Dead but one, & worse than all is, the Garden Seeds and +Flower Seeds which you Sold Mr. Wilks for me Charged at £6. +8<sup>s.</sup> 2<sup>d.</sup> Sterling were not worth one farthing. Not one +of all the Seeds Came up Except the Asparrow Grass, So that +my Garden is Lost to me for this Year. I Tryed the Seeds +both in Town and Country & all proved alike bad. I Spared +Mr. Hubbard part of them <i>and they All Serv'd him the +Same</i>." (Rather an unlucky blow this for poor Glin, as Mr. +Hubbard had been his first sponsor and perhaps his only +friend in New England.) "I think Sir, you have not done well +by me in this thing, for me to send a 1000 Leagues and Lay +out my money & be so used & Disapointed is very hard to +Bare, & so I doubt not but you will Consider the matter & +Send me over Some more of the Same Sort of Seeds that are +Good & Charge me nothing for them,—if you don't I shall +think you have imposed upon me very much, & 't will +Discourage me from ever Sending again for Trees or Seeds +from you. I Conclude,</p> + +<p class="sig">"Your Humble Serv<sup>t.</sup><br /> +"T. H.</p> + +<p>"P. S. <i>The Tulip Roots you were pleased to make a present +off to me are all Dead as well.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>The last paragraph is truly delicious,—a real Parthian arrow, of the +keenest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span> most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined +that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,—not in the matter of +the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had +had the effrontery to send him.</p> + +<p>After learning the opinion entertained by Mr. Hancock of his estate, its +situation, prospect, and capacities, and understanding his intentions in +regard to its improvement, as expressed in his first letter to Glin,—it +may naturally be expected that we shall come upon some further allusions +to the works he had thus taken in hand, in the antiquated volume before +us. In this respect, as we turn over its remaining pages, we shall find +that we are not to be disappointed. His letters on the subject, +addressed to persons on the other side of the water, and particularly to +the trusty Wilks, are, in fact, for the space of the next three or four +years, most refreshingly abundant. Some of these are so minute, +characteristic, and interesting, that we shall need no apology for +transcribing them, most literally, here. On June 24th, 1737, he had +written to Wilks,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This waites on you per M<sup>r</sup> Francis Pelthro who has Taken +this Voyage to Lond<sup>o.</sup> in order to be Cutt for y<sup>e</sup> Stone +by D<sup>r.</sup> Cheselden;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> he Is my Friend & a Very honest +Gentleman. In case he needs your advise in any of his +affairs & <i>Calls on you for it</i>, I beg y<sup>e</sup> fav<sup>r</sup> of you +to do him what Service falls in your way, which Shall Take +as done to my Self, and as he's a Stranger, Should he have +occasion for Ten Guineas please to Let him have it & Charge +to my Acco<sup>t.</sup> I suppose he's sofficeint with him—Except +Some Extrordinary accidant happen.</p> + +<p>"I beg your particular Care about my Glass, that it be the +best, and Every Square Cutt Exactly to the Size, & not to +worp or wind in the Least, & Pack't up So that it may take +no Damage on the passage,—it's for my Own Use & would have +it Extrordinary. I am S<sup>r</sup></p> + +<p class="sig">"Your most oblid'gd obed. Sev<sup>t.</sup><br /> +"T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>By one of those stupid accidents,—not, as we are sorry to record, +altogether unknown to the business of house-building in our own +day,—the memorandum previously sent for the glass turned out to be +entirely incorrect. In less than a fortnight after, Mr. Hancock +accordingly hastens to countermand his order, as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="sig"> +"<i>Boston, N.E. July 5<sup>th.</sup> 1737.</i></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Francis Wilks, Esq<sup>r</sup></span>.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">S<sup>r</sup></span>,—Sheperdson's Stay being Longer than Expected Brings +me to the 5<sup>th</sup> of July, and if you have not bought my +Glass According to the Demention per Cap<sup>t.</sup> Morris I Pray +you to have no regard to those, but the following viz.</p> + +<p>"380 Squares of best London Crown Glass all Cutt Exactly 18 +Inches Long & 11-1/2 Inches wide of a Suitable Thickness to +the Largness of the Glass free from Blisters and by all +means be Carefull it don't wind or worp.—</p> + +<p>"100 Squares Ditto 12 Inches Long 8-1/2 wide of the Same +Goodness as above.</p> + +<p>"Our Friend Tylers Son William Comes per This Conveyance, I +only add what Service's you doe him will Assuredly be +Retaliated By his Father, & will Oblidge S<sup>r</sup></p> + +<p class="sig"> +"Your most Obedient Hum<sup>e</sup> Serv<sup>t</sup><br /> +"T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>The window-glass being fairly off his mind, Mr. Hancock next turns his +attention to the subject of wall-papers, on which head he comes out in +the most strong and even amazing manner. We doubt if the documentary +relics of the last century can show anything more truly <i>genre</i> than the +following letter "To Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London," dated</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="sig"> +"<i>Boston, N. E. Jan. 23<sup>d.</sup> 1737-8.</i><br /></p> + +<p>"Sir,—Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a +Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</a></span> +Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for +my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for +me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of +the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room +Lately Come over here, & it takes much in y<sup>e</sup> Town & will +be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion +may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get +mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it +more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there, +with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let +the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & +Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would +have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks +Esq<sup>r.</sup> had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much +handsomeer Sent over here for M<sup>r</sup> Sam<sup>l</sup> Waldon of this +place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he +or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts +of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of +Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers +&c., But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. +Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same +hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have +two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer & +Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your +particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the +pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods. +Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Tho<sup>s.</sup> Pike of Pool<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> to pay +you £10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by +Sam<sup>ll</sup> Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have +also Crist<sup>o</sup> Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esq<sup>r</sup>. for £10 +wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other +Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain S<sup>r</sup>. Your +Assured Fr<sup>d</sup> & Hum<sup>e.</sup> Servt.</p> + +<p class="sig"> +"T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the +glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of +New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is +fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear +Kilby," dated</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="sig"> +"22<sup>d</sup> Mar. 1739-40.<br /></p> + +<p>"I Pray the favour of you to Enquire what a pr. of Capitolls +will Cost me to be Carved in London, of the Corinthian +Order, 16-1/2 Inches One Way and 9 y<sup>e</sup> Other,—to be well +Done. Please to make my Compliments Acceptable to Mr. Wilks, +& believe me to be</p> + +<p class="sig">"S<sup>r.</sup><br /> +"Your assu<sup>d.</sup> Friend & very<br /> +"Hum<sup>e.</sup> Sev<sup>t.</sup><br /> +"T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr. +Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by +his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where +all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an +elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties +necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so +bountiful a <i>cuisine</i>, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th, +1738, inclosing an order in these terms:—</p> + +<p>"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,—Good works, with Iron Barrell, +a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it."</p> + +<p>Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters, +certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on +the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not +without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable +admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a +postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,—"I Desire you also +to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a +letter to Captain Partington,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span> master of one of his vessels, then in +Europe, he writes,—"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring +me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, & +Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of +those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost +Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter & +Rob<sup>t.</sup> Scott," as follows:—"I have the favour to ask of you, when +please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return +the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,—I don't Stand for any +Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in +Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my +own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he +orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6 +Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fash<sup>d</sup> wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers, +Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses, +12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby, +not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill."</p> + +<p>There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which +takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate +and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no +doubt a most stately and learned lady,—she looks very splendid in her +royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of +Windsor; but can her pompous old <i>stylus</i> bring back for us the +every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,—paint for us the +things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"—or show +us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times, +one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We +seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried +years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of +their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr. +Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the +earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to +the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers. +Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions +revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems +to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and +downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for +one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of +his time, and that is their <i>directness</i>. He is the very antipode to Don +Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he +draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his +argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to +his meaning by inferences,—<i>he comes to the point</i>. If he likes more +"Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,—if he +thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by +him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i9">——"He pours out all, as plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Perhaps the particular phase of change which the language itself was +going through at the time may assist in giving these letters, to us, +something of their air of genuine force and originality. But after +making due allowance for the freshness of a vocabulary as yet unimpeded +by any cumbrous burden of euphemism, we are still convinced that we must +recognize the source of much of the quality we have noted only in the +<i>naïve</i> and outspoken nature of the writer. For, if ever there was a man +who knew just what he wanted and just how he wanted it, it was the T. H. +of the amusing correspondence before us.</p> + +<p>Thus lived, for some quarter of a century<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span> more, this cheery and +prosperous gentleman, growing into a manly opulence, and enjoying to the +full the pleasant "seate of self-fruition" which he had so carefully set +up for himself on Beacon Hill. Not much addressing himself, indeed, to +"looking abroad into universality," as Bacon calls it, but rather +honestly and heartily "doing his duty in that state of life unto which +it had pleased God to call him." He filled various posts of honor and +dignity meanwhile,—always prominent, and even conspicuous, in the +public eye,—and was "one of His Majesty's Council" at the commencement +of the troubles which led to the War of the Revolution. The full +development of this mighty drama, however, Thomas Hancock did not live +to see. He died of an apoplexy, on the first day of August, 1764, about +three of the clock in the afternoon, having been seized about noon of +the same day, just as he was entering the Council Chamber. He was then +in the sixty-second year of his age. By his will he gave one thousand +pounds sterling for the founding of a professorship of the Oriental +languages in Harvard College, one thousand pounds lawful money to the +Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, six hundred pounds +to the town of Boston, towards an Insane Hospital, and two hundred +pounds to the Society for carrying on the Linen Manufactory,—an +enterprise from which much appears, just then, to have been expected. +His property was valued, after his decease, at about eighty thousand +pounds sterling,—a very much larger sum for that time than its precise +money equivalent would represent at the present day. Having no issue of +his own, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John,—a gentleman +who, without a tithe of the nerve and pith and vigor of this our Thomas, +has yet happened, from the circumstances of the time in which he bore up +the family-fortunes, to have acquired a much more distinguished name and +filled a much larger space in the tablets of History than has ever +fallen to the share of his stout old uncle.</p> + +<p>The Hancock estate, as we have been accustomed to see it of late years, +is greatly reduced from its original dimensions, and shorn of much of +its ancient glory.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The property, in Mr. Thomas Hancock's time, +extended on the east to the bend in Mount Vernon Street, including, of +course, the whole of the grounds now occupied by the State +House,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—on the west to Joy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> Street, called Hancock Street on the +ancient plan of the estate now before us,—and in the rear about to what +is now Derne Street, on the north side of Beacon Hill, and comprising on +that side all the land through which Mount Vernon Street now runs, for +the whole distance from Joy Street to Beacon-Hill Place. Thus was +included a large part, too, of the site of the present reservoir on +Derne Street, a portion of which, being the last of the estate sold up +to the present year, was purchased by the city from the late John +Hancock, Esq., some ten or twelve years ago. The two large wings of the +house—the one on the east side containing an elegant ball-room, and +that on the west side comprising the kitchen and other domestic +offices—have long ago disappeared. The centre of the mansion, however, +remains nearly intact, and with its antique furniture, stately old +pictures, and the quaint, but comfortable appointments of the past +century, still suffices to bring up to the mind of the visitor the most +vivid and interesting reminiscences both of our Colonial and +Revolutionary history.</p> + +<p>The central and principal portion of the house, which remains entire, is +a very perfect and interesting specimen of the stateliest kind of our +provincial domestic architecture of the last century. There are several +other houses of a similar design still standing in the more important +sea-port towns of New England. The West House, on Essex Street, in +Salem, has but lately disappeared; but another in that neighborhood, the +Collins House in Danvers, (now the property of Mr. F. Peabody, of +Salem,) the Dalton House, on State Street, Newburyport, the Langdon +House, (now the residence of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burroughs,) in +Portsmouth, N. H., and the Gilman House, in Exeter, N. H., removed, not +long since, to make way for the new Town Hall, were all almost identical +with this in the leading features of their design. A broad front-door +opening from a handsome flight of stone steps, and garnished with +pillars and a highly ornamental door-head, a central window, also +somewhat ornamented, over it, and four other windows in each story, two +being on either side of the centre, a main roof-cornice enriched with +carved modillions, a high and double-pitched or "gambrel" roof with bold +projecting dormer-windows rising out of it, and a carved balcony-railing +inclosing the upper or flatter portion of the roof, are features common +to them all. The details of the Hancock House are all classical and +correct; they were doubtless executed by the master-builder of the day +with a scrupulous fidelity of adherence to the plates of some such work +as "Ware's Compleat Body of Architecture," or "Swan's Architect,"—books +of high repute and rare value at the time, and contemporary copies of +which are still sometimes to be found in ancient garrets. There is a +very perfect specimen of the former in the Athenæum Library, and another +at Cambridge, while of the latter an excellent copy is in the possession +of the writer,—and it is not difficult to trace, in the soiled and +well-thumbed condition of some of the plates, evidences of the bygone +popularity of some peculiarly apposite or useful design.</p> + +<p>The material of the walls is of squared and well-hammered granite +ashlar,—probably obtained by splitting up boulders lying on the surface +of the ground only, above the now extensive quarries in the town of +Quincy. We incline to this conjecture, because it bears an exact +resemblance to the stone of the King's Chapel, built in 1753, and which +is known to have been obtained in that way. In fact, the wardens and +vestry of the Chapel, in their report on the completion of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> +building, congratulated themselves that they had had such good success +in getting all the stone they needed for that building, as it was +exceedingly doubtful, they remarked, whether the whole country could be +made to furnish stone for another structure of equal extent.</p> + +<p>The interior of the house is quite in keeping with the promise of its +exterior. The dimensions of the plan are fifty-six feet front by +thirty-eight feet in depth. A nobly panelled hall, containing a broad +staircase with carved and twisted balusters, divides the house in the +centre, and extends completely through on both stories from front to +rear. On the landing, somewhat more than half-way up the staircase, is a +circular headed window looking into the garden, and fitted with +deep-panelled shutters, and with a broad and capacious window-seat, on +which the active merchant of 1740 doubtless often sat down to cool +himself in the draught, after some particularly vexatious morning's work +with poor Glin's "Plumb Trees and Hollys." On this landing, too, stood +formerly a famous eight-day clock, which has now disappeared, no one +knows whither. But the order for its purchase is before us in the old +letter-book, and will serve to give a very graphic idea of its unusual +attractions. The order is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Wilks, and bears +date December 20th, 1738. As the safe reception of the time-piece is +acknowledged in a subsequent letter, there can be little doubt as to its +identity.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I Desire the favour of you to procure for me & Send with my +Spring Goods, a Handsome Chiming Clock of the newest +fashion,—the work neat & Good, with a Good black Walnutt +Tree Case, Veneer'd work, with Dark, lively branches,—on +the Top insteed of Balls let be three handsome Carv'd +figures, Gilt with burnished Gold. I'd have the Case without +the figures to be 10 foot Long, the price 15 not to Exceed +20 Guineas, and as it's for my own use I beg your particular +Care in buying of it at the Cheapest Rate. I'm advised to +apply to one Mr. Marmaduke Storr at the foot of Lond<sup>n</sup> +Bridge, but as you are best Judge I leave it to you to +purchase it where you think proper,—wh. being the needfull, +Concludes</p> + +<p class="sig"> +"Sir Your &c. T. H." +</p></div> + +<p>On the right of the hall, as you enter, is the fine old drawing-room, +seventeen by twenty-five feet, also elaborately finished in moulded +panels from floor to ceiling. In this room the founder of the Hancock +name, as a man of note, and a merchant of established consequence, must +often have received the Shirleys, the Olivers, the Pownalls, and the +Hutchinsons of King George's colonial court; and here, too, some years +later, his stately nephew John dispensed his elegant hospitalities to +that serene Virginian, Mr. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the +Army of the Revolution, and to the ardent young French Marquis who +accompanied him. The room itself, hung with portraits from the honest, +if not flattering hand of Smibert, and the more courtly and elegant +pencil of Copley, still seems to bear witness in its very walls to the +reality of such bygone scenes. We enter the close front-gate from the +sunny and bustling promenade of Beacon Street, pass up the worn and gray +terrace of the steps, and in a moment more closes behind us the door +that seems to shut us out from the whirl and turmoil and strife of the +present, and, almost mysteriously, to transport us to the grave shadows +and the dignified silence of the past of American history.</p> + +<p>Over the chimney-piece, in this room, hangs the portrait of John +Hancock, by Copley,—masterly in drawing, and most characteristic in its +expression. It was painted apparently about ten or twelve years earlier +than the larger portrait in Faneuil Hall,—an excellent copy of which +latter picture, but by another hand, occupies the centre of the wall at +the end of the room opposite the windows. But by far the most +interesting works of this great artist are the two pictures on the long +side of the room opposite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> the chimney,—the portraits of Thomas Hancock +and his handsome wife Lydia Henchman, done in colored crayons or +<i>pastel</i>, and which still retain every whit of their original freshness. +These two pictures are believed to be unique specimens of their kind +from the hand of Copley,—and equally curious are the miniature copies +of them by himself, done in oil-color, and which hang in little oval +frames over the mantel. That of the lady, in particular, is exquisitely +lifelike and easy. On the same long side of the room with the pastel +drawings are the portraits of Thomas Hancock's father and mother,—the +minister of Lexington and his dignified-looking wife,—by Smibert. In +one of the letters to "Dear Kilby," of which we have already made +mention in this article, there is an allusion to this portrait of his +father which shows in what high estimation it was always held by Mr. +Hancock. "My Wife & I are Drinking your health this morning, 8 o' the +Clock, in a Dish of Coffee and under the Shade of your Picture which I +Rec'd not long Since of Mr. Smibert, in which am much Delighted, & have +Suited it with a Frame of the fashion of my other Pictures, & fix'd it +at the Right hand of all, in the Keeping-room. Every body that Sees it +thinks it to be Exceedingly Like you, as it really is. I am of Opinion +it's as Good a Piece as Mr. Smibert has done, and full as Like you as my +Father's is Like him, which all mankind allows to be a Compleat +Picture." It is to be regretted that the picture of Kilby has now +disappeared from this collection. We have called the pastel portraits of +Thomas Hancock and his wife unique specimens; we should add this +qualification, however, that there is a <i>copy</i> of the former in this +room,—also by Copley, but differing in the costume, and perhaps even +more carefully finished than the one already mentioned.</p> + +<p>The chamber overhead, too, has echoed, in days long gone by, to the +footstep of many an illustrious guest. Washington never slept here, +though it is believed that he has several times been a temporary +occupant of the room; but Lafayette often lodged in this apartment, +while a visitor to John Hancock, during his earlier stay in America. +Here Lord Percy—the same</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"who, when a younger son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fought for King George at Lexington,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Major of Dragoons"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>made himself as comfortable as he might, while "cooped up in Boston and +panting for an airing," through all the memorable siege of the town. It +was from the windows of this chamber, on the morning of the 5th of +March, 1776, that the officers<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> on the staff of Sir William Howe +first beheld, through Thomas Hancock's old telescope, the intrenchments +which had been thrown up the night before on the frozen ground of +Dorchester Heights,—works of such a character and location as to +satisfy them that thenceforth "neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax could +afford them worse shelter than Boston." And here, too, years after the +advent of more peaceful times, the stately old Governor, racked with +gout, and "swathed in flannel from head to foot," departed this life on +the night of the 8th of October, 1793. As President of the Continental +Congress of 1776, he left a name everywhere recognized as a household +word among us; while his noble sign-manual to the document of gravest +import in all our annals—that wonderful signature, so bold, defiant, +and decided in its every line and curve—has become, almost of itself, +his passport to the remembrance and his warrant to the admiration of +posterity.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Religio Medici</i>, Part II., Sec. 3.</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> Christopher Kilby was one of the Representatives of the +Town in the General Court, (1739,) and was appointed by that body to go +to England, as an agent for the Province. He soon after embarked for +London, where he resided for several years. He was called the "Standing +Agent" of the Province, and was likewise the Special Agent of the Town. +Five years after this, we find a record of his election, at which he had +102 votes out of 109. When the General Court passed an act granting the +King an excise on spirituous liquors, wines, limes, lemons, and oranges, +the Town "voted unanimously to employ him to appear on behalf of the +Town, and to use his utmost endeavour to prevent said Act's obtaining +the Royal Assent," and likewise to be its agent in other matters. This +action of the Town was June 3d, 1755.—See Drake's <i>History of Boston</i>, +p. 606.</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> It would be interesting to know, something more of +Cox,—who he was, and what was his standing in the trade. Did he take +rank with Tonson, Watts, Lintot, Strahan, Bathurst, and the +rest,—publishers of Pope, Gay, Swift, etc.? or was his an Ishmaelite of +the Row?—and did all the trade think so badly of him as Hancock did?</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> The following letter from Mr. Faneuil's own hand, found +among Mr. Hancock's papers, is sufficiently curious to warrant its +insertion here:— +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="sig">"<i>Boston, February 3<sup>d.</sup></i> 1738.<br /></p> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Capt. Peter Buckley</span>,</p> + +<p>"S<sup>r</sup>,—Herewith you have Invoice of Six hh<sup>s.</sup> fish, & 8 +Barrells of Alewifes, amounting to £75. 9. 2—which when you +arrive at Antiguas be pleased to Sell for my best advantage, +& with the net produce of the Same purchase for me, for the +use of my house, as likely a Strait limbed Negro lad as +possible you can, about the Age of from 12 to fiveteen +years, & if to be done, one that has had the Small pox, who +being for my Own service, I must request the fav'r. you +would let him be one of as tractable a disposition as you +can find, w<sup>ch.</sup> I leave to your prudent care & management, +desireing after you have purchased him you would send him to +me by the first good Opportunity, recommending him to a +Particular care from the Captain by whom you send him. Your +care in this will be an Obligation,—I wish you a good +Voyage, & am +</p> + +<p class="sig"> +"S<sup>r.</sup> your humble Servant<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Peter Faneuil</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p> +"P.S. Should there not be En<sup>o</sup> to purchase the Boy desir'd +be pleased to Add, & if any Overplus, to Lay it out for my +Best Advantage in any thing you think proper. P. F."</p></div> + +<p> +Truly, in confronting this ghost of departed manners, may we say with +the Clown in "Twelfth Night,"—"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his +revenges." The Hall which was the gift to the town of this merchant, who +proposes to trade codfish and <i>alewifes</i> for a slave, afterward became +everywhere known to the world as the very "Cradle of Liberty."</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> <i>History of Boston</i>, p. 681.</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> Mr. Hancock, although a merchant "of the approved Gresham +and Whittington pattern," appears, for some reason or other, to have +judged no small degree of secrecy expedient in regard to some of his +ventures. Thus, under date of October 22d, 1736, he writes to Captain +John Checkering, then absent on a voyage on his account:— +</p><p> +"I hope ere this, you Safe arrived at Surranam, & your Cargo to a Good +Market. I Press you make the best dispatch possible, & doe all you can +to serve the Interist of y<sup>e</sup> concerned, & Closely observe when you +come on our Coasts not to Speak with any Vessells, <i>nor let any of your +men write up to their wives</i>, when you arrive at our light house."</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> "At length wearied with the altercation and persuaded of +the justness of their cause," (in refusing to settle a fixed salary on +Gov. Burnet,) "the House resolved to apply to his Majesty for redress, +and Mr. Francis-Wilkes, a New-England merchant, then resident in London, +was selected as their agent."—Barry's <i>History of the Provincial Period +of Massachusetts</i>, p. 126.</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> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I'll do what Mead and <i>Cheselden</i> advise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To keep these limbs and to preserve these eyes."<br /></span> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Pope</span>,—<i>Epistle to Bolingbroke.</i><br /></span> +</div></div></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> Liverpool.</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> In the "Massachusetts Magazine," Vol. I., No. 7, for July, +1789, there is "A Description of the Seat of His Excellency John Hancock +Esq<sup>r</sup>. Boston [Illustrated by a <i>Plate</i>, giving a View of it from the +<i>Hay-Market</i>]." The print is very well executed for the time, by Samuel +Hill, No. 50, Cornhill,—and the account of the estate is very curious +and interesting. It describes the house as "situated upon an elevated +ground fronting the south, and commanding a most beautiful prospect. The +principal building is of hewn stone, finished not altogether in the +modern stile, nor yet in the ancient Gothic taste. It is raised about 12 +feet above the street, the ascent to which is through a neat flower +garden bordered with small trees; but these do not impede the view of an +elegant front, terminating in two lofty stories. The east wing forms a +noble and spacious Hall. The west wing is appropriated to domestic +purposes. On the west of that is the coach-house, and adjoining are the +stables with other offices; the whole embracing an extent of 220 feet. +Behind the mansion is a delightful garden, ascending gradually to a +charming hill in the rear. This spot is handsomely laid out, embellished +with glacis, and adorned with a variety of excellent fruit trees. From +the Summer House opens a capital prospect," etc. +</p><p> +"The respected character who now enjoys this earthly paradise, inherited +it from his worthy uncle, the Hon. Thomas Hancock Esq: who selected the +spot and completed the building, evincing a superiority of judgment and +taste.... In a word, if purity of air, extensive prospects, elegance and +convenience united, are allowed to have charms, this seat is scarcely +surpassed by any in the Union. Here the severe blasts of winter are +checked," etc.</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> In this connection, the subjoined document—the original +of which we have now at hand—may not be uninteresting, as showing the +conditions on which the heirs of Governor John Hancock consented to sell +so large a piece of the estate:— +</p><p> +"We the Subscribers, being a Committee of the town of Boston for the +purpose of purchasing a piece of Land for the erection of public +buildings, certify to all whom it may concern, that the Governor's +pasture purchased by us, shall be conveyed to the Commonwealth for that +use only, and that no private building shall be erected upon any part of +said pasture. Witness our hands this 9th day of April, 1795. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Wm. Tudor</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">John C. Jones</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Jos. Russell</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">William Eustis,</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">H. G. Otis</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Thos. Dawes</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">William Little</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Perez Morton</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div></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> "Inclosed you have the dimensions of two Bed Chambers for +each of which I want Wilton Carpets,—do let them be neat. The British +Officers who possess'd my house totally defac'd & Ruined all my Carpets, +& I must Submit."—<i>Extract from a Letter of John Hancock, dated Nov. +14, 1783, to Captain Scott, at Liverpool,—contained in Gov. Hancock's +Letter-Book.</i></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="WHY_THOMAS_WAS_DISCHARGED" id="WHY_THOMAS_WAS_DISCHARGED"></a>WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED.</h2> + + +<p>Brant Beach is a long promontory of rock and sand, jutting out at an +acute angle from a barren portion of the coast. Its farthest extremity +is marked by a pile of many-colored, wave-washed boulders; its junction +with the main-land is the site of the Brant House, a watering-place of +excellent repute.</p> + +<p>The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all +along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The +fishing is fair; and in still weather, yachting is rather a favorite +amusement. Further than this, there is little to be said, save that the +hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally +select.</p> + +<p>But to the lover of Nature—and who has the courage to avow himself +aught else?—the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep +of ever-shifting waters,—the flying mist of foam breaking away into a +gray and ghostly distance down the beach,—the eternal drone of ocean, +mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in +the parlors by night,—all these are active sources of a passive +pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through +half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark-blue sky +wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the +sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some +fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or +older legends of love and romance,—tell me, my eater of the fashionable +lotos, is not this a diversion well worth your having?</p> + +<p>There is an air of easy sociality among the guests at the Brant House, a +disposition on the part of all to contribute to the general amusement, +that makes a summer sojourn on the beach far more agreeable than in +certain larger, more frequented watering-places, where one is always in +danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been +fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half fascinated +him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and +many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salisbury and Mr. +Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikahasset Station, with +trunks enough for two first-class belles, and a most unexceptionable +man-servant in gray livery, in charge of two beautiful setter-dogs.</p> + +<p>These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting +some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, "remote, +unfriended, melancholy, slow"; for they brought almost everything with +them that men of elegant leisure could require, as if the hotel were but +four walls and a roof, which they must furnish with their own chattels. +I am sure it took Thomas, the man-servant, a whole day to unpack the +awnings, the bootjacks, the game-bags, the cigar-boxes, the guns, the +camp-stools, the liquor-cases, the bathing-suits, and other +paraphernalia that these pleasure-seekers brought. It must be owned, +however, that their room, a large one in the Bachelor's Quarter, facing +the sea, wore a very comfortable, sportsmanlike look, when all was +arranged.</p> + +<p>Thus surrounded, the young men betook themselves to the deliberate +pursuit of idle pleasures. They arose at nine and went down the shore, +invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was +preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate, it took +them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid +in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of +green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all +game-birds were about to become extinct in that region.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</a></span> Their dogs, +even, recognized this great-cry-and-little-wool condition of things, and +bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, with an +air of canine humiliation that would have aroused Mr. Mayhew's tenderest +sympathies.</p> + +<p>After breakfasting, usually in their room, the friends enjoyed a long +and contemplative smoke upon the wide piazza in front of their windows, +listlessly regarding the ever-varied marine view that lay before them in +flashing breadth and beauty. Their next labor was to array themselves in +wonderful morning-costumes of very shaggy English cloth, shiny flasks +and field-glasses about their shoulders, and loiter down the beach, to +the point and back, making much unnecessary effort over the walk,—a +brief mile,—which they spoke of with importance, as their +"constitutional." This killed time till bathing-hour, and then came +another smoke on the piazza, and another toilet, for dinner. After +dinner, a siesta: in the room, when the weather was fresh; when +otherwise, in hammocks, hung from the rafters of the piazza. When they +had been domiciled a few days, they found it expedient to send home for +what they were pleased to term their "crabs" and "traps," and excited +the envy of less fortunate guests by driving up and down the beach at a +racing gait to dissipate the languor of the after-dinner sleep.</p> + +<p>This was their regular routine for the day,—varied, occasionally, when +the tide served, by a fishing-trip down the narrow bay inside the point. +For such emergencies, they provided themselves with a sail-boat and +skipper, hired for the whole season, and arrayed themselves in a highly +nautical rig. The results were, large quantities of sardines and pale +sherry consumed by the young men, and a reasonable number of sea-bass +and black-fish caught by their skipper.</p> + +<p>There were no regular "hops" at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet +way every evening, to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some +of the waiters. For a time, Burnham and Salisbury did not mingle much in +these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very +elegantly dressed and barbered, (Thomas was an unrivalled <i>coiffeur</i>,) +and apparently somewhat <i>ennuyé</i>.</p> + +<p>That two well-made, full-grown, intelligent, and healthy young men +should lead such a life as this for an entire summer might surprise one +of a more active temperament. The aimlessness and vacancy of an +existence devoted to no earthly purpose save one's own comfort must soon +weary any man who knows what is the meaning of real, earnest life,—life +with a battle to be fought and a victory to be won. But these elegant +young gentlemen comprehended nothing of all that: they had been born +with golden spoons in their mouths, and educated only to swallow the +delicately insipid lotos-honey that flows inexhaustibly from such +shining spoons. Clothes, complexions, polish of manner, and the +avoidance of any sort of shock, were the simple objects of their +solicitude.</p> + +<p>I do not know that I have any serious quarrel with such fellows, after +all. They have some strong virtues. They are always clean; and your +rough diamond, though manly and courageous as Cœur-de-Lion, is not +apt to be scrupulously nice in his habits. Affability is another virtue. +The Salisbury and Burnham kind of man bears malice toward no one, and is +disagreeable only when assailed by some hammer-and-tongs utilitarian. +All he asks is to be permitted to idle away his pleasant life +unmolested. Lastly, he is extremely ornamental. We all like to see +pretty things; and I am sure that Charley Burnham, in his fresh white +duck suit, with his fine, thorough-bred face—gentle as a girl's—shaded +by a snowy Panama, his blonde moustache carefully pointed, his golden +hair clustering in the most picturesque possible waves, his little red +neck-ribbon—the only bit of color in his dress—tied in a studiously +careless knot, and his pure, untainted gloves of pearl-gray or lavender, +was, if I may be allowed the expression, just as pretty as a picture. +And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> Ned Salisbury was not less "a joy forever," according to the dictum +of the late Mr. Keats. He was darker than Burnham, with very black hair, +and a moustache worn in the manner the French call <i>triste</i>, which +became him, and increased the air of pensive melancholy that +distinguished his dark eyes, thoughtful attitudes, and slender figure. +Not that he was in the least degree pensive or melancholy, or that he +had cause to be; quite the contrary; but it was his style, and he did it +well.</p> + +<p>These two butterflies sat, one afternoon, upon the piazza, smoking very +large cigars, lost, apparently, in profoundest meditation. Burnham, with +his graceful head resting upon one delicate hand, his clear blue eyes +full of a pleasant light, and his face warmed by a calm unconscious +smile, might have been revolving some splendid scheme of universal +philanthropy. The only utterance, however, forced from him by the +sublime thoughts that permeated his soul, was the emission of a white +rolling volume of fragrant smoke, accompanied by two words:</p> + +<p>"Doocèd hot!"</p> + +<p>Salisbury did not reply. He sat, leaning back, with his fingers +interlaced behind his head, and his shadowy eyes downcast, as in sad +remembrance of some long-lost love. So might a poet have looked, while +steeped in mournfully rapturous day-dreams of remembered passion and +severance. So might Tennyson's hero have mused, when he sang,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, that 'twere possible,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">After long grief and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To find the arms of my true love<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Round me once again!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the poetic lips opened not to such numbers. Salisbury gazed, long +and earnestly, and finally gave vent to his emotions, indicating, with +the amber tip of his cigar-tube, the setter that slept in the sunshine +at his feet.</p> + +<p>"Shocking place, this, for dogs!"—I regret to say he pronounced it +"dawgs."—"Why, Carlo is as fat—as fat as—as a"——</p> + +<p>His mind was unequal to a simile, even, and he terminated the sentence +in a murmur.</p> + +<p>More silence; more smoke; more profound meditation. Directly, Charley +Burnham looked around with some show of vitality.</p> + +<p>"There comes the stage," said he.</p> + +<p>The driver's bugle rang merrily among the drifted sand-hills that lay +warm and glowing in the orange light of the setting sun. The young men +leaned forward over the piazza-rail, and scrutinized the occupants of +the vehicle, as it appeared.</p> + +<p>"Old gentleman and lady, aw, and two children," said Ned Salisbury; "I +hoped there would be some nice girls."</p> + +<p>This, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and poetry, but with that odd, +tired little drawl, so epidemic in some of our universities.</p> + +<p>"Look there, by Jove!" cried Charley, with a real interest at last; "now +that's what I call the regular thing!"</p> + +<p>The "regular thing" was a low, four-wheeled pony-chaise of basket-work, +drawn by two jolly little fat ponies, black and shiny as vulcanite, +which jogged rapidly in, just far enough behind the stage to avoid its +dust.</p> + +<p>This vehicle was driven by a young lady of decided beauty, with a spice +of Amazonian spirit. She was rather slender and very straight, with a +jaunty little hat and feather perched coquettishly above her dark brown +hair, which was arranged in one heavy mass and confined in a silken net. +Her complexion was clear, without brilliancy; her eyes blue as the ocean +horizon, and spanned by sharp, characteristic brows; her mouth small and +decisive; and her whole cast of features indicative of quick talent and +independence.</p> + +<p>Upon the seat beside her sat another damsel, leaning indolently back in +the corner of the carriage. This one was a little fairer than the first, +having one of those beautiful English complexions of mingled rose and +snow, and a dash of gold-dust in her hair, where the sun touched it. Her +eyes, however, were dark hazel, and full of fire, shaded and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span> +intensified by their long, sweeping lashes. Her mouth was a rosebud, and +her chin and throat faultless in the delicious curve of their lines. In +a word, she was somewhat of the Venus-di-Milo type: her companion was +more of a Diana. Both were neatly habited in plain travelling-dresses +and cloaks of black and white plaid, and both seemed utterly unconscious +of the battery of eyes and eye-glasses that enfiladed them from the +whole length of the piazza, as they passed.</p> + +<p>"Who are they?" asked Salisbury; "I don't know them."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Burnham; "but they look like people to know. They must be +somebody."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, the hotel-office was besieged by a score of young +men, all anxious for a peep at the last names upon the register. It is +needless to say that our friends were not in the crowd. Ned Salisbury +was no more the man to exhibit curiosity than Charley Burnham was the +man to join in a scramble for anything under the sun. They had educated +their emotions clear down, out of sight, and piled upon them a mountain +of well-bred inertia.</p> + +<p>But, somehow or other, these fellows who take no trouble are always the +first to gain the end. A special Providence seems to aid the poor, +helpless creatures. So, while the crowd still pressed at the +office-desk, Jerry Swayne, the head clerk, happened to pass directly by +the piazza where the inert ones sat, and, raising a comical eye, saluted +them.</p> + +<p>"Heavy arrivals to-night. See the turn-out?"</p> + +<p>"Y-e-s," murmured Ned.</p> + +<p>"Old Chapman and family. His daughter drove the pony-phaëton, with her +friend, a Miss Thurston. Regular nobby ones. Chapman's the +steamship-man, you know. Worth thousands of millions! I'd like to be +connected with his family—by marriage, say!"—and Jerry went off, +rubbing his cropped head, and smiling all over, as was his wont.</p> + +<p>"I know who they are now," said Charley. "Met a cousin of theirs, Joe +Faulkner, abroad, two years ago. Doocèd fine fellow. Army."</p> + +<p>The manly art of wagoning is not pursued very vigorously at Brant Beach. +The roads are too heavy back from the water, and the drive is confined +to a narrow strip of wet sand along the shore; so carriages are few, and +the pony-chaise became a distinguished element at once. Salisbury and +Burnham whirled past it in their light trotting-wagons at a furious +pace, and looked hard at the two young ladies in passing, but without +eliciting even the smallest glance from them in return.</p> + +<p>"Confounded <i>distingué</i>-looking girls, and all that," owned Ned; "but, +aw, fearfully unconscious of a fellow!"</p> + +<p>This condition of matters continued until the young men were actually +driven to acknowledge to each other that they should not mind knowing +the occupants of the pony-carriage. It was a great concession, and was +rewarded duly. A bright, handsome boy of seventeen, Miss Thurston's +brother, came to pass a few days at the seaside, and fraternized with +everybody, but was especially delighted with Ned Salisbury, who took him +out sailing and shooting, and, I am afraid, gave him cigars stealthily, +when out of range of Miss Thurston's fine eyes. The result was, that the +first time the lad walked on the beach with the two girls, and met the +young men, introductions of an enthusiastic nature were instantly sprung +upon them. An attempt at conversation followed.</p> + +<p>"How do you like Brant Beach?" asked Ned.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is a pretty place," said Miss Chapman, "but not lively enough."</p> + +<p>"Well, Burnham and I find it pleasant; aw, we have lots of fun."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Why, what do you do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Everything."</p> + +<p>"Is the shooting good? I saw you with your guns, yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Well, there isn't a great deal of game. There is some fishing, but we +haven't caught much."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How do you kill time, then?"</p> + +<p>Salisbury looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Aw—it is a first-rate air, you know. The table is good, and you can +sleep like a top. And then, you see, I like to smoke around, and do +nothing, on the sea-shore. It is real jolly to lie on the sand, aw, with +all sorts of little bugs running over you, and listen to the water +swashing about!"</p> + +<p>"Let's try it!" cried vivacious Miss Chapman; and down she sat on the +sand. The others followed her example, and in five minutes they were +picking up pretty pebbles and chatting away as sociably as could be. The +rumble of the warning gong surprised them.</p> + +<p>At dinner, Burnham and Salisbury took seats opposite the ladies, and +were honored with an introduction to papa and mamma, a very dignified, +heavy, rosy, old-school couple, who ate a good deal, and said very +little. That evening, when flute and viol wooed the lotos-eaters to +agitate the light fantastic toe, these young gentlemen found themselves +in dancing humor, and revolved themselves into a grievous condition of +glow and wilt, in various mystic and intoxicating measures with their +new-made friends.</p> + +<p>On retiring, somewhat after midnight, Miss Thurston paused, while "doing +her hair," and addressed Miss Chapman.</p> + +<p>"Did you observe, Hattie, how very handsome those gentlemen are? Mr. +Burnham looks like a prince of the <i>sang azur</i>, and Mr. Salisbury like +his poet-laureate."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," responded Hattie; "I have been considering those flowers of +the field and lilies of the valley."</p> + +<p>"Ned," said Charley, at about the same time, "we won't find anything +nicer here, this season, I think."</p> + +<p>"They're pretty well worth while," replied Ned; "and I'm rather pleased +with them."</p> + +<p>"Which do you like best?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother! I haven't thought of <i>that</i> yet."</p> + +<p>The next day the young men delayed their "constitutional" until the +ladies were ready to walk, and the four strolled off together, mamma and +the children following in the pony-chaise. At the rocks on the end of +the point, Ned got his feet very wet, fishing up specimens of sea-weed +for the damsels; and Charley exerted himself superhumanly in assisting +them to a ledge which they considered favorable for sketching-purposes.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon a sail was arranged, and they took dinner on board the +boat, with any amount of hilarity and a good deal of discomfort. In the +evening, more dancing, and vigorous attentions to both the young ladies, +but without a shadow of partiality being shown by either of the four.</p> + +<p>This was very nearly the history of many days. It does not take long to +get acquainted with people who are willing, especially at a +watering-place; and in the course of a few weeks, these young folks +were, to all intents and purposes, old friends,—calling each other by +their given names, and conducting themselves with an easy familiarity +quite charming to behold. Their amusements were mostly in common now. +The light wagons were made to hold two each, instead of one, and the +matinal snipe escaped death, and was happy over his early worm.</p> + +<p>One day, however, Laura Thurston had a headache, and Hattie Chapman +stayed at home to take care of her; so Burnham and Salisbury had to +amuse themselves alone. They took their boat, and idled about the water, +inside the point, dozing under an awning, smoking, gaping, and wishing +that headaches were out of fashion, while the taciturn and tarry skipper +instructed the dignified and urbane Thomas in the science of trolling +for blue-fish.</p> + +<p>At length Ned tossed his cigar-end overboard, and braced himself for an +effort.</p> + +<p>"I say, Charley," said he, "this sort of thing can't go on forever, you +know. I've been thinking, lately."</p> + +<p>"Phenomenon!" replied Charley; "and what have you been thinking about?"</p> + +<p>"Those girls. We've got to choose."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why? Isn't it well enough as it is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—so far. But I think, aw, that we don't quite do them justice. +They're <i>grands partis</i>, you see. I hate to see clever girls wasting +themselves on society, waiting and waiting,—and we fellows swimming +about just like fish round a hook that isn't baited properly."</p> + +<p>Charley raised himself upon his elbow.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to tell me, Ned, that you have matrimonial intentions?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! Still, why not? We've all got to come to it, some day, I +suppose."</p> + +<p>"Not yet, though. It is a sacrifice we can escape for some years yet."</p> + +<p>"Yes,—of course,—some years; but we may begin to look about us a bit. +I'm, aw, I'm six-and-twenty, you know."</p> + +<p>"And I'm very near that. I suppose a fellow can't put off the yoke too +long. After thirty chances aren't so good. I don't know, by Jove! but +what we ought to begin thinking of it."</p> + +<p>"But it <i>is</i> a sacrifice. Society must lose a fellow, though, one time +or another. And I don't believe we will ever do better than we can now."</p> + +<p>"Hardly, I suspect."</p> + +<p>"And we're keeping other fellows away, maybe. It is a shame!"</p> + +<p>Thomas ran his line in rapidly, with nothing on the hook.</p> + +<p>"Capt'n Hull," he said, gravely, "I had the biggest kind of a fish then, +I'm sure; but d'rectly I went to pull him in, Sir, he took and let go."</p> + +<p>"Yaäs," muttered the taciturn skipper, "the biggest fish allers falls +back inter the warter."</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking a little about this matter, too," said Charley, +after a pause, "and I had about concluded we ought to pair off. But I'll +be confounded, if I know which I like best! They're both nice girls."</p> + +<p>"There isn't much choice," Ned replied. "If they were as different, now, +as you and me, I'd take the blonde, of course; aw, and you'd take the +brunette. But Hattie Chapman's eyes are blue, and her hair isn't black, +you know; so you can't call her dark, exactly."</p> + +<p>"No more than Laura is exactly light. Her hair is brown, more than +golden, and her eyes are hazel. Hasn't she a lovely complexion, though? +By Jove!"</p> + +<p>"Better than Hattie's. Yet I don't know but Hattie's features are a +little the best."</p> + +<p>"They are. Now, honest, Ned, which do you prefer? Say either; I'll take +the one you don't want. I haven't any choice."</p> + +<p>"Neither have I."</p> + +<p>"How will we settle?"</p> + +<p>"Aw—throw for it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Isn't there a backgammon board forward, in that locker, Thomas?"</p> + +<p>The board was found, and the dice produced.</p> + +<p>"The highest takes which?"</p> + +<p>"Say, Laura Thurston."</p> + +<p>"Very good; throw."</p> + +<p>"You first."</p> + +<p>"No. Go on."</p> + +<p>Charley threw, with about the same amount of excitement he might have +exhibited in a turkey-raffle.</p> + +<p>"Five-three," said he. "Now for your luck."</p> + +<p>"Six-four! Laura's mine. Satisfied?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly,—if you are. If not, I don't mind exchanging."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I'm satisfied."</p> + +<p>Both reclined upon the deck once more, with a sigh of relief, and a long +silence followed.</p> + +<p>"I say," began Charley, after a time, "it is a comfort to have these +little matters arranged without any trouble, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Y-e-s."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I think I'll marry mine?"</p> + +<p>"I will, if you will."</p> + +<p>"Done! it is a bargain."</p> + +<p>This "little matter" being arranged, a change gradually took place in +the relations of the four. Ned Salisbury began to invite Laura Thurston +out driving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> and in bathing somewhat oftener than before, and Hattie +Chapman somewhat less often; while Charley Burnham followed suit with +the last-named young lady. As the line of demarcation became fixed, the +damsels recognized it, and accepted with gracious readiness the +cavaliers that Fate, through the agency of a chance-falling pair of +dice, had allotted to them.</p> + +<p>The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and +passed whispers about, to the effect that the girls had at last +succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net. No suitors +could have been more devoted than our friends. It seemed as if each now +bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to +both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the +sands, they were the very picture of a <i>partie carrée</i> of lovers.</p> + +<p>Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the +reticence common to my sex, they spoke less freely and frequently on the +subject. Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salisbury +ventured a few words.</p> + +<p>"I say, we're a couple of lucky dogs! Who'd have thought, now, aw, that +our summer was going to turn out so well? I'm sure I didn't. How do you +get along, Charley, boy?"</p> + +<p>"Deliciously. Smooth sailing enough. Wasn't it a good idea, though, to +pair off? I'm just as happy as a bee in clover. You seem to prosper, +too, heh?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't ask anything different. Nothing but devotion, and all that. +I'm delighted. I say, when are you going to pop?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. It is only a matter of form. Sooner the better, I +suppose, and have it over."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of next week. What do you say to a quiet picnic down on +the rocks, and a walk afterward? We can separate, you know, and do the +thing up systematically."</p> + +<p>"All right. I will, if you will."</p> + +<p>"That's another bargain. I notice there isn't much doubt about the +result, though."</p> + +<p>"Hardly!"</p> + +<p>A close observer might have seen that the gentlemen increased their +attentions a little from that time. The objects of their devotion +perceived it, and smiled more and more graciously upon them.</p> + +<p>The day set for the picnic arrived duly, and was radiant. It pains me to +confess that my heroes were a trifle nervous. Their apparel was more +gorgeous and wonderful than ever, and Thomas, who was anxious to be off, +courting Miss Chapman's lady's-maid, found his masters dreadfully +exacting in the matter of hair-dressing. At length, however, the toilet +was over, and "Solomon in all his glory" would have been vastly +astonished at finding himself "arrayed as one of these."</p> + +<p>The boat lay at the pier, receiving large quantities of supplies for the +trip, stowed by Thomas, under the supervision of the grim and tarry +skipper. When all was ready, the young men gingerly escorted their fair +companions aboard, the lines were cast off, and the boat glided gently +down the bay, leaving Thomas free to fly to the smart presence of Susan +Jane, and to draw glowing pictures for her of a neat little porter-house +in the city, wherein they should hold supreme sway, be happy with each +other, and let rooms up-stairs for single gentlemen.</p> + +<p>The brisk land-breeze, the swelling sail, the fluttering of the gay +little flag at the gaff, the musical rippling of water under the +counter, and the spirited motion of the boat, combined with the bland +air and pleasant sunshine to inspire the party with much vivacity. They +had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and +the girls' voices—Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto—rang +melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempts at bass +accompaniment from their gorgeous guardians.</p> + +<p>Before these vocal exercises wearied,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</a></span> the skipper hauled down his jib, +let go his anchor, and brought the craft to, just off the rocks; and +bringing the yawl alongside, unceremoniously plumped the girls down into +it, without giving their cavaliers a chance for the least display of +agile courtliness. Rowing ashore, this same tarry person left them +huddled upon the beach with their hopes, their hampers, their emotions, +and their baskets, and returned to the vessel to do a little private +fishing on his own account till wanted.</p> + +<p>The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among +the rocks, gathering shells and sea-weed for the construction of those +ephemeral little ornaments—fair, but frail—in which the sex delights, +singing, laughing, quoting poetry, attitudinizing upon the peaks and +ledges of the fine old boulders,—mossy and weedy and green with the +wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with +the multitudinous dyes of mineral oxidization,—and, in brief, behaved +themselves with all the charming <i>abandon</i> that so well becomes young +girls, set free, by the <i>entourage</i> of a holiday ramble, from the +buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a +sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing.</p> + +<p>Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a +splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appetites also. The +baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a +broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant-House picnickers, and +the party fell to. Laura's beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept +her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck. Her bright +eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was +something inexpressibly <i>naïve</i> in the freedom with which she ate, +taking a bird's wing in her little fingers, and boldly attacking it with +teeth as white and even as can be imagined. Notwithstanding all the +mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning +feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world +to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, +had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist +the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salisbury. Hattie +Chapman stormed a fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of +Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and +jellies. The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, +as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies principally to +admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters.</p> + +<p>When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned +glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should +walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were "some pretty +rocks and things, you know." She consented, and they marched off. Hattie +also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained +seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, +and looking sublimely unconscious.</p> + +<p>"Sha'n't we walk, too?" Hattie asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, why, the fact is," said he, hesitantly, "I—I sprained my ankle, +getting out of that confounded boat; so I don't feel much like exercise +just now."</p> + +<p>The young girl's face expressed concern.</p> + +<p>"That is too bad! Why didn't you tell us of it before? Is it painful? +I'm so sorry!"</p> + +<p>"N-no,—it doesn't hurt much. I dare say it will be all right in a +minute. And then—I'd just as soon stay here—with you—as to walk +anywhere."</p> + +<p>This, very tenderly, with a little sigh.</p> + +<p>Hattie sat down again, and began to talk to this factitious cripple, in +the pleasant,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg 716]</a></span> purring way some damsels have, about the joys of the +sea-shore,—the happy summer that was, alas! drawing to a close,—her +own enjoyment of life,—and kindred topics,—till Charley saw an +excellent opportunity to interrupt with some aspirations of his own, +which, he averred, must be realized before his life could be considered +a satisfactory success.</p> + +<p>If you have ever been placed in analogous circumstances, you know, of +course, just about the sort of thing that was being said by the two +gentlemen at nearly the same moment: Ned, loitering slowly along the +sands with Laura on his arm,—and Charley, stretched in indolent +picturesqueness upon the rocks, with Hattie sitting beside him. If you +do not know from experience, ask any candid friend who has been through +the form and ceremony of an orthodox proposal.</p> + +<p>When the pedestrians returned, the two couples looked very hard at each +other. All were smiling and complacent, but devoid of any strange or +unusual expression. Indeed, the countenance is subject to such severe +education, in good society, that one almost always looks smiling and +complacent. Demonstration is not fashionable, and a man must preserve +the same demeanor over the loss of a wife or a glove-button, over the +gift of a heart's whole devotion or a bundle of cigars. Under all these +visitations, the complacent smile is in favor, as the neatest, most +serviceable, and convenient form of non-committalism.</p> + +<p>The sun was approaching the blue range of misty hills that bounded the +main-land swamps, by this time; so the skipper was signalled, the +dinner-paraphernalia gathered up, and the party were soon <i>en route</i> for +home once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley +met in their room, and each caught the other looking at him, stealthily. +Both smiled.</p> + +<p>"Did I give you time, Charley?" asked Ned; "we came back rather soon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes,—plenty of time."</p> + +<p>"Did you—aw, did you pop?"</p> + +<p>"Y-yes. Did you?"</p> + +<p>"Well—yes."</p> + +<p>"And you were"—</p> + +<p>"Rejected, by Jove!"</p> + +<p>"So was I!"</p> + +<p>The day following this disastrous picnic, the baggage of Mr. Edwin +Salisbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikahasset +Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a +request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its +hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole +beneath, and presented it.</p> + +<p>"Left for you, this morning, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran +thus:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Boys</span>,—The next time you divert yourselves by throwing +dice for two young ladies, we pray you not to do so in the +presence of a valet who is upon terms of intimacy with the +maid of one of them.</p> + +<p>"With many sincere thanks for the amusement you have given +us,—often when you least suspected it,—we bid you a +lasting adieu, and remain, with the best wishes,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"<i>Brant House,</i> { <span class="smcap">Hattie Chapman,</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"<i>Wednesday.</i> { <span class="smcap">Laura Thurston.</span>"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>"It is all the fault of that, aw, that confounded Thomas!" said Ned.</p> + +<p>So Thomas was discharged.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg 717]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="LIGHT_AND_DARK" id="LIGHT_AND_DARK"></a>LIGHT AND DARK.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Straggling through the winter sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What is this that begs the eye?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than pauper by its state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Less than prince its bashful gait.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis the soul in sun's disguise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Child of Reason's enterprise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through earth's weather seeks its kin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Begs the sun-like take it in.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus from purpling heaven bid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Open flies the double lid;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the palace-steps repair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Souls awakened, foul or fair;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Heavy with a maudlin sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blithesome from a vision deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flying westward with the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eastward to renew their plight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At this menace of the dawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreams the helm of Thought put on;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All my heart its fresco high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Paints against the morning sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">II.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Is the firmament of brass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Gainst my thoughts that seek to pass?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Does the granite vault my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the soul cannot attain?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Planets to my window roll;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the eye which is their goal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Million miles are built of space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Web that glittering we trace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like a lens the winter sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hurls its planets through the eye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to thoughts a buckler dense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Baffling love and reverence.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shivered lie the darts I throw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vassal stars can farther go;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time and Space are drops of dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When 'tis Light would travel through.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg 718]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shining finds its own expanse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rolling suns make room to dance:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth unfasten from my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rid me of my ball and chain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the window, through the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My untethered soul is hurled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finds an orbit nothing bars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sings its note with morning-stars.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">III.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dearth of God, of Love a dearth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rolls my thought, a cloudy Earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the sullen noon that fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet expects the morning-spears.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ere they glisten, ere they threat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All my heart lies cold and wet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prisoned fog between the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cheerless pulse of midnight rills.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis the darkness that has crept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the purple life is kept;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the veins to thought supply<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Murk from out the jealous sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blood that makes the face a dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mother's breast to life, is gone:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strikes my waste no hoof that's bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into sparkles of delight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Heavy freight of care and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Want of friends, and God's disdain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loveless home, and meagre fate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the midnight well may wait.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Well may such an Earth forlorn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shudder on the brink of morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the great breath will not stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strands me on the reefs of day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i10">IV.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bellying Earth no anchor throws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stouter than the breath that blows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Night and Sorrow cling in vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It must toss in day again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hospital and battle-field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myriad spots where fate is sealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brinks that crumble, sins that urge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plunge again into that surge.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg 719]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How the purple breakers throw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round me their insatiate glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweep my deck of hideous freight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pour through fastening and grate!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I awake from night's alarms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the bliss of living arms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Melted goes my leaden dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down the warmth of this Gulf-Stream.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis the trade-wind of my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wafting life to make it whole:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the night it joyward blew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though I neither hoped nor knew.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fresher blow me out to sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morning-tost I fain would be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweep my deck and pile it high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the ingots of the sky.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Give me freight to carry round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To a place with night that's drowned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the Gulf-Stream of the day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glitter then my Milky-Way.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WET-WEATHER_WORK" id="WET-WEATHER_WORK"></a>WET-WEATHER WORK.</h2> + +<h3>BY A FARMER.</h3> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Snowing:</span> the checkered fields below are traceable now only by the brown +lines of fences and the sparse trees that mark the hedge-rows. The white +of the houses and of the spires of the town is seen dimly through the +snow, and seems to waver and shift position like the sails and spars of +ships seen through fog. And straightway upon this image of ships and +swaying spars I go sailing back to the farm-land of the past, and +sharpen my pen for another day's work among <i>The Old Farm-Writers</i>.</p> + +<p>I suspect Virgil was never a serious farmer. I am confident he never had +one of those callosities upon the inner side of his right thumb which +come of the lower thole of a scythe-snath, after a week's mowing. But he +had that quick poet's eye which sees at a glance what other men see only +in a day. Not a shrub or a tree, not a bit of fallow ground or of +nodding lentils escaped his observation; not a bird or a bee; not even +the mosquitoes, which to this day hover pestiferously about the +low-lying sedge-lands of Mantua. His first pastoral, little known now, +and rarely printed with his works, is inscribed <i>Culex</i>.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Young Virgil appears to have been of a delicate constitution, and +probably left the fever-bearing regions of the Mincio for the higher +plain of Milan for sanitary reasons, as much as the other,—of studying, +as men of his parts did study,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg 720]</a></span> Greek and philosophy. There is a story, +indeed, that he studied and practised farriery, as his father had done +before him; and Jethro Tull, in his crude onslaught upon what he calls +the Virgilian husbandry, (chap. ix.,) intimates that a farrier could be +no way fit to lay down the rules for good farm-practice. But this story +of his having been a horse-doctor rests, so far as I can discover, only +on this flimsy tradition,—that the young poet, on his way to the South +of Italy, after leaving Milan and Mantua, fell in at Rome with the +master-of-horse to Octavianus, and gave such shrewd hints to that +official in regard to the points and failings of certain favorite horses +of the Roman Triumvir (for Octavianus had not as yet assumed the purple) +as to gain a presentation to the future Augustus, and rich marks of his +favor.</p> + +<p>It is certain that the poet journeyed to the South, and that +thenceforward the glorious sunshine of Baiæ and of the Neapolitan shores +gave a color to his poems and to his life.</p> + +<p>Yet his agricultural method was derived almost wholly from his +observation in the North of Italy. He never forgot the marshy borders of +the Mincio nor the shores of beautiful Benacus (Lago di Garda); who +knows but he may some time have driven his flocks afield on the very +battle-ground of Solferino?</p> + +<p>But the ruralities of Virgil take a special interest from the period in +which they were written. He followed upon the heel of long and +desolating intestine wars,—a singing-bird in the wake of vultures. No +wonder the voice seemed strangely sweet.</p> + +<p>The eloquence of the Senate had long ago lost its traditionary power; +the sword was every way keener. Who should listen to the best of +speakers, when Pompey was in the forum, covered with the spoils of the +East? Who should care for Cicero's periods, when the magnificent +conqueror of Gaul is skirting the Umbrian Marshes, making straight for +the Rubicon and Rome?</p> + +<p>Then came Pharsalia, with its bloody trail, from which Cæsar rises only +to be slaughtered in the Senate-Chamber. Next comes the long duel +between the Triumvirate and the palsied representatives of the +Republican party. Philippi closes that interlude; and there is a new +duel between Octavianus and Antony (Lepidus counting for nothing). The +gallant lover of Cleopatra is pitted against a gallant general who is a +nephew to the first Cæsar. The fight comes off at Actium, and the lover +is the loser; the pretty Egyptian Jezebel, with her golden-prowed +galleys, goes sweeping down, under a full press of wind, to swell the +squadron of the conqueror. The winds will always carry the Jezebels to +the conquering side.</p> + +<p>Such, then, was the condition of Italy,—its families divided, its +grain-fields trampled down by the Volscian cavalry, its houses red with +fresh blood-stains, its homes beyond the Po parcelled out to lawless +returning soldiers, its public security poised on the point of the sword +of Augustus,—when Virgil's Bucolics appear: a pastoral thanksgiving for +the patrimony that had been spared him, through court-favor.</p> + +<p>There is a show of gross adulation that makes one blush for his manhood; +but withal he is a most lithesome poet, whose words are like honeyed +blossoms, and whose graceful measure is like a hedge of bloom that sways +with spring breezes, and spends perfume as it sways.</p> + +<p>The Georgics were said to have been written at the suggestion of +Mæcenas, a cultivated friend of Augustus, who, like many another friend +of the party in power, had made a great fortune out of the wars that +desolated Italy. He made good use of it, however, in patronizing Virgil, +and in bestowing a snug farm in the Sabine country upon Horace; where I +had the pleasure of drinking goats' milk—"<i>dulci digne mero</i>"—in the +spring of 184-.</p> + +<p>There can be no doubt but Virgil had been an attentive reader of +Xenophon, of Hesiod, of Cato, and of Varro; otherwise he certainly would +have been unworthy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg 721]</a></span> of the task he had undertaken,—that of laying down +the rules of good husbandry in a way that should insure the reading of +them, and kindle a love for the pursuit.</p> + +<p>I suspect that Virgil was not only a reader of all that had been written +on the subject, but that he was also an insistant questioner of every +sagacious landholder and every sturdy farmer that he fell in with, +whether on the Campanian hills or at the house of Mæcenas. How else does +a man accomplish himself for a didactic work relating to matters of +fact? I suspect, moreover, that Virgil, during those half-dozen years in +which he was engaged upon this task, lost no opportunity of inspecting +every bee-hive that fell in his way, of measuring the points and graces +of every pretty heifer he saw in the fields, and of noting with the eye +of an artist the color of every furrow that glided from the plough. It +is inconceivable that a man of his intellectual address should have +given so much of literary toil to a work that was not in every essential +fully up to the best practice of the day. Five years, it is said, were +given to the accomplishment of this short poem. What say our poetasters +to this? Fifteen hundred days, we will suppose, to less than twice as +many lines; blocking out four or five for his morning's task, and all +the evening—for he was a late worker—licking them into shape, as a +bear licks her cubs.</p> + +<p>But <i>cui bono</i>? what good is in it all? Simply as a work of art, it will +be cherished through all time,—an earlier Titian, whose color can never +fade. It was, besides, a most beguiling peace-note, following upon the +rude blasts of war. It gave a new charm to forsaken homesteads. Under +the Virgilian leadership, Monte Gennaro and the heights of Tusculum +beckon the Romans to the fields; the meadows by reedy Thrasymenus are +made golden with doubled crops. The Tarentine sheep multiply around +Benacus, and crop close those dark bits of herbage which have been fed +by the blood of Roman citizens.</p> + +<p>Thus much for the magic of the verse; but there is also sound farm-talk +in Virgil. I am aware that Seneca, living a few years after him, +invidiously objects that he was more careful of his language than of his +doctrine, and that Columella quotes him charily,—that the collector of +the "Geoponics" ignores him, and that Tull gives him clumsy raillery; +but I have yet to see in what respect his system falls short of +Columella, or how it differs materially, except in fulness, from the +teachings of Crescenzi, who wrote a thousand years and more later. There +is little in the poem, save its superstitions, from which a modern +farmer can dissent.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>We are hardly launched upon the first Georgic before we find a pretty +suggestion of the theory of rotation,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sic quoque mutatis requiescunt fœtibus arva."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Rolling and irrigation both glide into the verse a few lines later. He +insists upon the choice of the best seed, advises to keep the drains +clear, even upon holy-days, (268,) and urges, in common with a great +many shrewd New-England farmers, to cut light meadows while the dew is +on, (288-9,) even though it involve night-work. Some, too, he says, +whittle their torches by fire-light, of a winter's night; and the good +wife, meantime, lifting a song of cheer, plies the shuttle merrily. The +shuttle is certainly an archaism, whatever the good wife may be.</p> + +<p>His theory of weather-signs, taken principally from Aratus, agrees in +many respects with the late Marshal Bugeaud's observations, upon which +the Marshal planted his faith so firmly that he is said to have ordered +all his campaigns in Africa in accordance with them.</p> + +<p>In the opening of the second book, Virgil insists, very wisely, upon +proper adaptation of plantations of fruit-trees to different localities +and exposures,—a matter which is far too little considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span> by farmers +of our day. His views in regard to propagation, whether by cuttings, +layers, or seed, are in agreement with those of the best Scotch +nursery-men; and in the matter of grafting or inoculation, he errs (?) +only in declaring certain results possible, which even modern gardening +has not accomplished. Dryden shall help us to the pretty falsehood:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The thin-leaved arbute hazel-grafts receives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wild ash is white with blooming pears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is curious how generally this belief in something like promiscuous +grafting was entertained by the old writers. Palladius repeats it with +great unction in his poem "De Insitione," two or three centuries +later;<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and in the tenth book of the "Geoponics," a certain +Damogerontis (whoever he may have been) says, (cap. lxv.,) "Some rustic +writers allege that nut-trees and resinous trees (τα ῥητινην εχοντα) cannot be successfully grafted; but," he continues, "this is a +mistake; I have myself grafted the pistache nut into the terebenthine."</p> + +<p>Is it remotely possible that these old gentlemen understood the +physiology of plants better than we?</p> + +<p>As I return to Virgil, and slip along the dulcet lines, I come upon this +cracking laconism, in which is compacted as much wholesome advice as a +loose farm-writer would spread over a page:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">"Laudato ingentia rura,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exiguum colito."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The wisdom of the advice for these days of steam-engines, reapers, and +high wages, is more than questionable; but it is in perfect agreement +with the notions of a great many old-fashioned farmers who live nearer +to the heathen past than they imagine.</p> + +<p>The cattle of Virgil are certainly no prize-animals. Any good committee +would vote them down incontinently:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">——"Cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(iii. 52,) would not pass muster at any fair of the last century.</p> + +<p>The horses are better; there is the dash of high venture in them; they +have snuffed battle; their limbs are suppled to a bounding gallop,—as +where in the Æneid,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The fourth book of the Georgics is full of the murmur of bees, showing +how the poet had listened, and had loved to listen. After describing +minutely how and where the homes of the honey-makers are to be placed, +he offers them this delicate attention:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then o'er the running stream or standing lake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A passage for thy weary people make;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With osier floats the standing water strew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That basking in the sun thy bees may lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, resting there, their flaggy pinions dry."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Dryden.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Who cannot see from this how tenderly the man had watched the buzzing +yellow-jackets, as they circled and stooped in broad noon about some +little pool in the rills that flow into the Lago di Garda? For +hereabout, of a surety, the poet once sauntered through the noontides, +while his flock cropped the "milk-giving cytisus," upon the hills.</p> + +<p>And charming hills they are, as my own eyes can witness: nay, my little +note-book of travel shall itself tell the story. (The third shelf, upon +the right, my boy.)</p> + +<p>No matter how many years ago,—I was going from Milan, (to which place I +had come by Piacenza and Lodi,) on my way to Verona by Brescia and +Peschiera. At Desenzano, or thereabout, the blue lake of Benaco first +appeared. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_723" id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span> few of the higher mountains that bounded the view were +still capped with snow, though it was latter May. Through fragrant +locusts and mulberry-trees, and between irregular hedges, we dashed down +across the isthmus of Sermione, where the ruins of a Roman castle flout +the sky.</p> + +<p>Hedges and orchards and fragrant locusts still hem the way, as we touch +the lake, and, rounding its southern skirt, come in sight of the grim +bastions of Peschiera. A Hungarian sentinel, lithe and tall, I see +pacing the rampart, against the blue of the sky. Women and girls come +trooping into the narrow road,—for it is near sunset,—with their +aprons full of mulberry-leaves. A bugle sounds somewhere within the +fortress, and the mellow music swims the water, and beats with melodious +echo—boom on boom—against Sermione and the farther shores.</p> + +<p>The sun just dipping behind the western mountains, with a disk all +golden, pours down a flood of yellow light, tinting the +mulberry-orchards, the edges of the Roman castle, the edges of the waves +where the lake stirs, and spreading out in a bay of gold where the lake +lies still.</p> + +<p>Virgil never saw a prettier sight there; and I was thinking of him, and +of my old master beating off spondees and dactyls with a red ruler on +his threadbare knee, when the sun sunk utterly, and the purple shadows +dipped us all in twilight.</p> + +<p>"<i>È arrivato, Signore!</i>" said the <i>vetturino</i>. True enough, I was at the +door of the inn of Peschiera, and snuffed the stew of an Italian supper.</p> + +<p>Virgil closes the first book of the Georgics with a poetic forecast of +the time when ploughmen should touch upon rusted war-weapons in their +work, and turn out helmets empty, and bones of dead soldiers,—as indeed +they might, and did. But how unlike a poem it will sound, when the +schools are opened on the Rappahannock again, and the boy +scans,—choking down his sobs,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and the master veils his eyes!</p> + +<p>I fear that Virgil was harmed by the Georgican success, and became more +than ever an adulator of the ruling powers. I can fancy him at a palace +tea-drinking, where pretty court-lips give some witty turn to his "<i>Sic +Vos, non Vobis</i>," and pretty court-eyes glance tenderly at Master +Marius, who blushes, and asks some Sabina (not Poppæa) after Tibullus +and his Delia. But a great deal is to be forgiven to a man who can turn +compliments as Virgil turned them. What can be more exquisite than that +allusion to the dead boy Marcellus, in the Sixth Book of the Æneid? He +is reading it aloud before Augustus, at Rome. Mæcenas is there from his +tall house upon the Esquiline; possibly Horace has driven over from the +Sabine country,—for, alone of poets, he was jolly enough to listen to +the reading of a poem not his own. Above all, the calm-faced Octavia, +Cæsar's sister, and the rival of Cleopatra, is present. A sad match she +has made of it with Antony; and her boy Marcellus is just now +dead,—dying down at Baiæ, notwithstanding the care of that famous +doctor, Antonius Musa, first of hydropaths.</p> + +<p>Virgil had read of the Sibyl,—of the entrance to Hades,—of the magic +metallic bough that made Charon submissive,—of the dog Cerberus, and +his sop,—of the Greeks who welcomed Æneas,—then of the father +Anchises, who told the son what brave fate should belong to him and +his,—warning him, meantime, with alliterative beauty, against the worst +of wars,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neu patriæ validas in viscera vertite vires,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>too late, alas! There were those about Augustus who could sigh over +this.</p> + +<p>Virgil reads on: Anchises is pointing out to Æneas that old Marcellus +who fought Hannibal; and beside him, full of beauty, strides a young +hero about whom the attendants throng.</p> + +<p>"And who is the young hero," demands Æneas, "over whose brow a dark fate +is brooding?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_724" id="Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span></p> + +<p>(The motherless Octavia is listening with a yearning heart.)</p> + +<p>And Anchises, the tears starting to his eyes, says,—</p> + +<p>"Seek not, O son, to fathom the sorrows of thy kindred. The Fates, that +lend him, shall claim him; a jealous Heaven cannot spare such gifts to +Rome. Then, what outcry of manly grief shall shake the battlements of +the city! what a wealth of mourning shall Father Tiber see, as he sweeps +past his new-made grave! Never a Trojan who carried hopes so high, nor +ever the land of Romulus so gloried in a son."</p> + +<p>(Octavia is listening.)</p> + +<p>"Ah, piety! alas for the ancient faith! alas for the right hand so +stanch in battle! None, none could meet him, whether afoot or with +reeking charger he pressed the foe. Ah, unhappy youth! If by any means +thou canst break the harsh decrees of Fate, thou wilt be—Marcellus!"</p> + +<p>It is Octavia's lost boy; and she is carried out fainting.</p> + +<p>But Virgil receives a matter of ten thousand sesterces a line,—which, +allowing for difference in exchange and value of gold, may (or may not) +have been a matter of ten thousand dollars. With this bouncing bag of +sesterces, Virgil shall go upon the shelf for to-day.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I must name Horace for the reason of his "<i>Procul beatus</i>," etc., if I +had no other; but the truth is, that, though he rarely wrote +intentionally of country-matters, yet there was in him that fulness of +rural taste which bubbled over—in grape-clusters, in images of rivers, +in snowy Soracte, in shade of plane-trees; nay, he could not so much as +touch an <i>amphora</i> but the purple juices of the hill-side stained his +verse as they stained his lip. See, too, what a garden pungency there is +in his garlic ode (III. 5); and the opening to Torquatus (Ode VII. Lib. +4) is the limning of one who has followed the changes of the bursting +spring with his whole heart in his eyes:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>every school-boy knows it: but what every school-boy does not know, and +but few of the masters, is this charming, jingling rendering of it into +the Venetian dialect:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"La neve xè andàda,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Su i prài torna i fieri<br /></span> +<span class="i2">De cento colori,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">E a dosso de i àlbori<br /></span> +<span class="i2">La fogia è tornada<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A farli vestir.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Che gusto e dilèto<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Che dà quèla tèra<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cambiàda de cièra,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">E i fiumi die placidi<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sbassài nel so' lèto<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Va zòzo in te 'l mar!"<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>On my last wet-day, I spoke of the elder Pliny, and now the younger +Pliny shall tell us something of one or two of his country-places. Pliny +was a government-official, and was rich: whether these facts had any +bearing on each other I know no more than I should know if he had lived +in our times.</p> + +<p>I know that he had a charming place down by the sea, near to Ostium. Two +roads led thither; "both of them," he says, "in some parts sandy, which +makes it heavy and tedious, if you travel in a coach; but easy enough +for those who ride. My villa" (he is writing to his friend Gallus, +Epist. XX. Lib. 2) "is large enough for all convenience, and not +expensive." He describes the portico as affording a capital retreat in +bad weather, not only for the reason that it is protected by windows, +but because there is an extraordinary projection of the roof. "From the +middle of this portico you pass into a charming inner court, and thence +into a large hall which extends towards the sea,—so near, indeed, that +under a west wind the waves ripple on the steps. On the left of this +hall is a large lounging-room (<i>cubiculum</i>), and a lesser one beyond,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_725" id="Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span> +with windows to the east and west. The angle which this lounging-room +forms with the hall makes a pleasant lee, and a loitering-place for my +family in the winter. Near this again is a crescent-shaped apartment, +with windows which receive the sun all day, where I keep my favorite +authors. From this, one passes to a bed-chamber by a raised passage, +under which is a stove that communicates an agreeable warmth to the +whole apartment. The other rooms in this portion of the villa are for +the freedmen and slaves; but still are sufficiently well ordered (<i>tam +mundis</i>) for my guests."</p> + +<p>And he goes on to describe the bath-rooms, the cooling-rooms, the +sweating-rooms, the tennis-court, "which lies open to the warmth of the +afternoon sun." Adjoining this is a tower, with two apartments below and +two above,—besides a supper-room, which commands a wide look-out along +the sea, and over the villas that stud the shores. At the opposite end +of the tennis-court is another tower, with its apartments opening upon a +museum,—and below this the great dining-hall, whose windows look upon +gardens, where are box-tree hedges, and rosemary, and bowers of vines. +Figs and mulberries grow profusely in the garden; and walking under +them, one approaches still another banqueting-hall, remote from the sea, +and adjoining the kitchen-garden. Thence a grand portico +(<i>crypto-porticus</i>) extends with a range of windows on either side, and +before the portico is a terrace perfumed with violets. His favorite +apartment, however, is a detached building, which he has himself erected +in a retired part of the grounds. It has a warm winter-room, looking one +way on the terrace, and another on the ocean; through its folding-doors +may be seen an inner chamber, and within this again a sanctum, whose +windows command three views totally separate and distinct,—the sea, the +woods, or the villas along the shore.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he says, "if all this is not very charming, and if I shall +not have the honor of your company, to enjoy it with me?"</p> + +<p>If Pliny regarded the seat at Ostium as only a convenient and +inexpensive place, we may form some notion of his Tuscan property, +which, as he says in his letter to his friend Apollinaris, (Lib. V. +Epist. 6,) he prefers to all his others, whether of Tivoli, Tusculum, or +Palestrina. There, at a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from Rome, +in the midst of the richest corn-bearing and olive-bearing regions of +Tuscany, he can enjoy country quietude. There is no need to be slipping +on his toga; ceremony is left behind. The air is healthful; the scene is +quiet. "<i>Studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo.</i>" I will not follow him +through the particularity of the description which he gives to his +friend Apollinaris. There are the wide-reaching views of fruitful +valleys and of empurpled hill-sides; there are the fresh winds sweeping +from the distant Apennines; there is the <i>gestatio</i> with its clipped +boxes, the embowered walks, the colonnades, the marble banquet-rooms, +the baths, the Carystian columns, the soft, embracing air, and the +violet sky. I leave Pliny seated upon a bench in a marble alcove of his +Tuscan garden. From this bench, the water, gushing through several +little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons +reposing upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, whence it is +received into a polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that it is +always full, without ever overflowing. "When I sup here," he writes, +"this basin serves for a table,—the larger dishes being placed round +the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little +vessels and waterfowl."</p> + +<p>Such <i>al fresco</i> suppers the country-gentlemen of Italy ate in the first +century of our era!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Palladius wrote somewhere about the middle of the fourth century. His +work is arranged in the form of a calendar for the months, and closes +with a poem which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_726" id="Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span> is as inferior to the poems of the time of Augustus +as the later emperors were inferior to the Cæsars. There is in his +treatise no notable advance upon the teachings of Columella, whom he +frequently quotes,—as well as certain Greek authorities of the Lower +Empire. I find in his treatise a somewhat fuller list of vegetables, +fruits, and field-crops than belongs to the earlier writers. I find more +variety of treatment. I see a waning faith in the superstitions of the +past; Bacchus and the Lares are less jubilant than they were; but the +Christian civilization has not yet vivified the art of culture. The +magnificent gardens of Nero and the horticultural experiences of the +great Adrian at Tivoli have left no traces in the method or inspiration +of Palladius.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I will not pass wholly from the classic period, without allusion to the +recent book of Professor Daubeny on Roman husbandry. It is charming, and +yet disappointing,—not for failure, on his part, to trace the +traditions to their sources, not for lack of learning or skill, but for +lack of that <i>afflatus</i> which should pour over and fill both subject and +talker, where the talker is lover as well as master.</p> + +<p>Daubeny's husbandry lacks the odor of fresh-turned ground,—lacks the +imprint of loving familiarity. He is clearly no farmer: every man who +has put his hand to the plough (<i>aratori crede</i>) sees it. Your blood +does not tingle at his story of Boreas, nor a dreamy languor creep over +you when he talks of sunny south-winds.</p> + +<p>Had he written exclusively of bees, or trees, or flowers, there would +have been a charming murmur, like the <i>susurrus</i> of the poets,—and a +fragrance as of crushed heaps of lilies and jonquils. But Daubeny +approaches fanning as a good surgeon approaches a <i>cadaver</i>. He +disarticulates the joints superbly; but there is no tremulous intensity. +The bystanders do not feel the thrill with which they see a man bare his +arm for a capital operation upon a live and palpitating body.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>From the time of Palladius to the time of Pietro Crescenzi is a period +of a thousand years, a period as dreary and impenetrable as the +snow-cloud through which I see faintly a few spires staggering: so along +the pages of Muratori's interminable annals gaunt figures come and go; +but they are not the figures of farmers.</p> + +<p>Goths, wars, famines, and plague succeed each other in ghastly +procession. Boëthius lifts, indeed, a little rural plaint from out of +the gloom,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Felix nimium prior ætas,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Contenta fidelibus arvis,"<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a>—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but the dungeon closes over him; and there are outstanding orders of +Charlemagne which look as if he had an eye to the crops of Italy, and to +a good vegetable stew with his Transalpine dinners,—but for the most +part the land is waste. I see some such monster as Eccelino reaping a +harvest of blood. I see Lombards pouring down from the mountain-gates, +with falcons on their thumbs, ready to pounce upon the purple <i>columbæ</i> +that trace back their lineage to the doves Virgil may have fed in the +streets of Mantua. I see torrents of people, the third of them women, +driven mad by some fanatical outcry, sweeping over the whole breadth of +Italy, and consuming all green things as a fire consumes stubble. Think +of what the fine villa of Pliny would have been, with its boxwood bowers +and floating dishes, under the press of such crusaders! It was a +precarious time for agricultural investments: I know nothing that could +match it, unless it may have been last summer's harvests in the valley +of the Shenandoah.</p> + +<p>Upon a parchment (<i>strumento</i>) of Ferrara, bearing date <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> 1113, +(Annals of Muratori,) I find a memorandum or contract which looks like +reviving civilization. "<i>Terram autem illam quam roncabo, frui debeo per +annos tres; postea reddam serraticum.</i>" The Latin is stiff,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> but the +sense is sound. "If I grub up wild land, I shall hold it three years for +pay."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I shall make no apology for introducing next to the reader the +"Geoponica Geoponicorum,"—a somewhat extraordinary collection of +agricultural opinions, usually attributed, in a loose way, to the +Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who held the Byzantine throne about +the middle of the tenth century. It was undoubtedly under the order of +Constantine that the collection took its present shape; but whether a +collection under the same name had not previously existed, and, if so, +to whom is to be credited the authorship, are questions which have been +discussed through a wilderness of Greek and Roman type, by the various +editors.</p> + +<p>The edition before me (that of Niclas, Leipsic) gives no less than a +hundred pages of prolegomena, prefaces, introductory observations, with +notes to each and all, interlacing the pages into a motley of patchwork; +the whole preceded by two, and followed by five stately dedications. The +weight of authority points to Cassianus Bassus, a Bithynian, as the real +compiler,—notwithstanding his name is attached to particular chapters +of the book, and notwithstanding he lived as early as the fifth century. +Other critics attribute the collection to Dionysius Uticensis, who is +cited by both Varro and Columella. The question is unsettled, and is not +worth the settling.</p> + +<p>My own opinion—in which, however, Niclas and Needham do not share—is, +that the Emperor Porphyrogenitus, in addition to his historical and +judicial labors,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> wishing to mass together the best agricultural +opinions of the day, expressed that wish to some trusted Byzantine +official (we may say his Commissioner of Patents). Whereupon the +Byzantine official (commissioner) goes to some hungry agricultural +friend, of the Chersonesus, and lays before him the plan, with promise +of a round Byzantian stipend. The agricultural friend goes lovingly to +the work, and discovers some old compilation of Bassus or of Dionysius, +into which he whips a few modern phrases, attributes a few chapters to +the virtual compiler of the whole, makes one or two adroit allusions to +local scenes, and carries the result to the Byzantine official +(commissioner). The official (commissioner) has confidence in the +opinions and virtues of his agricultural friend, and indorses the book, +paying over the stipend, which it is found necessary to double, by +reason of the unexpected cost of execution. The official (commissioner) +presents the report to the Emperor, who receives it gratefully,—at the +same tune approving the bill of costs, which has grown into a quadruple +of the original estimates.</p> + +<p>This hypothesis will explain the paragraphs which so puzzle Niclas and +Needham; it explains the evident interpolations, and the local +allusions. The only extravagance in the hypothesis is its assumption +that the officials of Byzantium were as rapacious as our own.</p> + +<p>Thus far, I have imagined a certain analogy between the work in view and +the "Patent Office Agricultural Reports." The analogy stops here: the +"Geoponica" is a good book. It is in no sense to be regarded as a work +of the tenth century, or as one strictly Byzantine: nearly half the +authors named are of Western origin, and I find none dating later than +the fifth century,—while many, as Apuleius, Fiorentinus, Africanus, and +the poor brothers Quintilii, who died under the stab of Commodus, belong +to a period preceding that of Palladius. Aratus and Democritus (of +Abdera) again, who are cited, are veterans of the old Greek school, who +might have contributed as well to the agriculture of Thrace or Macedonia +in the days of Philip as in the days of the Porphyrogenitus.</p> + +<p>The first book, of meteorologic phenomena, is nearly identical in its +teachings with those of Aratus, Varro, and Virgil.</p> + +<p>The subject of field-culture is opened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span> with the standard maxim, +repeated by all the old writers, that the master's eye is +invaluable.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The doctrine of rotation, or frequent change of crops, +is laid down with unmistakable precision. A steep for seed (hellebore) +is recommended, to guard against the depredations of birds or mice.</p> + +<p>In the second book, in certain chapters credited to Fiorentinus, I find, +among other valuable manures mentioned, sea-weed and tide-drift, +(Τα εκ της θαλασσης δε εκβρασσομενα βρυωδη,) which I do not +recall in any other of the old writers. He also recommends the refuse of +leather-dressers, and a mode of promoting putrefaction in the +compost-heap, which would almost seem to be stolen from "Bommer's +Method." He further urges the diversion of turbid rills, after rains, +over grass lands, and altogether makes a better compend of this branch +of the subject than can be found in the Roman writers proper.</p> + +<p>Grain should be cut before it is fully ripe, as the meal is the sweeter. +What correspondent of our agricultural papers, suggesting this as a +novelty, could believe that it stood in Greek type as early as ever +Greek types were set?</p> + +<p>A farm foreman should be apt to rise early, should win the respect of +his men, should fear to tell an untruth, regard religious observances, +and not drink too hard.</p> + +<p>Three or four books are devoted to a very full discussion of the vine, +and of wines,—not differing materially, however, from the Columellan +advice. In discussing the moral aspects of the matter, this Geoponic +author enumerates other things which will intoxicate as well as +wine,—even some waters; also the wine made from barley and wheat, which +barbarians drink. Old men, he says, are easily made drunk; women not +easily, by reason of temperament; but by drinking enough they may come +to it.</p> + +<p>Where the discourse turns upon pears, (Lib. X. Cap. xxiii.,) it is +urged, that, if you wish specially good fruit, you should bore a hole +through the trunk at the ground, and drive in a plug of either oak or +beech, and draw the earth over it. If it does not heal well, wash for a +fortnight with the lees of old wine: in any event, the wine-lees will +help the flavor of the fruit. Almost identical directions are to be +found in Palladius, (Tit. XXV.,) but the above is credited to Diophanes, +who lived in Asia Minor a full century before Christ.</p> + +<p>Book XI. opens with flowers and evergreens, introduced (by a Latin +translation) in a mellifluous roll of genitives:—"<i>plantationem +rosarum, et liliorum, et violarum, et reliquorum florum odoralorum</i>." +Thereafter is given the pretty tradition, that red roses came of nectar +spilled from heaven. Love, who bore the celestial vintage, tripped a +wing, and overset the vase; and the nectar, spilling on the valleys of +the earth, bubbled up in roses. Next we have this kindred story of the +lilies. Jupiter wished to make his boy Hercules (born of a mortal) one +of the gods; so he snatches him from the bosom of his earthly mother, +Alemena, and bears him to the bosom of the godlike Juno. The milk is +spilled from the full-mouthed boy, as he traverses the sky, (making the +Milky Way,) and what drops below stars and clouds, and touches earth, +stains the ground with—lilies.</p> + +<p>In the chapter upon pot-herbs are some of those allusions to the climate +of Constantinople which may have served to accredit the work in the +Byzantine court. I find no extraordinary methods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span> of kitchen-garden +culture,—unless I except the treatment of musk-melon seeds to a steep +of milk and honey, in order to improve the flavor of the fruit. (Cap. +xx.) The remaining chapters relate to ordinary domestic animals, with +diversions to stags, camels, hare, poisons, scorpions, and serpents. I +can cheerfully commend the work to those who have a snowy day on their +hands, good eyesight, and a love for the subject.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And now, while the snow lasts, let us take one look at Messer Pietro +Crescenzi, a Bolognese of the fourteenth century. My copy of him is a +little, fat, unctuous, parchment-bound book of 1534, bought upon a +street stall under the walls of the University of Bologna.</p> + +<p>Through whose hands may it not have passed since its printing! Sometimes +I seem to snuff in it the taint of a dirty-handed friar, who loved his +pot-herbs better than his breviary, and plotted his yearly garden on +some shelf of the hills that look down on Castagnolo: other times I +scent only the mould and the damp of some monastery shelf, that guarded +it quietly and cleanly, while red-handed war raged around the walls.</p> + +<p>Crescenzi was a man of good family in Bologna, being nephew of Crescenzi +di Crescenzo, who died in 1268, an ambassador in Venice. Pietro was +educated to the law, and, wearying of the civil commotions in his native +town, accepted judicial positions in the independent cities of +Italy,—Pisa and Asti among others; and after thirty years of absence, +in which, as he says, he had read many authors,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> and seen many sorts +of farming, he gives his book to the world.</p> + +<p>Its arrangement is very similar to that of Palladius, to which he makes +frequent reference. There is long and quaint talk of situations, +breezes, cellar-digging, and wells; but in the matter of irrigation and +pipe-laying he is clearly in advance of the Roman writers. He discourses +upon tiles, and gives a cement for making water-tight their +junction,—"<i>Calcina viva intrisa con olio</i>." (Lib. I. Cap. ix.) He adds +good rules for mortar-making, and advises that the timber for +house-building be cut in November or December in the old of the moon.</p> + +<p>In matters of physiology he shows a near approach to modern views: he +insists that food for plants must be in a liquid form.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>He quotes Columella's rule for twenty-four loads (<i>carrette</i>) of manure +to hill-lands per acre, and eighteen to level land; and adds,—"Our +people put the double of this,"—"<i>I nostri mettano più chel doppio.</i>"</p> + +<p>But the book of our friend Crescenzi is interesting, not so much for its +maxims of agronomic wisdom as for its association with one of the most +eventful periods o£ Italian history. The new language of the +Peninsula<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> was just now crystallizing into shape, and was presently +to receive the stamp of currency from the hands of Dante and Boccaccio. +A thriving commerce through the ports of Venice and Amalfi demanded all +the products of the hill-sides. Milan, then having a population of two +hundred thousand, had turned a great river into the fields,—which to +this day irrigates thousands of acres of rice-lands. Wheat was grown in +profusion, at that time, on fields which are now desolated by the +malaria, or by indolence. In the days of Crescenzi, gunpowder was burned +for the first time in battle; and for the first time crops of grain were +paid for in bills of exchange. All the Peninsula was vibrating with the +throbs of a new and more splendid life. The art that had cropped out of +the fashionable schools of Byzantium was fast putting them in eclipse; +and before Crescenzi died, if he loved art on canvas as he loved art in +gardens, he must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_730" id="Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span> heard admiringly of Cimabue, and Giotto, and +Orcagna.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In 1360 a certain Paganino Bonafede composed a poem called "Il Tesoro +de' Rustici"; but I believe it was never published; and Tiraboschi calls +it "<i>poco felice</i>." If we could only bar publicity to all the <i>poco +felice</i> verses!</p> + +<p>In the middle of the fifteenth century the Florentine Poggio says some +good things in a rural way; and still later, that whimsical, +disagreeable Politiano, who was a pet cub of Lorenzo de' Medici, +published his "Rusticus." Roscoe says, with his usual strained +hyperbole, that it is inferior in kind only to the Georgics. The fact +is, it compares with the Georgics as the vilest of the Medici compare +with the grandest of the Cæsars.</p> + +<p>The young Michele Verini, of the same period, has given, in one of his +few remaining letters, an eloquent description of the Cajano farm of +Lorenzo de' Medici. It lay between Florence and Pistoia. The river +Ombrone skirted its fields. It was so successfully irrigated, that three +crops of grain grew in a year. Its barns had stone floors, walls with +moat, and towers like a castle. The cows he kept there (for ewes were +now superseded) were equal to the supply of the entire city of Florence. +Hogs were fed upon the whey; and peacocks and pheasant innumerable +roamed through the woods.</p> + +<p>Politiano also touches upon the same theme; but the prose of young +Verini is better, because more explicit, than the verse of Politiano.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>While I write, wandering in fancy to that fair plain where Florence sits +a queen, with her girdle of shining rivers, and her garland of +olive-bearing hills,——the snow is passing. The spires have staggered +plainly and stiffly into sight. Again I can count them, one by one. I +have brought as many authors to the front as there are spires staring at +me from the snow.</p> + +<p>Let me marshal them once more:—Verini, the young Florentine; +Politiano,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> who cannot live in peace with the wife of his patron; +Poggio, the Tuscan; Crescenzi, the magistrate and farmer joined; the +half-score of dead men who lie between the covers of the "Geoponica"; +the martyr Boëthius, who, under the consolations of a serene, perhaps +Christian philosophy, cannot forget the charm of the fields; Palladius, +who is more full than original; Pliny the Consul, and the friend of +Tacitus; Horace, whose very laugh is brimming with the buxom cheer of +the country; and last,—Virgil.</p> + +<p>I hear no such sweet bugle-note as his along all the line!</p> + +<p>Hark!—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Even so: <i>Claudite jam libros, parvuli!</i>—Shut up the books, my little +ones! Enough of this.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<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> "<i>Lusimus</i>: hæc propter <i>Culicis</i> sint carmina dicta."</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> Of course, I reckon the +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Exceptantque leves auras; et sæpe sine ullis," etc.,<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +(Lib. III. 274,) as among the superstitions.</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> The same writer, under Februarius, Tit. XVII., gives a +very curious method of grafting the willow, so that it may bear +peaches.</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> Praise big farms; stick by little ones.</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> This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro +Bussolino, and given as an appendix to the <i>Serie degli Scritti in +Dialetto Venez.</i>, by Bart. Gamba.</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> <i>De Consol. Phil.</i> Lib. II.</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> See Gibbon,—opening of Chapter LIII.</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> As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different +agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim. +</p><p> +The "Geoponica" has,—"Πολλο τον αγρον αμεινο ποιει δεσποτου +συνεχης παρουσια." Lib. II. Cap. i. +</p><p> +Columella says,—"Ne ista quidem præsidia tantum pollent, quantum vel +una præsentia domini." I. i. 18. +</p><p> +Cato says,—"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv. +</p><p> +Palladius puts it,—"Præsentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi. +</p><p> +And the elder Pliny writes,—"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini +esse dixerunt."</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> "E molti libri d'antichi e de' novelli savi lessi e +studiai, e diverse e varie operazioni de' coltivalori delle terre vidi e +conobbi."</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> "Il proprio cibo delle piante sara aleuno humido ben +mischiato." Cap. xiii.</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> Crescenzi'a book was written in Latin, but was very +shortly after (perhaps by himself) rendered into the street-tongue of +Italy.</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> See Roscoe, <i>Life of Lorenzo de' Medici</i>, Chap. VIII.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_MEMBER_FROM_FOXDEN" id="THE_MEMBER_FROM_FOXDEN"></a>THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN.</h2> + + +<p>The circumstances <i>were</i> a little peculiar,—it is in vain to deny it. +No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and +stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I +was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the +General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel +Prowley's during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about +the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office +occupied by far the greater part of my time and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span> attention. And really, +when you think of the "remarkable men" long identified with this ancient +river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable.</p> + +<p>Chosen a member of the "Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society" during my +first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the +meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of +political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing +was——But stop!—to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the +Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence. For, as the +reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to +slacken his epistolary attentions after the success of his little +scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife +turned out to possess the feminine facility of letter-writing, and was +good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous +productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted +to their perusal.</p> + +<p>It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope +from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following +communication:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Rooms of the Young Men's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gelasmiphilous Society.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>: You will herewith receive a copy of a resolution +nominating you as the Young Men's candidate for the next +Legislature. You are doubtless aware that it is the custom +for all new candidates to deliver a lyceum-lecture in Foxden +on the evening before the election. We have therefore +engaged the Town Hall in your behalf on the <span class="smcap">P. M.</span> of +November fifth. Knowing something of the taste in lectures +of those disposed to support you, I venture to recommend the +selection of some light and humorous subject.</p> + +<p class="sig">"I am fraternally yrs.,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Thaddeus Waspy</span>,<br /> +"Secretary Y. M. G. S.</p> + +<p>"P. S. Dr. Howke, who was run last year without success, is +upon the opposition ticket. As the old-fogy element of the +town will probably rally to his support, it is very +important that you bring out the entire strength of Young +Foxden. Thus you see the necessity of having your lecture +lively and full of fun. If you feel equal to it, I am sure +that a Comic Poem would be a great hit."</p></div> + +<p>As illustrating this extraordinary missive, there is subjoined an +extract from the accompanying epistle of my regular Foxden +correspondent.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I inclose what I am given to understand is a nomination to +the Honorable Legislature, a distinction which, I need not +say, gives the highest gratification to my sister and +myself. You will be opposed in this noble emulation by one +Howke, a physician of North Foxden, with whom our venerable +and influential Dr. Dastick has much osseous sympathy. Dr. +Howke (long leaning to the Root-and-Herb School of Medicine, +and having wrought many notable cures with such simples as +sage, savory, wormwood, sweet-marjoram, sassafras, +liverwort, pine-cones, rosemary, poppy-leaves, not to speak +of plasters of thyme, cowslips, rose-buds, fit to refresh +the tired wings of Ariel) has latterly declared his +conversion to the Indian system of physic. The celebrated +Wigwam Family Pills, to the manufacture of which he at +present devotes himself, are not unknown to city journals. +As I am informed that Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden +Regulator," has a large interest in the sale of these +alterative spherules, you will necessarily encounter the +hostility of our county journal. I advise you of the full +might of these adversaries, that you may come to fuller +justification of your supporters in the lecture to be read +before us on election-eve. Dr. Dastick, with some of the +elder of this town, has little liking for this laic +preaching of the lyceum, by reason of the slight and foolish +matter too often dispensed, when in the mean time there be +precious gems of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span> knowledge, the very onyx or sapphire to +bedeck the mind, which the muck-rake of the lecturer never +collects. I add for your consideration a few wholesome +subjects:—Caleb Cheeschateaumuck, the Indian Bachelor of +Arts; A Monody on the Apostle Eliot; A Suggestion of Some +New Claimant for the Honors of Junius; Mather's Four +<i>Johannes in Eremo</i>, being Notable Facts in the Lives of +John Cotton, John Norton, John Wilson, and John Davenport; +The Great Obligations of Homer to the Illustrious Mr. Pope; +"New England's Jonas cast up in London," Some Account of +this Remarkable Work; Natootomakteackesuk, or the Day of +Asking Questions, whether this Ancient Festival might be +profitably Revived?—I should feel competent to give +assistance in the treatment of any of these subjects you +might select. If the Muse inspire you, why not try a +descriptive poem, modelled, let us say, upon William +Morrill's 'New England'? The silver ring of verse would be +joyfully heard among us, and work strong persuasions in your +behalf.... I must not forget to mention, that, on the day of +your lecture, you will meet at dinner at my house my +esteemed Western correspondent, Professor Owlsdarck, (his +grandmother was a Sodkin,) whose great work upon Mummies is +the admiration of the literary world. He has been invited to +deliver an address upon some speciality of erudition before +the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy, +and that upon the same evening you are to speak in Foxden. +As the distance is only ten miles, I shall send him over in +the carryall after an early tea. And now to share with you a +little secret. The office of Principal of the Academy is +vacant, and the well-known learning of Professor Owlsdarck +gives his friends great hope in recommending him for the +place. He formerly lived in Wrexford, where his early +'Essays on Cenotaphs,' published in the local paper of that +town, were very popular. Indeed, I think the trustees have +only to hear the weighty homily he will provide for them to +decide by acclamation in his favor. Thus you see my double +interest in your visits next November; for, as I think, both +my guests will come upon brave opportunities for fame and +usefulness."</p></div> + +<p>"And what shall you do about it?" asked my wife, after we had thoroughly +read the documents which have been quoted.</p> + +<p>"Stand," I replied, with emphasis. "I don't think there's any chance of +an election; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political +campaign. If I could get a little of the stump-orator's brass into my +composition, it would be worth five years of office-practice for putting +me on in the profession."</p> + +<p>"But you have always had such unwillingness to address an audience," +faltered Kate.</p> + +<p>"The more reason why an effort should now be made to get over it," I +replied. "In short, I consider this nomination quite providential, for I +could never have descended to the vulgar wire-pulling by which such +distinctions are commonly gained; and I confess, it promises to be just +the discipline I want. Of course I have no expectation of being chosen."</p> + +<p>"But why should you not be chosen?" urged my wife. "You are tolerably +well-known in Foxden; Colonel Prowley, an influential citizen, is your +warm friend; and Mr. Waspy tells you how you may get the support of the +active generation."</p> + +<p>"Yes,—by playing literary Grimaldi an hour or so for their diversion! A +very good recipe, were it not probable that the elder portion of the +town would fail to see the humor of it."</p> + +<p>"But you may be certain that everybody likes to laugh at a +lyceum-lecture."</p> + +<p>"Everybody but a clique of pseudo-wiseacres in Foxden perhaps may," I +replied. "But our good friend, the Colonel, has so established his +antiquarian dictatorship over his contemporaries, that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_733" id="Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span> believe +nothing adapted to the present century could possibly please them."</p> + +<p>"You may depend upon it," argued Kate, consolingly, "that all the lieges +of Foxden will be so taken up with this Professor Owlsdarck, who is +fortunately to be there at the same time, that they will give little +thought to your deficiencies. At all events, there is nothing to be done +but to try to please the Young Men who give you the nomination."</p> + +<p>Of course I agreed in this view of the case, and began to cast about for +some grotesque subject for my lecture. But regret at disappointing the +expectations of my old friend caused me to dismiss such light topics as +presented themselves, and after searching for half an hour, I declared +myself as much at a loss as ever.</p> + +<p>"I think I have it!" cried Kate, at length. "Both your correspondents +say that a poem would be particularly acceptable,—and a poem it must +be."</p> + +<p>"Modelled on William Morrill's 'New England'?" I said, dubiously.</p> + +<p>"Not at all; but a comic; poem, such as the secretary asks for. The dear +Colonel will be pleased at the pretension of verse, and your humorous +passages may be passed off as poetic license."</p> + +<p>"There is much in what you say," I replied; "and if I put something +about New England into the title, it will go far to reconcile all +difficulties."</p> + +<p>"Why not call it 'The Whims of New England'?" suggested Kate.</p> + +<p>"'The Whims of New England,'" I repeated. "Let me think how it would +look in print:—'We understand that the brilliant, sparkling, and highly +humorous poem, entitled "The Whims of New England," which convulsed the +<i>élite</i> of Foxden on Friday evening last,' etc., etc. Yes, it sounds +well! 'The Whims of New England,' it shall be!"</p> + +<p>It was a great satisfaction to have decided upon the style and title; +and I sat down at once and began to jot off lines of ten syllables. +"What do you think of this for a beginning?" I presently asked:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Who shall subdue this headlong-dashing Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lead it fettered through a dance of rhyme?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where is the coming man who shall not shrink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lay the Ocean Telegraph—in ink?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who comes to give us in a form compact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Essence of horse-car, caucus, song, and tract?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"But why begin with all these questions?" inquired Kate.</p> + +<p>"It is the custom, my dear," I replied, decisively. "It is the +conventional 'Here we are' of the poetical clown."</p> + +<p>"Well, you must remember to be funny enough," said my wife, with +something like a sigh. "It is not the humorous side of her hero's +character that a woman likes to contemplate; so give me credit for +disinterestedness in the advice."</p> + +<p>"'Motley's the only wear'!" I exclaimed,—"at least before the Young Men +of the Gelasmiphilous Society. I have a stock of Yankee anecdotes that +can be worked off in rhyme to the greatest advantage. In short, I mean +to attempt one of those immensely popular productions that no +library—that is, no circulating library—should be without."</p> + +<p>Easier said than done. The evenings of several weeks were pretty +diligently devoted to my poem. I determined to begin with a few moral +reflections, and in these I think I succeeded in reaching the highest +standard of edification and dulness. Not that I didn't succeed in the +revel of comicalities I afterward permitted myself; but the selection +and polishing of these oddities cost me much more labor than I had +expected. I was really touched at the way in which my wife sacrificed +her feminine preference for the emotional and sentimental, and heard me +read over my piquant periods in order that all the graces of declamation +might give them full effect. And when my poem was at length finished, +when my stories had been carefully arranged with their points bristling +out in all directions, when every shade of emphasis had been studied, I +think it might have been called a popular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> performance,—perhaps <i>too</i> +popular;—but that is a matter of opinion.</p> + +<p>I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my +first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters +from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers +about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"How shall I tell the old gentleman," I exclaimed, one day, after +reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles,—"how shall I tell him, that, +instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a +collection of trumpery rhymes?"</p> + +<p>"Why tell him anything about it?" said Kate. "The committee have not +asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend +to address them in prose or verse. Then say nothing; when you begin to +speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to +speak about, and whether they like it or not."</p> + +<p>"A capital plan!" I cried; "for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastick, and +the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it +is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared +verses, or something of the sort."</p> + +<p>So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to +say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, +unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be +carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful; but then I knew it +was the distrust of modesty and inexperience.</p> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>A fine, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important +fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the +railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven +o'clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm +of hospitality,—Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh +mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in +a maze of inquiries and information.</p> + +<p>I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to +announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. +Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of +discourse selected for the trustees; and, indeed, it had often been the +custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name +of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about +to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, +ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. +This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and +had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested +the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his +countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness +about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to +pieces and thoroughly oiled, he would be much better for it.</p> + +<p>"Let me have the pleasure of making two valued and dear friends of mine +acquainted with each other!" exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "Professor +Owlsdarck, permit me to"——and with flourishes of extravagant +compliment the introduction was accomplished.</p> + +<p>"Brother, brother, Captain Strype wants to see you a moment; he has gone +into the back-parlor," called the voice of Miss Prowley from a window +above.</p> + +<p>Our host seemed a little annoyed; muttered something about the necessity +of conciliating opposition editors; excused himself with elaborate +apologies; and hurried into the house, leaving his two guests to ripen +in acquaintance as they best might.</p> + +<p>"Fine day, Sir," I remarked, after a deferential pause, to allow my +companion to open the conversation, had he been so disposed.</p> + +<p>"Fine for funerals," was the dismal response of Professor Owlsdarck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_735" id="Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span></p> + +<p>"On the contrary," said I, "it seems to me one of those days when we are +least able to realize our mortality."</p> + +<p>"Then you think superficially," rejoined the Professor. "A warm day at +this time of year induces people to leave off their flannels; and that, +in our climate, is as good as a death-warrant."</p> + +<p>"I confess, I never looked at it in that light."</p> + +<p>"No, because you look at picturesqueness, while I look at statistics. +Are you interested in mummies?"</p> + +<p>I signified that in that direction my enthusiasm was limited.</p> + +<p>"So I supposed," said Professor Owlsdarck. "And yet how can a man be +said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race? +The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the +rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone +brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical +organization of ancient men? Remember, too, those natural and original +peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its +fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the +proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies."</p> + +<p>"But in these days," I pleaded, "education has become so varied, that, +if we began at the beginning to study down, no man's lifetime would +suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs."</p> + +<p>"Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has +become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone. +Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields +of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface +to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements!"</p> + +<p>"For my own part," I said, "I have generally striven to inform myself +upon topics connected with our own country."</p> + +<p>"And such subjects are most interesting," replied the Professor, "if +only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The <i>bones</i>," he +continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,—"the bones of the +Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet. +The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and +mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older, +I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of +research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio. +What better reward for a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest +glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded!"</p> + +<p>After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued +long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring +friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian +dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in +unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of +learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and +tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination +was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine +rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to +borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have +had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to +understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would +have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the +particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of +the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a +quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, +I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his +specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid +horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more +pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to +meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span> of that +commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become.</p> + +<p>It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when +he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife +has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes +your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator," +did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some +beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed +to get a sight of your manuscript."</p> + +<p>"I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the +Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman +told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give +the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he +promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five +minutes,—just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style +of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done."</p> + +<p>"I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection +with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it +can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more +to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my +performance."</p> + +<p>"It is of much more matter than you think," said Colonel Prowley, sadly. +"For the 'Regulator,' which appears to-morrow, goes to press this +afternoon. Strype don't like to have it known, as it lessens the +interest of the 'Latest Intelligence' column; but I happened to find it +out some time ago."</p> + +<p>"Then we are worsted indeed," I cried. "His eagerness is well explained; +for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises +this evening, would be useless for his purpose."</p> + +<p>"A <i>critique</i> of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial +auditor, will be printed in a thousand 'Regulators' before you open your +lips in our Town Hall," said the Colonel, bitterly.</p> + +<p>I knew for the first time that stinging indignation felt by all decent +aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which +dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, open abuse, +my young republican, which you will find galling,—but the contemptible +meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an +instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had +an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery +case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for, +upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those +who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And—it is awkward to +acknowledge it—I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife +whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had +come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never +provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though he +carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement +I derived from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest +ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable +appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any +mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds.</p> + +<p>Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at the end of the +garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the +end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and +emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that +there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for +dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reëntering the house, I +closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it—where I +could not fail to remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg 737]</a></span> it—with my hat and gloves upon the +entry-table.</p> + +<p>You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o'clock dinner. +Full of the half-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more +individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the +clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level +of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding +which are worth noting.</p> + +<p>Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future +guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the +table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly +made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too +warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and +generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his +chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the +town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our +admission, listened with much profit while the political question +pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, +underwent discussion.</p> + +<p>"They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many +reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as +certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host.</p> + +<p>"So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of +men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they +assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by +testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. +Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "<i>Orandum est ut +sit mens sana</i>," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the +Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in +sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and +chastity,—leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those +who had made them their special study.</p> + +<p>"Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of +priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost +children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were +the doctors of the body as well as the soul."</p> + +<p>"For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian +medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel.</p> + +<p>We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion.</p> + +<p>"You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in +explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring +to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes +containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one +which seemed quite appropriate."</p> + +<p>"'Familiar in their mouths as household words,'" suggested Mr. Clifton.</p> + +<p>"Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. +So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous +ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to +the text might not meet the difficulty."</p> + +<p>"But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to +make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I, +innocently.</p> + +<p>"Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible +change in a single letter,—aided, of course, by a little intelligent +commentary."</p> + +<p>As we all looked rather doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last +number of Strype's valuable publication, and read as follows:—</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Important Literary Discovery.</span> We learn by the last steamer from England +that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has +already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the +circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg 738]</a></span> iron-plated +steamers and the potato-rot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon +fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its +universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that +exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet, +'Throw physic to the dogs!' The slightest consideration of the +circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth +was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family +physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He +would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs, +which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more +skilled in the potencies of medicine. The line, as it came from the pen +of Shakspeare, undoubtedly read, 'Throw Physicke to the Powwows'; in +other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able +to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of +accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless +copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the +'P,'—thus transforming the passage into, 'Throw Physicke to the +Bowwows.' The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile +expression for the canine race, changed the last word to 'dogs,' as it +has ever since stood."</p> + +<p>Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, "Even if the emendation and inference +could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he +studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that +he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have +had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by +spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly +effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own."</p> + +<p>"If you speak of modern spiritualism," said Professor Owlsdarck, "you +must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For +how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in +Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi +and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in +that State? The ancestors of some of these nervous media testify to +roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions +like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent +shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type +your reverend brother Bradley's memoir on this subject, whereof the sole +copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford."</p> + +<p>"Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science," said +the clergyman, "that those who have not had sufficient training to know +that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw +the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical +shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden; yet I am constantly +surprised to see how few, in relation to any circumstance out of the +daily routine of business-life, recognize the difference between +possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy +matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been +accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language."</p> + +<p>"If we may believe the Padre Clavigero," observed the Professor, "it +will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects, +and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican."</p> + +<p>This remark seemed hardly to the purpose; for whatever the excellences +of that tongue might have been, there were insuperable objections to its +adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his +parishioners. But the last-named gentleman, with generous tact, allowed +the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it +naturally tended. It did not take long to get to the Pharaohs, of whose +domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a +man who dined with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_739" id="Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span> them once a week. From these venerable potentates we +soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as +thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed, +this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded +himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks, +as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the +careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into +how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and +indefatigable research might have been directed.</p> + +<p>Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every +syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden +ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there were +extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious +metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that +conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear.</p> + +<p>Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly +assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to +anything later than <span class="smcap">b. c.</span> 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library, +and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and +relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite +apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the +hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host, +looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring +the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the +bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the +summons. A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of +the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the +distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor +Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees, +parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy.</p> + + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>Tom and the carryall at length appeared, and Professor Owlsdarck, in a +new suit of black clothes, in which the lately folded creases were very +perceptible, came forth a sort of musty bridegroom out of his chamber, +and rejoiced as a strong statistician to run his appointed race. Kate +and I thought it best to diminish the final bustle of departure by +lingering on the piazza just before the open door, where we could easily +add our parting good-wishes, when he succeeded in getting out of the +house. For there seemed to be some trouble in putting the Professor, +with as little "tumbling" as possible, into his narrow overcoat, and +then in finding his lecture, which had dropped under the table during +the operation, and then in recovering his spectacles from the depths of +some obscure pocket. Although Colonel Prowley had wellnigh exhausted the +language of jubilant enthusiasm, I managed, while helping Professor +Owlsdarck into the carryall, to express a respectful interest in his +success. Yet, while the words were on my lips, I could not but remember +what Strype had said in the morning, and admit the great likelihood of +its truth. And although beginning to feel pretty nervous as the time +drew near for my own sacrifice, I congratulated myself upon a +preparation in accordance with the modern demands of a lyceum audience. +With a pleasant sense of superior sagacity to this far more learned +candidate for popular favor, I proposed, instead of returning to the +house, to take an hour's stroll by the river, and go thence to the Town +Hall at the appointed time.</p> + +<p>"The very thing I was going to suggest," said Kate, "for I don't feel +like talking. My mind is so full of excitement about your poem that +ordinary conversational proprieties are almost impossible."</p> + +<p>Our host, with true courtesy, permitted us to do as we pleased, merely +saying that he would reserve the seat next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg 740]</a></span> him for my wife, so that we +need not arrive till it was time to commence the performance.</p> + +<p>"But you are going to forget your manuscript!" he pleasantly added. +"See, it lies on the entry-table with your gloves and overcoat."</p> + +<p>Of course there was no danger of doing anything of the sort, for a +memorandum to take good care of <i>that</i> had printed itself in the largest +capitals upon the tablets of memory. I did feel disagreeably, however, +when my old friend, in handing it to me, looked wistfully at the neat +case of polished leather in which it was securely tied. It was, indeed, +painful to disappoint both in subject and style of composition the kind +interest with which he waited my appearance before an audience of his +townsmen. The only antidote to such regrets was the reflection that I +had prepared what would be most likely to cause the ultimate +satisfaction of all parties; for his mortification at my general +unpopularity and consequent defeat would of course have been greater +than any personal satisfaction he might have experienced in the dry and +antique matter accordant with his peculiar taste. I essayed some +cheerful remark, as the shining packet slipped into my breast-pocket, +and I buttoned my coat securely across the chest, that I might be +continually conscious that the important contents had not dropped out.</p> + +<p>"Remember, I shall be on the second settee from the platform; for I +would not willingly lose the slightest word," was the farewell +exclamation of Colonel Prowley.</p> + +<p>"You are too good, Sir," I answered, as we turned from the house; "I may +always count upon your kind indulgence, and perhaps more of it will be +claimed this evening than your partiality leads you to suspect."</p> + +<p>"And now," said I to Kate, when we were fairly out of hearing, "let us +dismiss for the last hour this provoking poem, and forget that there are +lyceum-lectures, Indian doctors, and General Courts in this beautiful +world."</p> + +<p>Of course I never suspected that we could do anything of the kind, but I +thought an innocent hypocrisy to that effect might beguile the time yet +before us. Kate acquiesced; and we walked along a wooded path where +every stone and shrub was rich in associations with that first summer in +Foxden when our acquaintance began. And soon our petty anxiety was +merged in deeper feelings that flowed upon us, as the great event in our +mortal existence was seen in the retrospect from the same pleasant +places where it once loomed grandly before us. The sweet, fantastic +anticipations that pronounced the "All Hail, Hereafter," to the great +romance of life again started from familiar objects to breathe a freer +atmosphere. The coming fact, which all natural things once called upon +us to accept as the final resting-place of the soul, had passed by us, +and we could look onward still. We saw that marriage was not the +satisfaction of life, but a noble means whereby our selfish infirmities +might be purified by divine light. Well for us that this Masque and +Triumph of Nature should not always be seen as from the twentieth year! +It is too cheap a way to idealize and ennoble self in the noontide sun +of one marriage-day. Yet let the gauze and tinsel be removed when they +may; for all earnest souls there are realities behind them that shall +make the heavens and earth seem accidents. It once seems as if marriage +would discolor the world with roseate tint; but it does better: it +enlightens it. Thus, in imagination, did we sally backward and forward +as the twilight thickened about us. In delicious sympathy of silence we +watched quivering shadows in the water, and marked how the patient elms +gathered in their strength to endure the storms of winter.</p> + +<p>"It is not a lottery," I said, at last, unconsciously thinking aloud.</p> + +<p>"No," responded Kate; "it was so christened of old, because our shrewd +New-Englanders had not made possible a better simile. It is like one of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_741" id="Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> great Gift Enterprises of these latter years, where everybody is +sure of his money's worth in book or trinket, and is surprised by a +present into the bargain. The majority, to be sure, get but their bit of +soap or their penny-whistle, while a fortunate few are provided with +gold watches and diamond breast-pins."</p> + +<p>I thought this a good comparison; but I did not say so, for I was in the +mood to rise for my analogy or allegory, instead of swooping to pick it +out of Mr. Perham's advertisements.</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, my dear," I rejoined, at length; "let us, who have won +genuine jewelry, exalt our gains by some nobler image. A stagnant puddle +of water may reflect the blessed sun even better than this river that +eddies by our feet, yet it is not there that one likes to look for it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the farthest bound of reaction from transcendentalism, +that causes us, when we do think a free thought, to look about for +something grimly practical to fasten it upon," argued Kate, smilingly. +"Yet I do not quite agree with the reason of my Aunt Patience for +devoting herself to the roughest part of gardening. A taste for flowers, +she contends, is legitimate only when it has perfected itself out of a +taste for earth-worms. There are truly thoughts only to be symbolized by +sunset colors and the song of birds, that are better than if mortared +with logic and based as firmly as the Pyramids."</p> + +<p>The fatal word "Pyramids" sent us flying through the ages till we +reached the tombs of the Pharaohs, whence we came bounding back again +through Grecian civilization, mediæval darkness, and modern +enlightenment, till we naturally stopped at Professor Owlsdarck and the +carryall, by this time nearing Wrexford. My own literary performance, so +associated with that of the Professor, next occupied our attention, and +we realized the fact that it was time to be moving slowly in the +direction of the Town Hall.</p> + +<p>"Don't let us get there till just the hour for commencing," said I, +endeavoring to restrain the quickened step of my companion.</p> + +<p>And I quoted the ghastly merriment of the gentleman going to be hung, to +the effect that there was sure to be no fun till he arrived.</p> + +<p>We said nothing else, but indulged in a very definite sort of wandering +by the river's bank,—I nervously looking at my watch, occasionally +devouring a troche, and patting my manuscript pocket, or, to make +assurance doubly sure, touching the polished surface of the case within.</p> + +<p>We timed it to a minute. At exactly half-past seven o'clock, I proceeded +up the broad aisle of the Town Hall, put my wife into the place reserved +with the Prowley party upon settee number two from the platform, and +mounted the steps of that awful elevation amid general applause.</p> + +<p>The President of the Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society, who occupied a +chair at the right of the desk, came forward to receive me, and we shook +hands with an affectation of the most perfect ease and naturalness. +Here, a noisy satisfaction, as of boys in the gallery, accompanied by a +much fainter enthusiasm among their elders below.</p> + +<p>"You are just in time," whispered the President. "I was afraid you would +be too late; we always like to begin punctually."</p> + +<p>"I am all ready," said I, faintly; "you may announce me immediately."</p> + +<p>I subsided into the orator's chair, and glanced, for the first time, at +my audience. The Young Men, somehow or other, did not appear so numerous +as I had hoped. On the other hand, Dr. Dastick, and a good many friends +of eminently scientific character, loomed up with fearful distinctness. +Even the malleable element of youth seemed to harden by the side of that +implacable fibre of scholastic maturity which was bound to resist my +most delicate manipulation. I withstood, with some effort, the +stage-fright that was trying to creep over me, and hastily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span> snatched the +manuscript from my pocket. Yes, I must have been confused, indeed; for +here is the string round the case tied in a hard knot, and I could have +taken my oath that I fastened it in a very loose bow! I picked at it, +and pulled at it, and humored it in every possible way, but the plaguy +thing was as fast as ever. At last—just as the President was +approaching the conclusion of his remarks, and had got as far as, "<i>I +shall now have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who</i>," etc., +etc.—I bethought myself of a relief quite as near at hand as that key +which Faithful held in his bosom during his confinement in Doubting +Castle. My penknife was drawn to the rescue, and the string severed, +while the President, retiring to his chair, politely waved me to the +place he had occupied. Again great applause from the gallery, with +tempered applause from below. With as much unconcern as I could +conveniently assume, I advanced to the front, took a final survey of the +audience, laid my manuscript on the desk, turned back the cover, and +fixed my eyes upon the page before me.</p> + +<p>How describe the nightmare horror that then broke upon my senses? Upon +the first page, in large, writing-master's hand, I had inscribed my +title:—"<span class="smcap">The Whims of New England: A Poem.</span>" In its place, in still +larger hand, in lank and grisly characters, stared this hideous +substitute:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"THE OBSEQUIES OF CHEOPS:<br /></span> +<span class="i7">A LECTURE."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With that vivid rapidity with which varied and minute scenery is crowded +into a moment of despair, I perceived the fatal blunder. Owlsdarck and I +had changed manuscripts. Upon that entry-table where lay my poem, the +hurry and bustle of departure had for a moment thrown his lecture. The +cases being identical in appearance, he had taken up my unfortunate +production, which, doubtless, at that very moment, he was opening before +parents, trustees, and pupils connected with the Wrexford Academy. I +will not deny, that, in the midst of my own perplexity, a ghastly sense +of the ridiculous came over me, as I thought of the bewilderment of the +Professor. For an instant of time I actually knew a grim enjoyment in +the fact that circumstances had perpetrated a much better joke than any +in my poem. But my heart stopped beating as an impatient rumble of +applause testified that the desires of the audience were awaiting +gratification.</p> + +<p>I glared upon the expectant faces before me; but they seemed to melt and +fuse into one another, or to dance about quite independently of the +bodies with which they should have been connected. I strove to murmur an +apology; but the words stuck in my throat.</p> + +<p>More applause, in which a slight whistling flavor was apparent. A +kicking, as of cow-hide boots of juvenile proportions, audible from the +gallery. A suspicion of cat-calling in a monad state of development +about the door. Of course my prospects were ruined. My knees seemed +disposed to deposit their burden upon the floor. Hope was utterly +extinguished in my breast. There I stood, weak and contemptible, before +the wretched populace whose votes I had come to solicit. Then it was, +the resolution, or rather the <i>rage</i>, of despair inspired me. I +determined to take a terrible vengeance upon my abandoned constituents. +Quick as lightning the thought leaped to execution. I seized the +insufferable composition before me, and began to fulminate its sentences +at the democracy of Foxden.</p> + +<p>"Fulminate" is expressive; but words like "roar" and "bellow" must be +borrowed to give the reader an idea of the vocal power put into that +performance. For it is a habit of our infirm natures to counteract +embarrassment by some physical exaggeration, which, by absorbing our +chief attention, leaves little to be occupied with the cause of +distress. Persons of extreme diffidence are sometimes able to face +society by behaving as if they were vulgarly at their ease, and men +troubled with a morbid modesty often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg 743]</a></span> find relief in acting a character +of overweening pride. Thus it was only by absorbing attention in the +effort to produce a very sensational order of declamation that I could +perform the task undertaken. Owlsdarck's handwriting was luckily large +and legible; and I was able to storm and gesticulate without hinderance.</p> + +<p>I ploughed through the tough old homily, tossing up the biggest size of +words as if they were not worth thinking of. I went at the lamented +Cheops with a fearful enthusiasm. The air seemed heavy with a miasma of +information. It was not my fault, if every individual in the audience +did not feel personally sticky with the glutinous drugs I lavished upon +the embalmment. I was as profuse with my myrrh, cassia, and aloes, as if +those costly vegetable productions were as cheap as cabbages. I split up +a sycamore-tree to make an external shell, as if it were as familiar a +wood as birch or hemlock. At last, having got his case painted all over +with appropriate emblems, and Cheops himself done up in his final +wrapping, I struck a mighty blow upon the desk, which set the lamps +ringing and flaring in majestic emphasis.</p> + +<p>It was at this point that the presence of an audience was once more +recalled to me. Enthusiastic applause, peal after peal, responded to my +efforts. I ventured to look out into the hall before me. Dr. Dastick was +thumping with energy upon the neighboring settee. The elders of Foxden +were leading the approbation, and a wild tattoo was resonant from the +gallery. The face of Colonel Prowley was aglow with satisfaction, and +the dear old gentleman actually waved his handkerchief as he caught my +eye. But my frightened, pale-faced Kate,—my first shudder returned +again as I met her gaze. Again I felt the sinking, prickling sensation +of being in for it. There was no resource but to charge at the +Professor's manuscript as vigorously as ever.</p> + +<p>I now went to pyramid-making with the same zeal with which I had acted +as undertaker. Locks, parsley, and garlic, to the amount of one thousand +and sixty talents, were lavished upon the workmen. Stuffed cats and +sacred crocodiles were carried in procession to encourage them. Stones, +thirty feet long, were heaved out of quarries, and hieroglyphics chopped +into them with wonderful despatch. At last, after an hour and a half of +laborious vociferation, I managed to get the pyramid done and Cheops put +into it. A sort of dress-parade of authorities was finally called: +Herodotus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, and many +others, were fired in concluding volleys among the audience. I was +conscious of a salvo of clapping, pounding, and stamping that thundered +in reply. The last sentence had been uttered. Again the audience blurred +and danced before my eyes; I staggered back, and sank confused and +breathless into the orator's chair.</p> + +<p>"Good, good," whispered the President. "It was a capital idea; ha, ha, +very funny! To hear you hammering away at Egyptian antiquities as if +you'd never thought of anything else! The elocution and gestures, too, +were perfectly tall;—the Young Men of our Society were delighted;—I +could see they were."</p> + +<p>"Permit me to congratulate you, Sir," said Dr. Dastick, who had elbowed +his way to the platform. "I confess myself most agreeably disappointed +in your performance. There was in it a solidity of information and a +curiosity of important research for which I was totally unprepared. Let +me hope that such powers of oratory as we have heard this evening may +soon plead the cause of good learning in the legislature of our State."</p> + +<p>"A good subject, my dear young friend, and admirably developed," +exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "You have already won the palm of victory, if +I rightly read the faces of some who were too quick to endow you with +the common levity and indiscretion of youth."</p> + +<p>"You have had success with young and old," said the Reverend Mr. +Clifton, kindly holding out his hand. "We have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_744" id="Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span> rarely lecturers who +seem to give such universal satisfaction."</p> + +<p>After these congratulations, and others to the same purpose, the real +state of the case could no longer be hidden. Instead of the +mortification and defeat confidently expected, I had unwittingly made a +ten-strike upon that erratic set of pins, the Foxden public. The Young +Men, who knew me only as the γελωτοποιος, or laughter-maker, of +their merry association, considered the sombre getting up and energetic +delivery of the Cheops lecture the very best joke I had ever +perpetrated. Some of the most influential citizens, as has been already +seen, were personally gratified in the general dustiness of the subject; +while others, perchance, were able to doze in the consciousness that the +opinions of Cheops upon such disturbing topics as Temperance, +Anti-Slavery, and Woman's Rights must necessarily be of a patriarchal +and comforting character. But the glory of the unlooked-for triumph +seemed strangely lessened by the reflection that I had no just claim to +the funereal plumage with which I had so happily decked myself.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said I, "I ought to tell you that the address I have +delivered this evening is—in fact—is not original."</p> + +<p>"That's just why we like it," rejoined Dr. Dastick. "No young man should +be original; it is a great impertinence, if he tries to be."</p> + +<p>"I do not mean simply to acknowledge an indebtedness to the ancient +authorities quoted in the lecture; but—but, the truth is, that the +arrangement and composition cannot properly be called my own."</p> + +<p>"Not the least consequence," said Colonel Prowler. "You showed a +commendable modesty in seeking the aid of any discreet and learned +person. You know I offered to give you what assistance was in my power; +but you found—unexpectedly, at the last moment, perhaps—some wiser +friend."</p> + +<p>"Most unexpectedly,—at the very last moment," I murmured.</p> + +<p>"As for originality," said the clergyman, pleasantly, "when you have +come to my age, you will cease to trouble yourself much about it. No man +can accomplish anything important without a large indebtedness to those +who have lived, as well as to those who live. We know that the old +fathers not only dared to lack originality, but even to consider times +and peoples in their selection and treatment of topics. <i>Non quod +sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt</i>, may be said of them in no +disparagement. For, not to mention others, I might quote Cyprian, +Minutius, Lactantius, and Hilarius,"——</p> + +<p>"Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be +in a sermon," interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the +drift of his pastor's remarks. "And I rejoice that the success of our +friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow +witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such +fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may +well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of +Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But +come, all of you, for an hour, to my house; for I am mistaken, if there +be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have +just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to +Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an +offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which +are just now at full maturity."</p> + +<p>Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the +Doctor's invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer +(having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) +should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxden for +the next hour or so.</p> + +<p>"But you forget Professor Owlsdarck," I ventured to whisper to the +Colonel. "I must see him the instant he returns. That is—I am very +impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg 745]</a></span> at your +house, if I am not there to meet him."</p> + +<p>My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then +informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass +Dastick's house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring +in the Professor.</p> + +<p>"No," I exclaimed, with energy; "promise that I may go out and receive +Owlsdarck alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick's."</p> + +<p>"I doubt if there would be any precedent for this," argued the Colonel, +gravely.</p> + +<p>"Then we must make one," I asserted. "For surely nothing is more +appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether +in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the +craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings."</p> + +<p>After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the +case; and we passed out of the hot lecture-room into the still, fresh +night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind +the crowd.</p> + +<p>"I am not mad yet," I said, "though when I began that extraordinary +lecture you must have thought me so."</p> + +<p>"For a few moments," replied my wife, "I was utterly bewildered; but +soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the +Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck's lecture."</p> + +<p>"And he appeared with my poem before the audience in Wrexford."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Kate, "I never thought of that part of it!"</p> + +<p>"Yet that is <i>the</i> part of it of which it behooves us to think just at +present," I replied. "To my utter amazement, there has been something, +either in the Professor's wisdom or in my rendering of it, that has +<i>taken</i> with the audience. Not knowing what Owlsdarck has done, or may +wish to do, I have not explained the humiliating and ridiculous +blunder,—though I have stoutly denied myself any credit for the +information or composition of the lecture."</p> + +<p>"But the Professor couldn't have read your poem at Wrexford?"</p> + +<p>"Two hours ago I should have thought it so impossible, that only one +thing in the world would have seemed to me more so, and that was that I +should have read his lecture in Foxden. But, luckily, I have permission +to stop the carryall on its way back, and so meet Owlsdarck before he +comes into the house. Let us keep the secret for the present, and wait +further developments."</p> + +<p>As others of the party had begun to look back, and to linger for us to +come up, there was no opportunity for further conference. And so we made +an effort, and talked of everything but what we were thinking of, till +we reached Dr. Dastick's house.</p> + +<p>I was conscious of a sweet memory, while passing along the broad, +low-roofed piazza where I first met my wife. And I marvelled that fate +had so arranged matters, that, again in the moonlight, near that very +spot, I was to have an important interview with another person with whom +my destiny had become strangely entangled.</p> + +<p>One sense was painfully acute while the relics and pears were being +passed about during the remainder of the evening. At any period I could +have heard the creak of the venerable carryall above the swarm of +information which buzzed about the Doctor's parlor. I responded to the +waggish raillery of the young men, talked <i>bones</i> with their seniors, +disclaimed all originality in my lecture, thanked people for what they +said about my spirited declamation, and—through it all—listened +intently for the solemn rumble upon the Wrexford road. Time really +seemed to stop and go backward, as if in compliment to the ancient +fragments of gums, wrappages, and scarabæi that were produced for our +inspection. The carryall, I thought, must have broken down; Wrexford +had, perchance, been suddenly destroyed, like the Cities of the Plain; +the Professor had been tarred and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg 746]</a></span> feathered by the enraged inhabitants, +or, perhaps, had been murdered upon the road;—there was no limit to the +doleful hypotheses which suggested themselves.</p> + +<p>And, in fact, it was now getting late to everybody. The last pear had +vanished, and people began to look at the clock. Colonel Frowley was +audibly wondering what could have detained the Professor, and Dr. +Dastick was expressing his regret at not having the pleasure of seeing +him, when,—no,—yes, a jerking trundle was heard in the distance,—it +was not the wind this time! I seized my hat, rushed from the house, and +paused not till I had stopped the carryall with the emphasis of a +highwayman.</p> + +<p>"I have come to ask you to get out, Professor Owlsdarck," I exclaimed. +"Tom can drive the horse home; we're all at Dr. Dastick's, and they've +sent me to beg you to come in."</p> + +<p>The occupant of the vehicle, upon hearing my voice, made haste to +alight. Tom gave an expressive "Hud up," and rolled away into the +moonlight.</p> + +<p>"My dear Sir," said I, "no apology,—no allusion to how it happened; we +have both suffered quite enough. Only tell me what you managed to do +with my poem, and what the people of Wrexford have done to you."</p> + +<p>"What did I do with your poem?" echoed the Professor,—there was an +undertone of humorous satisfaction in his words that I had never before +remarked,—"why, what could I do with it but read it to my audience? +They thought it was capital, and——Well, <i>I</i> thought so, too. And if +you want to know what the trustees did to me, you will find it in print +in a day or two. The fact is, they called a meeting, after I finished, +and unanimously elected me Principal of their Academy."</p> + +<p>I managed to get a few more particulars before entering the house, and +these, with other circumstances afterwards ascertained, made the +Professor's adventure to unravel itself thus: Owlsdarck had discovered +the change of manuscript about five minutes before he was expected to +speak. The audience had assembled, and (in view of the respect which +should appertain to the office for which he was an aspirant) he saw the +humiliation of disappointing the academic flock by a confession of his +absurd position. He glanced at the first page of my verses, and, seeing +that they commenced in a grave and solemn strain, determined to run for +luck, and make the best of them. Accordingly he began by saying, that, +instead of the usual literary address, he should read a new American +poem, which he trusted would prove popular and to the purpose. It turned +out to be very much to the purpose. The dismal Professor Owlsdarck. +giving utterance to the Yankee quips and waggery which I had provided, +took his audience by storm with amazement and delight. For the truth +was, as Strype had intimated in the morning, a formidable opposition had +arrayed itself against the Professor, which (while acknowledging the +claims of his profound learning) contended that he lacked sympathy with +the merry hearts of youth, a fatal defect in the character of a teacher. +Of course the entertainment of the evening filled all such cavillers +with shame and confusion. There was nothing to do but to own their +mistake, and to support the many-sided Owlsdarck with all enthusiasm. +Hence his unanimous election, and hence my infinite relief upon +reëntering the Doctor's house.</p> + +<p>We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our +unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor +Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in +Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, +and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick's parlor, conscious of a +plethoric satisfaction strange to experience.</p> + +<p>I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the +"Regulator" appeared the next morning with a bitter <i>critique</i> of my +performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of +license allowed to opposition editors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span> upon election-day. But to +ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as "a flimsy and buffooning +poem,"—there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of +impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, +to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no +parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of +its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing +party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to +conciliate.</p> + +<p>And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent +Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a +good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me +to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in +the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess +undoubted evidence.</p> + +<p>"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man. in school," exclaimed a chubby +little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from +Wrexford to pass the summer vacation,—"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff +man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear +him laugh and carry on with the boys!"</p> + +<p>A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon +"The Whims of New England," and made the tour of the river-towns, and +several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting +overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum-engagements +at home compelled him to decline.</p> + +<p>I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden +bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my +topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to +maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first attempt. I don't mind +mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the +people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my +readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring +Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open +to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive <i>Lecture: Subject, +The Obsequies of Cheops</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MOUNTAINS_AND_THEIR_ORIGIN" id="MOUNTAINS_AND_THEIR_ORIGIN"></a>MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN.</h2> + + +<p>A chapter on mountains will not be an inappropriate introduction to that +part of the world's history on which we are now entering, when the great +inequalities of the earth's surface began to make their appearance; and +before giving any special account of the geological succession in +Europe, I will say something of the formation of mountains in general, +and of the men whose investigations first gave us the clue to the +intricacies of their structure. It has been the work of the nineteenth +century to decipher the history of the mountains, to smooth out these +wrinkles in the crust of the earth, to show that there was a time when +they did not exist, to decide at least comparatively upon their age, and +to detect the forces which have produced them.</p> + +<p>But while I speak of the reconstructive labors of the geologist with so +much confidence, because to my mind they reveal an intelligible +coherence in the whole physical history of the world, yet I am well +aware that there are many and wide gaps in our knowledge to be filled +up. All the attempts to represent the appearance of the earth in past +periods by means of geological maps are, of course, but approximations +of the truth, and will compare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span> with those of future times, when the +phenomena are better understood, much as our present geographical maps, +the result of repeated surveys and of the most accurate measurements, +compare with those of the ancients.</p> + +<p>Homer's world was a flat expanse, surrounded by ocean, of which Greece +was the centre. Asia Minor, the Ægean Islands, Egypt, part of Italy and +Sicily, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea filled out and completed his +map.</p> + +<p>Hecatæus, the Greek historian and geographer, who lived more than five +hundred years before Christ, had not enlarged it much. He was, to be +sure, a voyager on the Mediterranean, and had an idea of the extent of +Italy. Acquaintance with Phœnician merchants also had enlarged his +knowledge of the world; Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain were known to him; +he was familiar with the Black and Red Seas; and though an indentation +on his map in the neighborhood of the Caspian would seem to indicate +that he was aware of the existence of this sea also, it is not otherwise +marked.</p> + +<p>Herodotus makes a considerable advance beyond his predecessors: the +Caspian Sea has a place on his map; Asia is sketched out, including the +Persian Gulf with the large rivers pouring into it; and the course of +the Ganges is traced, though he makes it flow east and empty into the +Pacific, instead of turning southward and emptying into the Indian +Ocean.</p> + +<p>Eratosthenes, two centuries before Christ, is the first geographer who +makes some attempt to determine the trend of the land and water, +presenting a suggestion that the earth is broader in one direction than +in the other. In his map, he adds also the geographical results derived +from the expeditions of Alexander the Great.</p> + +<p>Ptolemy, who flourished in Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian, is the +next geographer of eminence, and he shows us something of Africa; for, +in his time, the Phœnicians, in their commercial expeditions, had +sailed far to the south, had reached the termination of Africa, with +ocean lying all around it, and had seen the sun to the north of them. +This last assertion, however, Ptolemy does not credit, and he is as +skeptical of the open ocean surrounding the extremity of Africa as +modern geographers and explorers have been of the existence of Kane's +open Arctic Sea. He believes that what the Phœnician traders took to +be the broad ocean must be part of an inland sea, corresponding to the +Mediterranean, with which he was so familiar. His map includes also +England, Ireland, and Scotland; and his Ultima Thule is, no doubt, the +Hebrides of our days.</p> + +<p>Our present notions of the past periods of the world's history probably +bear about the same relation to the truth that these ancient +geographical maps bear to the modern ones. But this should not +discourage us, for, after all, those maps were in the main true as far +as they went; and as the ancient geographers were laying the foundation +for all our modern knowledge of the present conformation of the globe, +so are the geologists of the nineteenth century preparing the ground for +future investigators, whose work will be as far in advance of theirs as +are the delineations of Carl Ritter, the great master of physical +geography in our age, in advance of the map drawn by the old Alexandrian +geographer. We shall have our geological explorers and discoverers in +the lands and seas of past times, as we have had in the present,—our +Columbuses, our Captain Cooks, our Livingstones in geology, as we have +had in geography. There are undiscovered continents and rivers and +inland seas in the past world to exercise the ingenuity, courage, and +perseverance of men, after they shall have solved all the problems, +sounded all the depths, and scaled all the heights of the present +surface of the earth.</p> + +<p>What has been done thus far is chiefly to classify the inequalities of +the earth's surface, and to detect the different causes which have +produced them. Foldings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span> of the earth's crust, low hills, extensive +plains, mountain-chains and narrow valleys, broad table-lands and wide +valleys, local chimneys or volcanoes, river-beds, lake-basins, inland +seas,—such are some of the phenomena which, disconnected as they seem +at first glance, have nevertheless been brought under certain +principles, and explained according to definite physical laws.</p> + +<p>Formerly, men looked upon the earth as a unit in time, as the result of +one creative act, with all its outlines established from the beginning. +It has been the work of modern science to show that its inequalities are +not contemporaneous or simultaneous, but successive, including a law of +growth,—that heat and cold, and the consequent expansion and +contraction of its crust, have produced wrinkles and folds upon the +surface, while constant oscillations, changes of level which are even +now going on, have modified its conformation, and moulded its general +outline through successive ages.</p> + +<p>In thinking of the formation of the globe, we must at once free +ourselves from the erroneous impression that the crust of the earth is a +solid, steadfast foundation. So far from being immovable, it has been +constantly heaving and falling; and if we are not impressed by its +oscillations, it is because they are not so regular or so evident to our +senses as the rise and fall of the sea. The disturbances of the ocean, +and the periodical advance and retreat of its tides, are known to our +daily experience; we have seen it tossed into great billows by storms, +or placid as a lake when undisturbed. But the crust of the earth also +has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as +nothing,—which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, +and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions +that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll up for +twenty thousand feet, and be petrified at its greatest height: the +mountains are but the gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land +by the geological tempests of past times. Besides these sudden storms of +the earth's surface, there have been its gradual upheavals and +depressions, going on now as steadily as ever, and which may be compared +to the regular action of the tides. These, also, have had their share in +determining the outlines of the continents, the height of the lands, and +the depth of the seas.</p> + +<p>Leaving aside the more general phenomena, let us look now at the +formation of mountains especially. I have stated in a previous article +that the relative position of the stratified and unstratified rocks +gives us the key to their comparative age. To explain this I must enter +into some details respecting the arrangement of stratified deposits on +mountain-slopes and in mountain-chains, taking merely theoretical cases, +however, to illustrate phenomena which we shall meet with repeatedly in +actual facts, when studying special geological formations.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 443px;"> +<img src="images/p749-illo.jpg" width="443" height="174" alt="Fig. 1." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 1.</span> +</div> + +<p>We have, for instance, in Figure 1, a central granite mountain, with a +succession of stratified beds sloping against its sides, while at its +base are deposited a number of horizontal beds which have evidently +never been disturbed from the position in which they were originally +accumulated. The reader will at once perceive the method by which the +geologist decides upon the age of such a mountain. He finds the strata +upon its slopes in regular superposition, the uppermost belonging, we +will suppose, to the Triassic period; at its base he finds undisturbed +horizontal deposits, also in regular superposition, belonging to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Therefore, he argues, this mountain +must have been uplifted after the Triassic and all preceding deposits +were formed, since it has broken its way through them, and forced them +out of their natural position; and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_750" id="Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span> must have been previous to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, since they have been accumulated +peacefully at its base, and have undergone no such perturbations.</p> + +<p>The task of the geologist would be an easy one, if all the problems he +has to deal with were as simple as the case I have presented here; but +the most cursory glance at the intricacies of mountain-structure will +show us how difficult it is to trace the connection between the +phenomena. We must not form an idea of ancient mountain-upheavals from +existing active volcanoes, although the causes which produced them were, +in a modified and limited sense, the same. Our present volcanic +mountains are only chimneys, or narrow tunnels, as it were, pierced in +the thickness of the earth's surface, through which the molten lava +pours out, flowing over the edges and down the sides and hardening upon +the slopes, so as to form conical elevations. The mountain-ranges +upheaved by ancient eruptions, on the contrary, are folds of the earth's +surface, produced by the cooling of a comparatively thin crust upon a +hot mass. The first effect of this cooling process would be to cause +contractions; the next, to produce corresponding protrusions,—for, +wherever such a shrinking and subsidence of the crust occurred, the +consequent pressure upon the melted materials beneath must displace them +and force them upward. While the crust continued so thin that these +results could go on without very violent dislocations,—the materials +within easily finding an outlet, if displaced, or merely lifting the +surface without breaking through it,—the effect would be moderate +elevations divided by corresponding depressions. We have seen this kind +of action, during the earlier geological epochs, in the upheaval of the +low hills in the United States, leading to the formation of the +coal-basins.</p> + +<p>On our return to the study of the American continent, we shall find in +the Alleghany chain, occurring at a later period, between the +Carboniferous and Triassic epochs, a good illustration of the same kind +of phenomena, though the action of the Plutonic agents was then much +more powerful, owing to the greater thickness of the crust and the +consequent increase of resistance. The folds forced upward in this chain +by the subsidence of the surface are higher than any preceding +elevations; but they are nevertheless a succession of parallel folds +divided by corresponding depressions, nor does it seem that the +displacement of the materials within the crust was so violent as to +fracture it extensively.</p> + +<p>Even so late as the formation of the Jura mountains, between the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the character of the upheaval is the +same, though there are more cracks at right angles with the general +trend of the chain, and here and there the masses below have broken +through. But the chain, as a whole consists of a succession of parallel +folds, forming long domes or arches, divided by longitudinal valleys. +The valleys represent the subsidences of the crust; the domes are the +corresponding protrusions resulting from these subsidences. The lines of +gentle undulation in this chain, so striking in contrast to the rugged +and abrupt character of the Alps immediately opposite, are the result of +this mode of formation.</p> + +<p>After the crust of the earth had grown so thick, as it was, for +instance, in the later Tertiary periods, when the Alps were uplifted, +such an eruption could take place only by means of an immense force, and +the extent of the fracture would be in proportion to the resistance +opposed. It is hardly to be doubted, from the geological evidence +already collected, that the whole mountain-range from Western Europe +through the continent of Asia, including the Alps, the Caucasus, and the +Himalayas, was raised at the same time. A convulsion that thus made a +gigantic rent across two continents, giving egress to three such +mountain-ranges, must have been accompanied by a thousand fractures and +breaks in contrary directions. Such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_751" id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span> pressure along so extensive a +tract could not be equal everywhere; the various thicknesses of the +crust, the greater or less flexibility of the deposits, the direction of +the pressure, would give rise to an infinite variety in the results; +accordingly, instead of the long, even arches, such as characterize the +earlier upheavals of the Alleghanies and the Jura, there are violent +dislocations of the surface, cracks, rents, and fissures in all +directions, transverse to the general trend of the upheaval, as well as +parallel with it.</p> + +<p>Leaving aside for the moment the more baffling and intricate problems of +the later mountain-formations, I will first endeavor to explain the +simpler phenomena of the earlier upheavals.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 372px;"> +<img src="images/p751-illo1.jpg" width="372" height="310" alt="Fig. 2." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 2.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;"> +<img src="images/p751-illo2.jpg" width="426" height="276" alt="Fig. 3." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 3.</span> +</div> + +<p>Suppose that the melted materials within the earth are forced up against +a mass of stratified deposits, the direction of the pressure being +perfectly vertical, as represented in Figure 2. Such a pressure, if not +too violent, would simply lift the strata out of their horizontal +position into an arch or dome, (as in Figure 3,) and if continued or +repeated in immediate sequence, it would produce a number of such domes, +like long billows following each other, such as we have in the Jura. But +though this is the prevailing character of the range, there are many +instances even here where an unequal pressure has caused a rent at right +angles with the general direction of the upheaval; and one may trace the +action of this unequal pressure, from the unbroken arch, where it has +simply lifted the surface into a dome, to the granite crest, where the +melted rock has forced its way out and crystallized between the broken +beds that rest against its slopes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 431px;"> +<img src="images/p751-illo3.jpg" width="431" height="172" alt="Fig. 4." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 4.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 432px;"> +<img src="images/p751-illo4.jpg" width="432" height="241" alt="Fig. 5." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 5.</span> +</div> + +<p>In other instances, the upper beds alone may have been cracked, while +the continuity of the lower ones remains unbroken. In this case we have +a longitudinal valley on the top of a mountain-range, lying between the +two sides of the broken arch (as in Figure 4). Suppose, now, that there +are also transverse cracks across such a longitudinal split, we have +then a longitudinal valley with transverse valleys opening into it. +There are many instances of this in the Alleghanies and in the Jura. +Sometimes such transverse valleys are cut straight across, so that their +openings face each other; but often the cracks have taken place at +different points on the opposite sides, so that, in travelling through +such a transverse valley, you turn to the right or left, as the case may +be, where it enters the longitudinal valley, and follow that till you +come to another transverse valley opening into it from the opposite +side, through which you make your way out, thus crossing the chain in a +zigzag course (as in Figure 5). Such valleys are often much narrower at +some points than at others. There are even places in the Jura where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span> a +rent in the chain begins with a mere crack,—a slit but just wide enough +to admit the blade of a knife; follow it for a while, and you may find +it spreading gradually into a wider chasm, and finally expanding into a +valley perhaps half a mile wide, or even wider.</p> + +<p>By means of such cracks, rivers often pass through lofty +mountain-chains, and when we come to the investigation of the glacial +phenomena connected with the course of the Rhone, we shall find that +river following the longitudinal valley which separates the northern and +southern parts of the chain of the Alps till it comes to Martigny, where +it takes a sharp turn to the right through a transverse crack, flowing +northward between walls fourteen thousand feet high, till it enters the +Lake of Geneva, through which it passes, issuing at the other end, where +it takes a southern direction. For a long time mountains were supposed +to be the limitations of rivers, and old maps represent them always as +flowing along the valleys without ever passing through the +mountain-chains that divide them; but geology is fast correcting the +errors of geography, and a map which represents merely the external +features of a country, without reference to their structural relations, +is no longer of any scientific value.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, by rents in mountain-chains alone, or by depressions +between them, that valleys are produced; they are often due to the +unequal hardness of the beds raised, and to their greater or less +liability to be worn away and disintegrated by the action of the rains. +This inequality in the hardness of the rocks forming a mountain-range +not only adds very much to the picturesqueness of outline, but also +renders the landscape more varied through the greater or less fertility +of the soil. On the hard rocks, where little soil can gather, there are +only pines, or a low, dwarfed growth; but on the rocks of softer +materials, more easily acted upon by the rain, a richer soil gathers, +and there, in the midst of mountain-scenery, may be found the most +fertile growth, the richest pasturage, the brightest flowers. Where such +a patch of arable soil has a southern exposure on a mountain-side, we +may have a most fertile vegetation at a great height and surrounded by +the dark pine-forests. Many of the pastures on the Alps, to which from +height to height the shepherds ascend with their flocks in the +summer,—seeking the higher ones as the lower become dry and +exhausted,—are due to such alternations in the character of the rocks.</p> + +<p>In consequence of the influence of time, weather, atmospheric action of +all kinds, the apparent relation of beds has often become so completely +reversed that it is exceedingly difficult to trace their original +relation. Take, for instance, the following case. An eruption has +upheaved the strata over a given surface in such a manner as to lift +them into a mountain, cracking open the upper beds, but leaving the +lower ones unbroken. We have then a valley on a mountain-summit between +two crests resembling the one already shown in Figure 4. Such a narrow +passage between two crests may be changed in the course of time to a +wide expansive valley by the action of the rains, frosts, and other +disintegrating agents, and the relative position of the strata forming +its walls may seem to be entirely changed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 428px;"> +<img src="images/p752-illo.jpg" width="428" height="216" alt="Fig. 6." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 6.</span> +</div> + +<p>Suppose, for example, that the two upper layers of the strata rent apart +by the upheaval of the mountain are limestone and sandstone, while the +third is clay and the fourth again limestone (as in Figure 6). Clay is +soft, and yields very readily to the action of rain. In such a valley +the edges of the strata forming its walls are of course exposed, and the +clay formation will be the first to give way under the action of +external influences.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg 753]</a></span> Gradually the rains wear away its substance till +it is completely hollowed out. By the disintegration of the bed beneath +them, the lime and sandstone layers above lose their support and crumble +down, and this process goes on, the clay constantly wearing away, and +the lime and sand above consequently falling in, till the upper beds +have receded to a great distance, the valley has opened to a wide +expanse instead of being inclosed between two walls, and the lowest +limestone bed now occupies the highest position on the mountain. Figure +7 represents one of the crests shown in Figure 6, after such a levelling +process has changed its outline.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;"> +<img src="images/p753-illo.jpg" width="424" height="218" alt="Fig. 7." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 7.</span> +</div> + +<p>But the phenomena of eruptions in mountain-chains are far more difficult +to trace than the effects thus gradually produced. Plutonic action has, +indeed, played the most fantastic tricks with the crust of the earth, +which seems as plastic in the grasp of the fiery power hidden within it +as does clay in the hands of the sculptor.</p> + +<p>We have seen that an equal vertical pressure from below produces a +regular dome,—or that, if the dome be broken through, a granite crest +is formed, with stratified materials resting against its slopes. But the +pressure has often been oblique instead of vertical, and then the slope +of the mountain is uneven, with a gradual ascent on one side and an +abrupt wall on the other; or in some instances the pressure has been so +lateral that the mountain is overturned and lies upon its side, and +there are still other cases where one mountain has been tilted over and +has fallen upon an adjoining one.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when beds have been torn asunder, one side of them has been +forced up above the other; and there are even instances where one side +of a mountain has been forced under the surface of the earth, while the +other has remained above. Stratified beds of rock are even found which +have been so completely capsized, that the layers, which were of course +deposited horizontally, now stand on end, side by side, in vertical +rows. I remember, after a lecture on some of these extravagances in +mountain-formations, a friend said to me, not inaptly,—"One can hardly +help thinking of these extraordinary contortions as a succession of +frantic frolics: the mountains seem like a troop of rollicking boys, +hunting one another in and out and up and down in a gigantic game of +hide-and-seek."</p> + +<p>The width of the arch of a mountain depends in a great degree on the +thickness and flexibility of the beds of which it is composed. There is +not only a great difference in the consistency of stratified material, +but every variety in the thickness of the layers, from an inch, and even +less, to those measuring from ten or twenty to one hundred feet and more +in depth, without marked separation of the successive beds. This is +accounted for by the frequent alternations of subsidence and upheaval; +the continents having tilted sometimes in one direction, sometimes in +another, so that in certain localities there has been much water and +large deposits, while elsewhere the water was shallow and the deposits +consequently less. Thin and flexible strata have been readily lifted +into a sharp, abrupt arch with narrow base, while the thick and rigid +beds have been forced up more slowly in a wider arch with broader base.</p> + +<p>Table-lands are only long unbroken folds of the earth's surface, raised +uniformly and in one direction. It is the same pressure from below, +which, when acting with more intense force in one direction, makes a +narrow and more abrupt fold, forming a mountain-ridge, but, when acting +over a wider surface with equal force, produces an extensive uniform +elevation. If the pressure be strong enough, it will cause cracks and +dislocations at the edges of such a gigantic fold, and then we have +table-lands between two mountain-chains, like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_754" id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span> Gobi in Asia between +the Altai Mountains and the Himalayas, or the table-land inclosed +between the Rocky Mountains and the coast-range on the Pacific shore.</p> + +<p>We do not think of table-lands as mountainous elevations, because their +broad, flat surfaces remind us of the level tracts of the earth; but +some of the table-lands are nevertheless higher than many +mountain-chains, as, for instance, the Gobi, which is higher than the +Alleghanies, or the Jura, or the Scandinavian Alps. One of Humboldt's +masterly generalizations was his estimate of the average thickness of +the different continents, supposing their heights to be levelled and +their depressions filled up, and he found that upon such an estimate +Asia would be much higher than America, notwithstanding the great +mountain-chains of the latter. The extensive table-land of Asia, with +the mountains adjoining it, outweighed the Alleghanies, the Rocky +Mountains, the Coast-Chain, and the Andes.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When we compare the present state of our knowledge of geological +phenomena with that which prevailed fifty years ago, it seems difficult +to believe that so great and important a change can have been brought +about in so short a time. It was on German soil and by German students +that the foundation was laid for the modern science of systematic +geology.</p> + +<p>In the latter part of the eighteenth century, extensive mining +operations in Saxony gave rise to an elaborate investigation of the soil +for practical purposes. It was found that the rocks consisted of a +succession of materials following each other in regular sequence, some +of which were utterly worthless for industrial purposes, while others +were exceedingly valuable. The <i>Muschel-Kalk</i> formation, so called from +its innumerable remains of shells, and a number of strata underlying it, +must be penetrated before the miners reached the rich veins of +<i>Kupferschiefer</i> (copper slate), and below this came what was termed the +<i>Todtliegende</i> (dead weight), so called because it contained no +serviceable materials for the useful arts, and had to be removed before +the valuable beds of coal lying beneath it, and making the base of the +series, could be reached. But while the workmen wrought at these +successive layers of rock to see what they would yield for practical +purposes, a man was watching their operations who considered the crust +of the earth from quite another point of view.</p> + +<p>Abraham Gottlob Werner was born more than a century ago in Upper +Lusatia. His very infancy seemed to shadow forth his future studies, for +his playthings were the minerals he found in his father's forge. At a +suitable age he was placed at the mining school of Freiberg in Saxony, +and having, when only twenty-four years of age, attracted attention in +the scientific world by the publication of an "Essay on the Characters +of Minerals," he was soon after appointed to the professorship of +mineralogy in Freiberg. His lot in life could not have fallen in a spot +more advantageous for his special studies, and the enthusiasm with which +he taught communicated itself to his pupils, many of whom became his +devoted disciples, disseminating his views in their turn with a zeal +which rivalled the master's ardor.</p> + +<p>Werner took advantage of the mining operations going on in his +neighborhood, the blasting, sinking of shafts, etc., to examine +critically the composition of the rocks thus laid open, and the result +of his analysis was the establishment of the Neptunic school of geology +alluded to in a previous article, and so influential in science at the +close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century. From +the general character of these rocks, as well as the number of marine +shells contained in them, he convinced himself that the whole series, +including the Coal, the <i>Todtliegende</i>, the <i>Kupferschiefer</i>, the +<i>Zechstein</i>, the Red Sandstone, and the <i>Muschel-Kalk</i>, had been +deposited under the agency of water, and were the work of the ocean.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus far he was right, with the exception that he did not include the +local action of fresh water in depositing materials, afterwards traced +by Cuvier and Brogniart in the Tertiary deposits about Paris. But from +these data he went a step too far, and assumed that all rocks, except +the modern lavas, must have been accumulated by the sea,—believing even +the granites, porphyries, and basalts to have been deposited in the +ocean and crystallized from the substances it contained in solution.</p> + +<p>But, in the mean time, James Hutton, a Scotch geologist, was looking at +phenomena of a like character from a very different point of view. In +the neighborhood of Edinburgh, where he lived, was an extensive region +of trap-rock,—that is, of igneous rock, which had forced itself through +the stratified deposits, sometimes spreading in a continuous sheet over +large tracts, or splitting them open and tilling all the interstices and +cracks so formed. Thus he saw igneous rocks not only covering or +underlying stratified deposits, but penetrating deep into their +structure, forming dikes at right angles with them, and presenting, in +short, all the phenomena belonging to volcanic rocks in contact with +stratified materials. He again pushed his theory too far, and, inferring +from the phenomena immediately about him that heat had been the chief +agent in the formation of the earth's crust, he was inclined to believe +that the stratified materials also were in part at least due to this +cause. I have alluded in a former number to the hot disputes and +long-contested battles of geologists upon this point. It was a pupil of +Werner's who at last set at rest this much vexed question.</p> + +<p>At the age of sixteen, in the year 1790, Leopold von Buch was placed +under Werner's care at the mining school of Freiberg. Werner found him a +pupil after his own heart. Warmly adopting his teacher's theory, he +pursued his geological studies with the greatest ardor, and continued +for some time under the immediate influence and guidance of the Freiberg +professor. His university-studies over, however, he began to pursue his +investigations independently, and his geological excursions led him into +Italy, where his confidence in the truth of Werner's theory began to be +shaken. A subsequent visit to the region of extinct volcanoes in +Auvergne, in the South of France, convinced him that the aqueous theory +was at least partially wrong, and that fire had been an active agent in +the rock-formations of past times. This result did not change the +convictions of his master, Werner, who was too old or too prejudiced to +accept the later views, which were nevertheless the result of the +stimulus he himself had given to geological investigations.</p> + +<p>But Von Buch was indefatigable. For years he lived the life of an +itinerant geologist. With a shirt and a pair of stockings in his pocket +and a geological hammer in his hand he travelled all over Europe on +foot. The results of his foot-journey to Scandinavia were among his most +important contributions to geology. He went also to the Canary Islands; +and it is in his extensive work on the geological formations of these +islands that he showed conclusively not only the Plutonic character of +all unstratified rocks, but also that to their action upon the +stratified deposits the inequalities of the earth's surface are chiefly +due. He first demonstrated that the melted masses within the earth had +upheaved the materials deposited in layers upon its surface, and had +thus formed the mountains.</p> + +<p>No geologist has ever collected a larger amount of facts than Von Buch, +and to him we owe a great reform not only in geological principles, but +in methods of study also. An amusing anecdote is told of him, as +illustrating his untiring devotion to his scientific pursuits. In +studying the rocks, he had become engaged also in the investigation of +the fossils contained in them. He was at one time especially interested +in the <i>Terebratulæ</i> (fossil shells), and one evening in Berlin, where +he was engaged in the study of these remains, he came across a notice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg 756]</a></span> +in a Swedish work of a particular species of that family which he could +not readily identify without seeing the original specimens. The next +morning Von Buch was missing, and as he had invited guests to dine with +him, some anxiety was felt on account of his non-appearance. On inquiry, +it was found that he was already far on his way to Sweden: he had +started by daylight on a pilgrimage after the new, or rather the old, +<i>Terebratula</i>. I tell the story as I heard it from one of the +disappointed guests.</p> + +<p>All great natural phenomena impressed him deeply. On one occasion it was +my good fortune to make one of a party from the "Helvetic Association +for the Advancement of Science" on an excursion to the eastern extremity +of the Lake of Geneva. I well remember the expressive gesture of Von +Buch, as he faced the deep gorge through which the Rhone issues from the +interior of the Alps. While others were chatting and laughing about him, +he stood for a moment absorbed in silent contemplation of the grandeur +of the scene, then lifted his hat and bowed reverently before the +mountains.</p> + +<p>Next to Von Buch, no man has done more for modern geology than Elie de +Beaumont, the great French geologist. Perhaps the most important of his +generalizations is that by which he has given us the clue to the +limitation of the different epochs in past times by connecting them with +the great revolutions in the world's history. He has shown us that the +great changes in the aspect of the globe, as well as in its successive +sets of animals, coincide with the mountain-upheavals.</p> + +<p>I might add a long list of names, American as well as European, which +will be forever honored in the history of science for their +contributions to geology in the last half-century. But I have intended +only to close this chapter on mountains with a few words respecting the +men who first investigated their intimate structural organization, and +established methods of study in reference to them now generally adopted +throughout the scientific world. In my next article I shall proceed to +give some account of special geological formations in Europe, and the +gradual growth of that continent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CAMILLAS_CONCERT" id="CAMILLAS_CONCERT"></a>CAMILLA'S CONCERT.</h2> + +<p>I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between +"Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker,"—I, whose every attempt at music, +though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my +earliest childhood, been regarded as a premonitory symptom of epilepsy, +or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the +bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,—<i>I</i>, who can +but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the +olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in +the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, +pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso,—<i>I</i> was bidden to +Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to the slaughter, I went.</p> + +<p>He bears a great loss and sorrow who has "no ear for music." Into one +great garden of delights he may not go. There needs no flaming sword to +bar the way, since for him there is no gate called Beautiful which he +should seek to enter. Blunted and stolid he stumps through life for whom +its harp-strings vainly quiver. Yet, on the other hand, what does he not +gain? He loses the concord of sweet sounds, but he is spared the discord +of harsh noises. For the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span> surges of bewildering harmony and the depths +of dissonant disgust, he stands on the levels of perpetual peace. You +are distressed, because in yonder well-trained orchestra a single voice +is pitched one-sixteenth of a note too high. For me, I lean out of my +window on summer nights enraptured over the organ-man who turns poor +lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not +disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there +is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark +eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You +mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauling. I hear no +caterwauling, but the river-god of Arno ripples sort songs in the +summer-tide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the +cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,—the cantatrice +with the laurel yet green on her brow, gliding over the molten moonlit +water-ways of Venice, and dreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with +the plash of the oars of the gondolier. It is the chant of the +flower-girl with large eyes shining under the palm-branches in the +market-place of Milan; and with the distant echoing notes come the sweet +breath of her violets and the unquenchable odors of her crushed +geraniums borne on many a white sail from the glorified Adriatic. +Bronzed cheek and swart brow under my window, I shall by-and-by-throw +you a paltry nickel cent for your tropical dreams; meanwhile tell me, +did the sun of Dante's Florence give your blood its fierce flow and the +tawny hue to your bared and brawny breast? Is it the rage of Tasso's +madness that burns in your uplifted eyes? Do you take shelter from the +fervid noon under the cypresses of Monte Mario? Will you meet queenly +Marguerite with myrtle wreath and myrtle fragrance, as she wanders +through the chestnut vales? Will you sleep to-night between the +colonnades under the golden moon of Napoli? Go back, O child of the +Midland Sea! Go out from this cold shore, that yields but crabbed +harvests for your threefold vintages of Italy. Go, suck the sunshine +from Seville oranges under the elms of Posilippo. Go, watch the shadows +of the vines swaying in the mulberry-trees from Epomeo's gales. Bind the +ivy in a triple crown above Bianca's comely hair, and pipe not so +wailingly to the Vikings of this frigid Norseland.</p> + +<p>But Italy, remember, my frigid Norseland has a heart of fire in her +bosom beneath its overlying snows, before which yours dies like the +white sick hearth-flame before the noonday sun. Passion, but not +compassion, is here "cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." We +lure our choristers with honeyed words and gentle ways: you lay your +sweetest songsters on the gridiron. Our orchards ring with the +full-throated happiness of a thousand birds: your pomegranate groves are +silent, and your miserable cannibal kitchens would tell the reason why, +if outraged spits could speak. Go away, therefore, from my window, +Giuseppe; the air is growing damp and chilly, and I do not sleep in the +shadows of broken temples.</p> + +<p>Yet I love music: not as you love it, my friend, with intelligence, +discrimination, and delicacy, but in a dull, woodeny way, as the "gouty +oaks" loved it, when they felt in their fibrous frames the stir of +Amphion's lyre, and "floundered into hornpipes"; as the gray, stupid +rocks loved it, when they came rolling heavily to his feet to listen; in +a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sad +Orpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and the +thick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause of +the waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad, +yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me,—not in the +fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many an +earthy layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisite +nerves that bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg 758]</a></span> to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpid +or dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But as +sometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow his +needed nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by being immersed in a +bath of wine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, +penetrates to the sources of vitality,—so I, though the natural avenues +of sweet sounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine +flow of the musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around +me. An inward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile, secret +essence of life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, +and, borne on unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs.</p> + +<p>So I was comforted for my waxed ears and Camilla's concert.</p> + +<p>There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumb +devil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may as +well mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion and +debate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure to +come off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seems to +me the most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musical +rivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now, +if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But what +is well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head and shoulders +above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authority at all +rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the town to spend +Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse of voice, +absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving many signs. +Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from the city, and +immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from her aduncate nose, and +carries all before her. Mysterious is the arrangement of the world. The +last round of the ladder is not yet reached. To Madame Morlot, Harriette +is a savage, <i>une bête</i>, without cultivation. "Oh, the dismal little +fright! a thousand years of study would be useless; go, scour the +floors; she has positively no voice." No voice, Madame Morlot? +Harriette, no voice,—who burst every ear-drum in the room last night +with her howling and hooting, and made the stoutest heart tremble with +fearful forebodings of what might come next? But Madame Morlot is not +infallible, for Herr Driesbach sits shivering at the dreadful noises +which Madame Morlot extorts from his sensitive and suffering piano, and +at the necessity which lies upon him to go and congratulate her upon her +performance. Ah! if his tortured conscience might but congratulate her +and himself upon its close! And so the scale ascends. Hills on hills and +Alps on Alps arise, and who shall mount the ultimate peak till all the +world shall say, "Here reigns the Excellence"? I listen with pleasure to +untutored Nancie till Anabella takes all the wind from her sails. I +think the force of music can no farther go than Madame Morlot, and, +behold, Herr Driesbach has knocked out her underpinning. I am +bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be <i>à la +mode</i>?" But if it is so disheartening to me, who am only a passive +listener, what must be the agonies of the <i>dramatis personæ</i>? "Hang it!" +says Charles Lamb, "how I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" +And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What +shall avenge them for their <i>spretæ injuria formæ</i>? What can repay the +hapless performer, who has performed her very best, for learning by +terrible, indisputable indirections that her cherished and boasted +Cremona is but a very second fiddle?</p> + +<p>So, standing on the high ground of certain immunity from criticism and +hostile judgment, I do not so much console myself as I do not stand in +need of consolation. I rather give thanks for my mute and necessarily +unoffending lips, and I shall go in great good-humor to Camilla's +concert.</p> + +<p>There are many different ways of going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_759" id="Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span> to a concert. You can be one of +a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, +an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they +condemn, they criticise with perfect <i>au-faitism</i>. (No one need say +there is no such word. I know there was not yesterday, and perhaps will +not be to-morrow; but that there is such a one to-day, you have but to +open your eyes and see.) Into such company as this, even I, whose poor +old head is always fretting itself wedged in where it has no business to +be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into +the Irishman's echo, which always returned for his "How d' ye do?" a +"Pretty well, thank you." I cling to the skirts of that member of the +party who is agreed to have the best taste and echo his responses an +octave higher. If he sighs at the end of a song, I bring out my +pocket-handkerchief. If he says "charming," I murmur "delicious." If he +thinks it "exquisite," I pronounce it "enchanting." Where he is rapt in +admiration, I go into a trance, and so shamble through the performances, +miserable impostor that I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am +a dunce, fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain +upon the mental powers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be +accomplished and what skill may be attained by long practice.</p> + +<p>It is not ingenuous? I am afraid not quite. The guilt rest with those +who make me incur it! You cannot even read a book with any degree of +pleasure, if you know an opinion is expected of you at the finis. You +leave the popular novel till people have forgotten to ask, "How do you +like it?" How can you enjoy anything, if you are not at liberty to give +yourself wholly to it, but must be all the while making up a speech to +deliver when it is over? Nothing is better than to be a passive +listener, but nothing is worse than to be obliged to turn yourself into +a sounding-board: and must I have both the suffering and the guilt?</p> + +<p>Also one may go to a concert as a conductor with a single musical +friend. By conductor I do not mean escort, but a magnetic conductor, +rapture conductor, a fit medium through which to convey away his +delight, so that he shall not become surcharged and explode. He does not +take you for your pleasure, nor for his own, but for use. He desires +some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinions and his +enthusiasms, sure of an attentive listener,—since nothing is so +pleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend that in +such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptive of +theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like to be +obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it must be +confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, strike out +into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to the grand +paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as to be +leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not suffer your +eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your <i>ennui</i>, endeavor +to preserve an animated expression, and your success is complete. This +is all that is necessary. You will never be called upon for notes or +comments. Your little escapades will never be detected. It is not your +opinions that were sought, nor your education that was to be furthered. +You were only an escape-pipe, and your mission ceased when the soul of +song fled and the gas was turned off. This, too, is all that can justly +be demanded. Minister, lecturer, singer, no one has any right to ask of +his audience anything more than opportunity,—the externals of +attention. All the rest is his own look-out. If you prepossess your mind +with a theme, you do not give him an even chance. You must offer him in +the beginning a <i>tabula rasa</i>,—a fair field,—and then it is his +business to go in and win your attention; and if he cannot, let him pay +the costs, for the fault is his own.</p> + +<p>This also is torture, but its name is Zoar, a little one.</p> + +<p>There is yet another way. You may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_760" id="Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span> go with one or many who believe and +practise the doctrine of <i>laissez-faireity</i>. Do not now proceed to dash +your brains out against that word. I have just done it myself, and one +such head as mine is ample sacrifice for any verbal crime. They go to +the concert for love of music,—negatively for its rest and refreshment, +positively for its embodied delights. They take you for your enjoyment, +which they permit you to compass after your own fashion. They force from +you no comment. They demand no criticism. They do not require censure as +your certificate of taste. They do not trouble themselves with your +demeanor. If you choose to talk in the pauses, they are receptive and +cordial. If you choose to be silent, it is just as well. If you go to +sleep, they will not mind,—unless, under the spell of the genius of the +place, your sleep becomes vocal, and you involuntarily join the concert +in the undesirable <i>rôle</i> of De Trop. If you go into raptures, it is all +the same; you are not watched and made a note of. They leave you at the +top of your bent. Whether you shall be amused, delighted, or disgusted, +they respect your decisions and allow you to remain free.</p> + +<p>How did I go to my concert? Can I tell for the eyes that made "a +sunshine in the shady place"? Was I not veiled with the beautiful hair, +and blinded with the lily's white splendor? So went I with the Fairy +Queen in her golden coach drawn by six white mice, and, behold, I was in +Camilla's concert-room.</p> + +<p>It is to be a fiddle affair. Now I am free to say, if there is anything +I hate, it is a fiddle. Hide it away under as many Italian coatings as +you choose,—viol, violin, viola, violone, violoncello, +violoncellettissimo, at bottom it is all one, a fiddle; in its best +estate, a diddle, diddle, frivolous, rattling, Yankee-Doodle, +country-tavern-ball whirligig, without dignity, sentiment, or power; and +at worst a rubbing, rasping, squeaking, woolleny, noisy nuisance, that +it sets my teeth on edge to think of. I shudder at the mere memory of +the reluctant bow dragging its slow length across the whining strings. +And here I am, in my sober senses, come to hear a fiddle!</p> + +<p>But it is Camilla's. Do you remember—I don't, but I should, if I had +known it—a little girl who, a few years ago, became famous for her +wonderful performance on the violin? At six years of age she went to a +great concert, and of all the fine instruments there, the unseen spirit +within her made choice, "Papa, I should like to learn the violin." So +she learned it and loved it, and when ten years old delighted foreign +and American audiences with her marvellous genius. It was the little +Camilla who now, after ten years of silence, tuned her beloved +instrument once more.</p> + +<p>As she walks softly and quietly in, I am conscious of a disappointment. +I had unwittingly framed for her an aesthetic violin, with the essential +strings and bridge and bow indeed, but submerged and forgot in such +Orient splendors as befit her glorious genius. Barbaric pearl and gold, +finest carved work, flashing gems from Indian water-courses, the +delicatest pink sea-shell, a bubble-prism caught and crystallized,—of +all rare and curious substances wrought with dainty device, fantastic as +a dream, and resplendent as the light, should her instrument be +fashioned. Only in "something rich and strange" should the mystic soul +lie sleeping for whom her lips shall break the spell of slumber, and her +young fingers unbar the sacred gates. And, oh, me! it is, after all, the +very same old red fiddle! Dee, dee!</p> + +<p>But she neither glides nor trips nor treads, as heroines invariably do, +but walks in like a good Christian woman. She steps upon the stage and +faces the audience that gives her hearty greeting and waits the prelude. +There is time for cool survey. I am angry still about the red fiddle, +and I look scrutinizingly at her dress and think how ugly are hoops. The +skirt is white silk,—a brocade, I believe,—at any rate, stiff, and, +though probably full to overflowing in the hands of the seamstress, who +must compress it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> within prescribed limits about the waist, looks scanty +and straight, because, like all other skirts in the world at this +present writing, it is stretched over a barrel. Why could she not, she +who comes before us to-night, not as a fashion, but an inspiration,—why +could she not discard the mode, and assume that immortal classic drapery +whose graceful falls and folds the sculptor vainly tries to imitate, the +painter vainly seeks to limn? When Corinne tuned her lyre at the +Capitol, when she knelt to be crowned with her laurel crown at the hands +of a Roman senator, is it possible to conceive her swollen out with +crinoline? And yet I remember, that, though <i>sa robe était blanche, et +son costume était très pittoresque</i>, it was <i>sans s'écarter cependant +assez des usages reçus pour que l'on pût y trouver de l'affectation</i>; +and I suppose, if one should now suddenly collapse from conventional +rotundity to antique statuesqueness, the great "<i>on</i>" would very readily +"<i>y trouver de l'affectation</i>." Nevertheless, though one must dress in +Rome as Romans do, and though the Roman way of dressing is, taking all +things into the account, as good as any, and, if not more graceful, a +thousand times more convenient, wholesome, comfortable, and manageable +than Helen's, still it does seem, that, when one steps out of the +ordinary area of Roman life and assumes an abnormal position, one might, +without violence, assume temporarily an abnormal dress, and refresh our +dilated eyes once more with flowing, wavy outlines. Music is one of the +eternities: why should not its accessories be? Why should a discord +disturb the eye, when only concords delight the ear?</p> + +<p>But I lift my eyes from Camilla's unpliant drapery to the red red rose +in her hair, and thence, naturally, to her silent face, and in that +instant ugly dress and red red rose fade out of my sight. What is it +that I see, with tearful tenderness and a nameless pain at the heart? A +young face deepened and drawn with suffering; dark, large eyes, whose +natural laughing light has been quenched in tears, yet shining still +with a distant gleam caught from the eternal fires. O still, pathetic +face! A sterner form than Time has passed and left his vestige there. +Happy little girl, playing among the flickering shadows of the +Rhine-land, who could not foresee the darker shadows that should settle +and never lift nor flicker from her heavy heart! Large, lambent eyes, +that might have been sweet, but now are only steadfast,—that may yet be +sweet, when they look to-night into a baby's cradle, but gazing now upon +a waiting audience, are only steadfast. Ah! so it is. Life has such hard +conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rare virtue, every +pleasant facility, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, +sprightliness, benevolence, must sometimes be cast into the crucible to +distil the one elixir, patience. Large, lambent eyes, in which days and +nights of tears are petrified, steadfast eyes that are neither mournful +nor hopeful nor anxious, but with such unvoiced sadness in their depths +that the hot tears well up in my heart, what do you see in the waiting +audience? Not censure, nor pity, nor forgiveness, for you do not need +them,—but surely a warm human sympathy, since heart can speak to heart, +though the thin, fixed lips have sealed their secret well. Sad mother, +whose rose of life was crushed before it had budded, tender young lips +that had drunk the cup of sorrow to the dregs, while their cup of bliss +should hardly yet be brimmed for life's sweet spring-time, your +crumbling fanes and broken arches and prostrate columns lie not among +the ruins of Time. Be comforted of that. They bear witness of a more +pitiless Destroyer, and by this token I know there shall dawn a brighter +day. The God of the fatherless and the widow, of the worse than widowed +and fatherless, the Avenger of the Slaughter of the Innocents, be with +you, and shield and shelter and bless!</p> + +<p>But the overture wavers to its close, and her soul hears far off the +voice of the coming Spirit. A deeper light shines<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span> in the strangely +introverted eyes,—the look as of one listening intently to a distant +melody which no one else can hear,—the look of one to whom the room and +the people and the presence are but a dream, and past and future centre +on the far-off song. Slowly she raises her instrument. I almost shudder +to see the tawny wood touching her white shoulder; yet that cannot be +common or unclean which she so loves and carries with almost a caress. +Still intent, she raises the bow with a slow sweep, as if it were a wand +of divination. Nearer and nearer comes the heavenly voice, pouring +around her a flood of mystic melody. And now at last it breaks upon our +ears,—softly at first, only a sweet faint echo from that other sphere, +but deepening, strengthening, conquering,—now rising on the swells of a +controlling passion, now sinking into the depths with its low wail of +pain; exultant, scornful, furious, in the glad outburst of opening joy +and the fierce onslaught of strength; crowned, sceptred, glorious in +garland and singing-robes, throned in the high realms of its +inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope and ever new delights: then +sweeping down through the lower world with diminishing rapture, rapture +lessening into astonishment, astonishment dying into despair, it gathers +up the passion and the pain, the blight and woe and agony; all garnered +joys are scattered. Evil supplants the good. Hope dies, love pales, and +faith is faint and wan. But every death has its moaning ghost, pale +spectre of vanished loves. Oh, fearful revenge of the outraged soul! The +mysterious, uncomprehended, incomprehensible soul! The irrepressible, +unquenchable, immortal soul, whose every mark is everlasting! Every +secret sin committed against it cries out from the housetops. Cunning +may strive to conceal, will may determine to smother, love may fondly +whisper, "It does not hurt"; but the soul will not <i>be</i> outraged. +Somewhere, somehow, when and where you least expect, unconscious, +perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by the many, visible only to the +clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soul bursts asunder its bonds. It +is but a little song, a tripping of the fingers over the keys, a drawing +of the bow across the strings,—only that? Only that! It is the protest +of the wronged and ignored soul. It is the outburst of the pent and +prisoned soul. All the ache and agony, all the secret wrong and silent +endurance, all the rejected love and wounded trust and slighted truth, +all the riches wasted, all the youth poisoned, all the hope trampled, +all the light darkened,—all meet and mingle in a mad whirl of waters. +They surge and lash and rage, a wild storm of harmony. Barriers are +broken. Circumstance is not. The soul! the soul! the soul! the wronged +and fettered soul! the freed and royal soul! It alone is king. Lift up +your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the +King of Glory shall come in! Tremble, O Tyrant, in your +mountain-fastness! Tremble, Deceiver, in your cavern under the sea! Your +victim is your accuser. Your sin has found you out. Your crime cries to +Heaven. You have condemned and killed the just. You have murdered the +innocent in secret places, and in the noonday sun the voice of their +blood crieth unto God from the ground. There is no speech nor language. +There is no will nor design. The seal of silence is unbroken. But +unconscious, entranced, inspired, the god has lashed his Sibyl on. The +vital instinct of the soul, its heaven-born, up-springing life, flings +back the silver veil, and reveals the hidden things to him who hath eyes +to see.</p> + +<p>The storm sobs and soothes itself to silence. There is a hush, and then +an enthusiasm of delight. The small head slightly bows, the still face +scarcely smiles, the slight form disappears,—and after all, it was only +a fiddle.</p> + +<p>"When Music, heavenly maid, was young," begins the ode; but Music, +heavenly maid, seems to me still so young, so very young, as scarcely to +have made her power felt. Her language is as yet unlearned. When a baby +of a month is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg 763]</a></span> hungry or in pain, he contrives to make the fact +understood. If he is at peace with himself and his surroundings, he +leaves no doubt on the subject. To precisely this degree of +intelligibility has the Heavenly Maid attained among us. When Beethoven +sat down to the composition of one of his grand harmonies, there was +undoubtedly in his mind as distinct a conception of that which he wished +to express, of that within him which clamored for expression, as ever +rises before a painter's eye or sings in a poet's brain. Thought, +emotion, passion, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, each had its life and law. +The painter paints you this. This the poet sings you. You stand before a +picture, and to your loving, searching gaze its truths unfold. You read +the poem with the understanding, and catch its concealed meanings. But +what do you know of what was in Beethoven's soul? Who grasps his +conception? Who faithfully renders, who even thoroughly knows his idea? +Here and there to some patient night-watcher the lofty gates are +unbarred, "on golden hinges turning." But, for the greater part, the +musician who would tell so much speaks to unheeding ears. We comprehend +him but infinitesimally. It is the Battle of Prague. Adrianus sits down +to the piano, and Dion stands by his side, music-sheet in hand, acting +as showman. "The Cannon," says Dion, at the proper place, and you +imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge," continues Dion, and with +a violent effort you fancy the ground trembles. "Groans of the wounded," +and you are partly horror-struck and partly incredulous. But what lame +representation is this! As if one should tie a paper around the ankle of +the Belvedere Apollo, with the inscription, "This is the ankle." A +collar declares, "This is the neck." A bandeau locates his "forehead." A +bracelet indicates the "arm." Is the sculpture thus significant? Hardly +more does our music yet signify to us. You hear an unfamiliar air. You +like it or dislike it, or are indifferent. You can tell that it is slow +and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it is defiant +or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shades of its +meaning! How hidden is the song in the heart of the composer till he +gives you the key! You hear as though you heard not. You hear the +thunder, and the cataract, and the crash of the avalanche; but the song +of the nightingale, the chirp of the katydid, the murmur of the +waterfall never reach you. This cannot be the ultimatum. Music must hold +in its own bosom its own interpretation, and man must have in his its +corresponding susceptibilities. Music is language, and language implies +a people who employ and understand it. But music, even by its professor, +is as yet faintly understood. Its meanings go on crutches. They must be +helped out by words. What does this piece say to you? Interpret it. You +cannot. You must be taught much before you can know all. It must be +translated from music into speech before you can entirely assimilate it. +Musicians do not trust alone to notes for moods. Their light shines only +through a glass darkly. But in some other sphere, in some happier time, +in a world where gross wants shall have disappeared, and therefore the +grossness of words shall be no longer necessary, where hunger and thirst +and cold and care and passion have no more admittance, and only love and +faith and hope and admiration and aspiration shall crave utterance, in +that blessed unseen world, shall not music be the every-day speech, +conveying meaning not only with a sweetness, but with an accuracy, +delicacy, and distinctness, of which we have now but a faint conception? +Here words are not only rough, but ambiguous. There harmonies shall be +minutely intelligible. Speak with what directness we can, be as +explanatory, repetitious, illustrative as we may, there are mistakes, +misunderstandings, many and grievous, and consequent missteps, +calamities, and catastrophes. But in that other world language shall be +exactly coexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> +to meaning. There shall be no hidden corners, no bungling +incompatibilities, but the searching sound penetrates into the secret +sources of the soul, all-pervading. Not a nook, not a crevice, no maze +so intricate, but the sound floats in to gather up the fragrant aroma, +to bear it yonder to another waiting soul, and deposit it as deftly by +unerring magnetisms in the corresponding clefts.</p> + +<p>Toot away, then, fifer-fellow! Turn your slow crank, inexorable Italian! +Thrum your thrums, Miss Laura, for Signor Bernadotti! You are a long way +off, but your foot-prints point the right way. With many a yawn and sigh +subjective, with, I greatly fear me, many a malediction objective, you +are "learning the language of another world." To us, huddled together in +our little ant-hill, one is "<i>une bête</i>," and one is "<i>mon ange</i>"; but +from that fixed star we are all so far as to have no parallax.</p> + +<p>But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one has +raised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates of +the sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunny France, +in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow and sighing have +fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comes sweeping by"; but +young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheep lie on the slopes +of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from his mountain-peak. +Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and every gentle height blooms +with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dance through the fruitful +orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfs wound in with their +bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trilling the lays of their +land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mount higher and yet +higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here the freshening air sweeps +down, and the low gurgle of living water purling out from cool, dark +chasms mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here the young shepherd +himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, lithe, supple, strong, brave, +and free as the soul of his race,—the same iron in his sinews, and the +same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout" to Charlemagne a +thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path of Roncesvalles blow the +evening gales, wafting tender messages to the listening girls below. +Green grows the grass and gay the flowers that spring from the blood of +princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. No bugle-blast can bring old +Roland back, though it wind long and loud through the echoing woods. +Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiant stems, may sit on happy +evenings in the shadow of the vines, or group themselves on the +greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing their songs of battle +and victory,—the olden legends of their heroic sires; but the strain +that floats down from the darkening slopes into their heart of hearts, +the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, and throbs in their +throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, is not the shock of +deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweet old song,—old, yet +ever new,—whose burden is,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Come live with me and be my love,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>old, yet always new,—sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whether +it be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears it +from princely lips in her palace on the sea.</p> + +<p>But the mountain shadows stretch down the valleys and wrap the meadows +in twilight. Farther and farther the notes recede as the flutesman +gathers his quiet flock along the winding paths. Smooth and far in the +tranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silvery +sweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening-air, lessening and +lowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain just cleaves, +a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the +dewy twilight, and—you hear only your own heart-beats. It is not dead, +but risen. It never ceased. It knew no pause. It has gone up the heights +to mingle with the songs of the angels. You rouse yourself with a start, +and gaze at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span> your neighbor half bewildered. What is it? Where are we? +Oh, my remorseful heart! There is no shepherd, no mountain, no girl with +scarlet ribbon and black braids bound on her beautiful temples. It was +only a fiddle on a platform!</p> + +<p>Now you need not tell me that. I know better. I have lived among fiddles +all my life,—embryotic, Silurian fiddles, splintered from cornstalks, +that blessed me in the golden afternoons of green summers waving in the +sunshine of long ago,—sympathetic fiddles that did me yeomen's service +once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret and broke my head, and the +frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me +lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that +nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, and so <i>sinciput</i> and +<i>occiput</i> were left overnight to compose their own quarrels, whereby I +was naturally all right before the doctor had a chance at me, suffering +only the slight disadvantage of going broken-headed through life. What I +might have been with a whole skull, I don't know; but I will say, that, +even in fragments, my head is the best part of me.</p> + +<p>Yes, I think I may dare affirm that whatever there is to know about a +fiddle I know, and I can give my affidavit that it is no fiddle that +takes you up on its broad wings, outstripping the "wondrous horse of +brass," which required</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i9">"the space of a day natural,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is to sayn, four and twenty houres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wher so you list, in drought or elles showres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To beren your body into every place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To which your herte willeth for to pace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withouten wemme of you, thurgh foule or faire,"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>since it bears you, "withouten" even so much as your "herte's" will, in +a moment's time, over the seas and above the stars.</p> + +<p>A fiddle, is it? Do not for one moment believe it.—A poet walked +through Southern woods, and the Dryads opened their hearts to him. They +unfolded the secrets that dwell in the depths of forests. They sang to +him under the starlight the songs of their green, rustling land. They +whispered the loves of the trees sentient to poets:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The sayling pine; the cedar, proud and tall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vine-propt elme; the poplar, never dry;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The builder oake, sole king of forrests all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The aspine, good for staves; the cypresse funerall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lawrell, meed of mightie conquerours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And poets sage; the firre, that weepeth stille;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The willow, worne of forlorne paramours;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eugh, obedient to the benders will;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The birch, for shaftes; the sallow, for the mill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wounde;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The warlike beech; the ash, for nothing ill;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fruitful olive; and the platane round;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They sang to him with their lutes. They danced before him with sunny, +subtile grace, wreathing him with strange loveliness. They brought him +honey and wine in the white cups of lilies, till his brain was drunk +with delight; and they kept watch by his moss pillow, while he slept.</p> + +<p>In the dew of the morning, he arose and felled the kindly tree that had +sheltered him, not knowing it was the home of Arborine, fairest of the +wood-nymphs. But he did it not for cruelty, but tenderness, to carve a +memorial of his most memorable night, and so pulled down no thunders on +his head. For Arborine loved him, and, like her sister Undine in the +North, found her soul in loving him. Unseen, the beautiful nymph guided +his hand as he fashioned the sounding viol, not knowing he was +fashioning a palace for a soul new-born. He wrought skilfully, strung +the intense chords, and smote them with the sympathetic bow. What burst +of music flooded the still air! What new song trembled among the +mermaiden tresses of the oaks! What new presence quivered in every +listening harebell and every fearful wind-flower? The forest felt a +change, for tricksy nymph had proved a mortal love, and put off her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg 766]</a></span> +fairy phantasms for the deep consciousness of humanity. The wood heard, +bewildered. A shudder as of sorrow thrilled through it. A breeze that +was almost sad swept down the shady aisles as the Poet passed out into +the sunshine and the world.</p> + +<p>But Nature knows no pain, though Arborines appear never more. A balm +springs up in every wound. Over the hills, and far away beyond their +utmost purple rim, and deep into the dying day the happy love-born one +followed her love, happy to exchange her sylvan immortality for the +spasm of mortal life,—happy, in her human self-abnegation, to lie close +on his heart and whisper close in his ear, though he knew only the +loving voice and never the loving lips. Through the world they passed, +the Poet and his mystic viol. It gathered to itself the melodies that +fluttered over sea and land,—songs of the mountains, and songs of the +valleys,—murmurs of love, and the trumpet-tones of war,—bugle-blast of +huntsman on the track of the chamois, and mother's lullaby to the baby +at her breast. All that earth had of sweetness the nymph drew into her +viol-home, and poured it forth anew in strains of more than mortal +harmony. The fire and fervor of human hearts, the quiet ripple of inland +waters, the anthem of the stormy sea, the voices of the flowers and the +birds lent their melody to the song of her who knew them all.</p> + +<p>The Poet died. Died, too, sweet Arborine, swooning away in the fierce +grasp of this stranger Sorrow, to enter by the black gate of death into +the full presence and recognition of him by loving whom she had learned +to be.</p> + +<p>The viol passed into strange hands and wandered down the centuries, but +its olden echoes linger still. Fragrance of Southern woods, coolness of +shaded waters, inspiration of mountain-breezes, all the secret forces of +Nature that the wood-nymph knew, and the joy, the passion, and the pain +that throb only in a woman's heart, lie still, silent under the silent +strings, but wakening into life at the touch of a royal hand.</p> + +<p>Do you not believe my story? But I have seen the viol and the royal +hand!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SPRING_AT_THE_CAPITAL" id="SPRING_AT_THE_CAPITAL"></a>SPRING AT THE CAPITAL.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">The poplar drops beside the way<br /></span> +<span class="i11">Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impatient for the laggard May.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">The honeysuckles lace the wall;<br /></span> +<span class="i11">The hyacinths grow fair and tall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mellow sun and pleasant wind and odorous bees are over all.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Down-looking in this snow-white bud,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">How distant seems the war's red flood!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How far remote the streaming wounds, the sickening scent of human blood!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">For Nature does not recognize<br /></span> +<span class="i11">This strife that rends the earth and skies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg 767]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">She holds her even way the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">Though navies sink or cities flame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A snow-drop is a snow-drop still, despite the nation's joy or shame.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">When blood her grassy altar wets,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">She sends the pitying violets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it with soft regrets.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">O crocuses with rain-wet eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">O tender-lipped anemones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What do ye know of agony and death and blood-won victories?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">No shudder breaks your sunshine-trance,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">Though near you rolls, with slow advance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the anguish-laden ambulance.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Yonder a white encampment hums;<br /></span> +<span class="i11">The clash of martial music comes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now your startled stems are all a-tremble with the jar of drums.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Whether it lessen or increase,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">Or whether trumpets shout or cease,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy bees are murmuring, "Peace!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">O flowers! the soul that faints or grieves<br /></span> +<span class="i11">New comfort from your lips receives;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in your healing leaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Help us to trust, still on and on,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">That this dark night will soon be gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red trouble of the dawn,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Dawn of a broader, whiter day<br /></span> +<span class="i11">Than ever blessed us with its ray,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and wrong shall fade away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i11">Then shall our nation break its bands,<br /></span> +<span class="i11">And, silencing the envious lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spotless robe, and clean, white hands.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_768" id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_HORRORS_OF_SAN_DOMINGO25" id="THE_HORRORS_OF_SAN_DOMINGO25"></a>THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></h2> + +<h3>[Concluding Chapter.]</h3> + + +<p>The subject which I hoped to present intelligibly in three or four +articles has continually threatened to step out of the columns of a +magazine and the patience of its readers. The material which is at hand +for the service of the great points of the story, such as the Commercial +Difficulty, the Mulatto Question, the State of Colonial Parties, the +Effect of the French Revolution, the Imbroglio of Races, the Character +of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Present Condition of Hayti, and a +Bibliography of the whole subject, is now detached for perhaps a more +deliberate publication; and two or three points of immediate interest, +such as the French Cruelties, Emancipation and the Slave Insurrection, +and the Negroes as Soldiers, are grouped together for the purpose of +this closing article.</p> + + +<h4>PLANTATION CRUELTIES.</h4> + +<p>The social condition of the slaves cannot be fully understood without +some reference to the revolting facts connected with plantation +management. It is well to know what base and ingenious cruelties could +be tolerated by public opinion, and endured by the slaves without +exciting continual insurrections. Wonder at this sustained patience of +the blacks passes into rage and indignation long before the student of +this epoch reaches the eventual outbreaks of 1791: it seems as if a just +instinct of manhood should have more promptly doomed these houses of +iniquity, and handed them over to a midnight vengeance. And there +results a kind of disappointment from the discovery, that, when the +blacks finally began to burn and slaughter, they were not impelled by +the desire of liberty or the recollection of great crimes, but were +blind agents of a complicated situation. It is only in the remote +historical sense that Slavery provoked Insurrection. The first great +night of horror in San Domingo rose from circumstances that were not +explicitly chargeable to the absence of freedom or to the outrages of +the slaveholder. But if these things had not fuelled the lighted torches +and whetted the blades when grasped, it would have been strange and +monstrous indeed. Stranger still would it have been, if the flames of +that first night had not kindled in the nobler breasts among that +unchained multitude a determination never to endure plantation ferocity +again. The legitimate cause for rebelling then took the helm and guided +the rest of the story into dignity.</p> + +<p>The frequency of enfranchisement might mislead us into expecting that +the colonial system of slavery was tempered with humanity. It was rather +like that monarchy which the wit described as being "tempered by +assassination." The mulatto was by no means a proof that mercy and +justice regulated the plantation life. His enfranchisement reacted +cruelly upon the negro. It seemed as if the recognition of one domestic +sentiment hurt the master's feelings; the damage to his organization +broke out against the lower race in anger. The connections between black +and white offered no protection to the former, nor amelioration of her +lot. Indeed, the overseer, who desired always to be on good terms with +the agent or the proprietor of a plantation, was more severe towards the +unhappy object of his passion than to the other women, for fear of +incurring reproach or suspicion. When he became the owner of slaves, his +emancipating humor was no guaranty that they would receive a salutary +and benignant treatment.</p> + +<p>When a Frenchman undertakes to be cruel, he acts with great <i>esprit</i>. +There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span> is spectacular ingenuity in the atrocities which he invents, and +even his ungovernable bursts of rage instinctively aim a <i>coup de +théâtre</i> at his victim. The negro is sometimes bloodthirsty, and when he +is excited he will quaff at the opened vein; but he never saves up a man +for deliberate enjoyment of his sufferings. When the wild orgy becomes +sated, and the cause of it has been once liquidated, there is no further +danger from this disposition. But a French colonist, whether smiling or +sombre, was always disposed to be tormenting. The ownership of slaves +unmasked this tendency of a race which at home, in the streets of Paris +and the court-yard of the Abbaye and La Force, proved its ferocity and +simple thirst for blood. The story of the Princess Lamballe's death and +disfiguration shows the broad Gallic fancy which the sight of blood can +pique into action. But the every-day life of many plantations surpassed, +in minuteness and striking refinement of tormenting, all that the +<i>sans-culotte</i> ever dared or the savage ever dreamed.</p> + +<p>Let a few cases be found sufficient to enlighten the reader upon this +point. They are specimens from a list of horrors which eye-witnesses, +inhabitants of the island, have preserved; and many of them, being found +in more than one authority, French as well as colored, are to be +regarded as current and unquestionable facts.</p> + +<p>The ordinary brutalities of slaveholding were rendered more acute by +this Creole temper. Whippings were carried to the point of death, for +the slave-vessel was always at the wharf to furnish short lives upon +long credit; starving was a common cure for obstinacy, brine and +red-pepper were liberally sprinkled upon quivering backs. Economy was +never a virtue of this profuse island. Lives were <i>sauce piquante</i> to +luxury.</p> + +<p>The incarceration of slaves who had marooned, stolen vegetables, or +refused to work, had some features novel to the Bastille and the +Inquisition. A man would be let down into a stone case or cylinder just +large enough to receive his body: potted in this way, he remained till +the overseer considered that he had improved. Sometimes he was left too +long, and was found spoiled; for this mode of punishment soon ended a +man, because he could not move a limb or change his attitude. Dungeons +were constructed with iron rings so disposed along the wall that a man +was held in a sitting posture with nothing to sit upon but sharpened +stick: he was soon obliged to try it, and so oscillated between the two +tortures. Other cells were furnished with cases, of the size of a man, +that could be hermetically sealed: these were for suffocation. The +floors of some were kept submerged with a foot or two of water: the +negroes who came out of them were frequently crippled for life by the +dampness and cold. Iron cages, collars, and iron masks, clogs, fetters, +and thumb-screws were found upon numerous plantations, among the ruins +of the dungeons.</p> + +<p>The <i>quatre piquet</i> was a favorite style of flogging. Each limb of the +victim was stretched to the stake of a frame which was capable of more +or less distention; around the middle went an iron circle which +prevented every motion. In this position he received his modicum of +lashes, every muscle swollen and distended, till the blood dripped from +the machine. After he was untied, the overseer dressed the wounds, +according to fancy, with pickled pimento, pepper, hot coals, boiling oil +or lard, sealing-wax, or gunpowder. Sometimes hot irons stanched the +flow of blood.</p> + +<p>M. Frossard<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> is authority for the story of a planter who administered +a hundred lashes to a negro who had broken a hoe-handle, then strewing +gunpowder in the furrows of the flesh, amused himself with setting the +trains on fire.</p> + +<p>M. de Crévecœur put a negro who had killed an inhuman overseer into +an iron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> cage, so confined that the birds could have free access to him. +They fed daily upon the unfortunate man; his eyes were carried off, his +jaws laid bare, his arms torn to pieces, clouds of insects covered the +lacerated body and regaled upon his blood.</p> + +<p>Another planter, attests M. Frossard, after having lived several years +with a negress, deserted her for another, and wished to force her to +become the slave of her rival. Not being able to endure this +humiliation, she besought him to sell her. But the irritated Frenchman, +after inflicting various preparatory punishments, buried her alive, with +her head above ground, which he kept wet with <i>eau sucrée</i> till the +insects had destroyed her.</p> + +<p>How piteous is the reflection that the slaves made a point of honor of +preserving their backs free from scars,—so that the lash inflicted a +double wound at every stroke!</p> + +<p>There was a planter who kept an iron box pierced with holes, into which +the slaves were put for trivial offences, and moved towards a hot fire, +till the torment threatened to destroy life. He considered this +punishment preferable to whipping, because it did not suspend the +slave's labors for so long a time.</p> + +<p>"What rascally sugar!" said Caradeux to his foreman; "the next time you +turn out the like, I will have you buried alive;—you know me." The +occasion came soon after, and the black was thrown into a dungeon. +Caradeux, says Malenfant, did not really wish to lose his black, yet +wished to preserve his character for severity. He invited a dozen ladies +to dinner, and during the repast informed them that he meant to execute +his foreman, and they should see the thing done. This was not an unusual +sight for ladies to witness: the Roman women never were more eager for +the agonies of the Coliseum. But on this occasion they demurred, and +asked pardon for the black. "Very well," said Caradeux; "remain at +table, and when you see me take out my handkerchief; run and solicit his +life." After the dessert, Caradeux repaired to the court, where the +negro had been obliged to dig his own grave and to get into it, which he +did with singing. The earth was thrown around him till the head only +appeared. Caradeux pulls out his handkerchief; the ladies run, throw +themselves at his feet; after much feigned reluctance, he exclaims,—</p> + +<p>"I pardon you at the solicitation of these ladies."</p> + +<p>The negro answered,—</p> + +<p>"You will not be Caradeux, if you pardon me."</p> + +<p>"What do you say?" cried the master, in a rage.</p> + +<p>"If you do not kill me, I swear by my god-mother that I will kill you."</p> + +<p>At this, Caradeux seized a huge stone, and hurled it at his head, and +the other blacks hastened to put an end to his suffering.</p> + +<p>Burning the negro alive was an occasional occurrence. Burying him alive +was more frequent. A favorite pastime was to bury him up to his neck, +and let the boys bowl at his head. Sometimes the head was covered with +molasses, and left to the insects. Pitying comrades were found to stone +the sufferer to death. One or two instances were known of planters who +rolled the bodies of slaves, raw and bloody from a whipping, among the +ant-hills. If a cattle-tender let a mule or ox come to harm, the animal +was sometimes killed and the man sewed up in the carcass. This was done +a few times in cases where the mule died of some epizoötic malady.</p> + +<p>Hamstringing negroes had always been practised against marooning, theft, +and other petty offences: an overseer seldom failed to bring down his +negro with a well-aimed hatchet. <i>Coupe-jarret</i> was a phrase applied +during the revolutionary intrigues to those who were hampering a +movement which appeared to advance.</p> + +<p>Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who +lived at Grande-Riviére, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the +ears,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span> then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed +the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was +one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his +pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor +struck him.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are +upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with +the <i>bagasse</i> or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' +heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them +slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an +occasional pastime.</p> + +<p>If a woman was fortunate enough to lose her babe, she was often thrown +into a cell till she chose to have another. Madame Bailly had a wooden +child made, which she fastened around the necks of her negresses, if +their children died, until they chose to replace them. These punishments +were devised to check infanticide, which was the natural relief of the +slave-mother.</p> + +<p>Venault de Charmilly, a planter of distinction, afterwards the +accomplished agent of the emigrant-interest at the court of St. James, +used to carry pincers in his pocket, to tear the ears or tongues of his +unfortunate slaves, if they did not hear him call, or if their replies +were unsatisfactory. He pulled teeth with the same instrument. This man +threw his postilion to the horses, literally tying him in their stall +till he was beaten by their hoofs to shreds. He was an able advocate of +slavery, and did much to poison the English mind, and to create a party +with the object of annexing San Domingo and restoring the colonial +system.</p> + +<p>Cocherel, a planter of Gonaïves, had a slave who played upon the violin. +After terrible floggings, he would compel this man to play, as a +punishment for having danced without music. He found it piquant to watch +the contest of pain and sorrow with the native love of melody. The cases +where French planters watched curiously the characteristics of their +various expedients for torture are so common that they furnish us with a +trait of French Creolism. A poor cook, for instance, was one day thrown +into an oven with a crackling heap of <i>bagasse</i>, because some article of +food reached the table underdone. As the lips curled and shrivelled away +from the teeth, his master, who was observing the effects of heat, +exclaimed,—"The rascal laughs!"</p> + +<p>But the most symbolical action, expressive of the colony's whole life, +was performed by one Corbierre, who punished his slaves by +blood-letting, and gave a humorous refinement to the sugar which he +manufactured by using this blood to assist in clarifying it.</p> + +<p>Let these instances suffice. The pen will not penetrate into the sorrows +which befell the slave concubine and mother. The form of woman was never +so mutilated and dishonored, the decencies of fetichism and savageism +were never so outraged, as by these slaveholding idolaters of the Virgin +and the Mother of God.</p> + +<p>The special cruelties, together with the names of the perpetrators, +which have been remembered and recorded, would form an appalling +catalogue for the largest slaveholding community in the world. But this +recorded cruelty, justly representative of similar acts which never came +to the ears of men, was committed by only forty thousand whites of both +sexes and all ages upon an area little larger than the State of Maine. +There was agony enough racking the bosoms of that half-million of slaves +to sate a hemisphere of slaveholding tyrants. But the public opinion of +the little coterie of villains was never startled. It is literally true +that not a single person was ever condemned to the penalties of the +<i>Code Noir</i> for the commission of one of the crimes above mentioned. One +would think that the close recurrence, in time and space, of these acts +of crime would have beaten through even this Creole temperament into +some soft spot that belonged to the mother-country of God,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> if not of +France. Occasionally a tender heart went back to Paris to record its +sense of the necessity of some amelioration of these colonial +ferocities; but the words of humanity were still spoken in the interest +of slavery. It was for the sake of economy, and to secure a natural +local increase of the slave population, that these vague reports of +cruelty were suggested to the government. The planting interest procured +the suppression of one of the mildest and most judicious of the books +thus written, and had the author cast into prison. When the crack of the +planter's lash sounded in the purlieus of the Tuileries itself, humanity +had to wait till the Revolution had cleared out the Palace, the Church, +and the Courts, before its clear protest could reverberate against the +system of the colony. Then Grégoire, Lameth, Condorcet, Brissot, +Lafayette, and others, assailed the planting interest, and uttered the +bold generalization that either the colonies or the crimes must be +abandoned; for the restraining provisions of the <i>Code Noir</i> were too +feeble for the sugar exigency, and had long ago become obsolete. There +was no police except for slaves, no inspectors of cultivation above the +agents and the overseers. He was considered a <i>bon blanc</i>, and a person +of benignity, whose slaves were seldom whipped to death. There could be +neither opinion nor economy to check these things, when "<i>La côte +d'Afrique est une bonne mère</i>" was the planter's daily consolation at +the loss of an expensive negro.</p> + +<p>Such slavery could not be improved; it might be abolished by law or +drowned in blood. There is a crowd of pamphlets that have come down to +us shrieking with the ineptitude of this period. It was popular to +accuse the society of the <i>Amis des Noirs</i> of having ruined the colony +by inspiring among the slaves a vague restlessness which blossomed into +a desire for vengeance and liberty. But it is a sad fact that neither of +those great impulses was stirring in those black forms, monoliths of +scars and slave-brands. Not till their eyes had grown red at the sight +of blood shed at other suggestions, and their ears had devoured the +crackling of the canes and country-seats of their masters, did the +guiding spirit of Liberty emerge from the havoc, and respond with +Toussaint to the call of French humanity, by fighting for the Republic +and the Rights of Man. Suicide was the only insurrection that ever +seemed to the slave to promise liberty; for during the space of a +hundred years nothing more formidable than the two risings of Padre Jean +and Makandal had thrilled the consciences of the planters. If the latter +had preserved the unity of sentiment that belonged to the atrocious +unity of their interest, and had waived their pride for their safety, +they might have proclaimed decrees of emancipation with every morning's +peal of the plantation-bell, and the negroes would have replied every +morning, "<i>Vous maître</i>."</p> + +<p>There is but one other folly to match the accusation that the sentiment +of French Abolitionism excited the slaves to rise: that is, the +sentiment that a slave ought not to be excited to rise against such +"Horrors of San Domingo" as we have just recorded. The men who are +guilty of that sentimentality, while they smugly enjoy personal immunity +and the dear delights of home, deserve to be sold to a Caradeux or a +Legree. Let them be stretched upon the <i>quatre-piquet</i> of a great people +in a war-humor, whose fathers once rose against the enemies that would +have bled only their purses, and hamstrung only their material growth.</p> + +<p>In the two decades between 1840 and 1860 the American Union was seldom +saved by a Northern statesman without the help of San Domingo. People in +cities, with a balance at the bank, stocks floating in the market, +little children going to primary schools, a well-filled wood-shed, and a +house that is not fire-proof, shudder when they hear that a great moral +principle has devastated properties and sent peaceful homes up in the +smoke of arson. Certainly the Union shall be preserved; at all events, +the wood-shed must be. Nothing shall be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> the midnight assassin of the +country until slavery itself is ready for the job. So the Northern +merchant kept his gold at par through dread of anti-slavery, and saved +the Union just long enough to pay seventy-five per cent, for the luxury +of the "Horrors." Did it ever once occur to him that his eminent +Northern statesman was pretending something that the South itself knew +to be false and never hypocritically urged against the anti-slavery men? +Southern men of intelligence had the best of reasons for understanding +the phenomena of San Domingo, and while the "Friends of the Black" were +dripping with innocent French blood in Northern speeches, the embryo +Secessionists at Nashville and Savannah strengthened their convictions +with the proper rendering of the same history. Take, as a specimen of +their tranquil frame of mind, the following view, which was intended to +correct a vague popular dread that in all probability was inspired by +Northern statesmen. It is from a wonderfully calm and judicious speech +delivered before the Nashville Convention, a dozen years ago, by General +Felix Huston of Mississippi.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This insurrection [of San Domingo] having occurred so near +to us, and being within the recollection of many persons +living, who heard the exaggerated accounts of the day, has +fastened itself on the public imagination, until it has +become a subject of frequent reference, and even Southern +twaddlers declaim about the Southern States being reduced to +the condition of St. Domingo, and Abolitionists triumphantly +point to it as a case where the negro race have asserted and +maintained their freedom.</p> + +<p>"Properly speaking, this was not a slave insurrection, +although it assumed that form after the island was thrown +into a revolutionary state.</p> + +<p>"The island of St. Domingo, in 1791, contained about seven +hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, about fifty thousand +of whom were whites, more than double that number of +mulattoes and of mixed blood, and the balance were negroes.</p> + +<p>"The French and Spanish planters had introduced a general +system of concubinage, and the consequence was a numerous +progeny of mulattoes, many of whom associated with the +whites nearly on terms of equality, were educated at home or +sent to Europe to be educated, and many of them were +wealthy, having been freed by their parents and their +property left to them. These things had lowered, the +character of the white proprietors, gradually bringing them +down to the level of the mulattoes, and lessening the +distance between them and the blacks; and in addition to +this, there were a number of the white population who were +poor and enervated, and rendered vicious by the low state of +social morals and influence of the climate.</p> + +<p>"In this state of affairs, when the French Revolution broke +out, the wild spirit of liberty caught to the island and +infected the mulattoes and the lower class of white +population, and they sought to equalize themselves with the +large proprietors. The foundations of society were broken up +by this intermediate class, and in the course of the +struggle they called in the blacks, and the two united, +exceeding the whites in the proportion of twelve to one, +expelled them from the island. Since that time a continual +struggle has been going on between the mulattoes and the +negroes, the latter having numbers and brute force, and the +former sustaining themselves by superior intelligence.</p> + +<p>"There never has been a formidable slave insurrection, +considered purely as such; and a comparison of our situation +with slavery as it has existed elsewhere ought to relieve +the minds of the most timid from any apprehension of danger +from our negroes, under any circumstances, in peace or war."</p></div> + +<p>This generally truthful statement, which needs but little modification, +shows that San Domingo was helping to destroy the Union at the South +while it was trying to save it at the North. The words of the +Secessionist were prophetic, and Slavery will continue to be the great +unimpaired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> war power of Southern institutions, till some color-bearer, +white or black, in the name of law and order, shakes the stars of +America over her inland fields.</p> + + +<h4>AUGUST 22, 1791.</h4> + +<p>When the French vessels, bringing news of the developing Revolution, +touched the wharves of Cap Français, a spark seemed to leap forth into +the colony, to run through all ranks and classes of men, setting the +Creole hearts afire, till it fell dead against the <i>gros peau</i> and the +<i>peau fin</i><a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> of the black man. Three colonial parties vibrated with +expectations that were radically discordant when the cannon of the +people thundered against the Bastille. First in rank and assumption were +the old planters and proprietors, two-thirds of whom were at the time +absentees in France. They were, excepting a small minority, devoted +royalists, but desired colonial independence in order to enjoy a perfect +slaveholding authority. They were embittered by commercial restrictions, +and longed to be set free from the mother-country, that San Domingo +might be erected into a feudal kingdom with a court and gradation of +nobility, whose parchments, indeed, would have been black and engrossed +all over with despotism. They wanted the freedom of the seas and all the +ports of the world, not from a generous motive, nor from a policy that +looked beyond the single object of nourishing slavery at the cheapest +rates, to carry its products to the best markets in exchange for flour, +cloths, salted provisions, and all the necessaries of a plantation. The +revolutionary spirit of Prance was hailed by them, because it seemed to +give an opportunity to establish a government without a custom of Paris, +to check enfranchisements and crush out the dangerous familiarity of the +mulatto, to block with sugar-hogsheads the formidable movements in +France and England against the slave-trade. These men sometimes spoke as +republicans from their desire to act as despots; they succeeded in +getting their delegates admitted to seats in the National Assembly to +mix their intrigues with the current of events. Their "<i>Club Massiac</i>" +in Paris, so named from the proprietor at whose residence its meetings +were held, was composed of wealthy, adroit, and unscrupulous men, who +often showed what a subtle style of diplomacy a single interest will +create. It must be hard for bugs of a cosmopolitan mind to circumvent +the <i>formica leo</i>, whose sole object in lying still at the bottom of its +slippery tunnel is to catch its daily meal.</p> + +<p>If this great party of slave-owners had preserved unity upon all the +questions which the Revolution excited, their descendants might to-day +be the most troublesome enemies of our blockade. But history will not +admit an If. The unity which is natural to the slaveholding American was +impossible in San Domingo, owing to the existence of the mulattoes and +the little whites.</p> + +<p>A few intelligent proprietors had foreseen, many years previous to the +Revolution, that the continuance of their privileges depended upon the +good-will of the mulattoes and the restriction of enfranchisement. The +class of mixed blood was becoming large and formidable: of mulattoes and +free negroes there were nearly forty thousand. They were nominally free, +and had all the rights of property. A number of them were wealthy owners +of slaves. But they still bore upon their brows the shadow cast by +servitude, from which many of the mixed blood had not yet emerged. The +whites of all classes despised these men who reminded them of the color +and condition of their mothers. If a mulatto struck or insulted a white +man, he was subjected to severe penalties; no offices were open to him, +no doors of society, no career except that of trade or agriculture. This +was not well endured by a class which had inherited the fire and vanity +of their French fathers, with intellectual qualities that caught +passion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> and mobility from the drops of negro blood. Great numbers of +them had been carefully educated in France, whither they sent their own +children, if they could afford it, to catch the port and habits of free +citizens. They were very proud, high-strung, and restless, sombre in the +presence of contempt, lowering with some expectation. Frequent attempts +had been made by them to extend the area of their rights, but they met +with nothing but arrogant repulse. The guilty problem of the island was +not destined to be relieved or modified by common sense. The planters +should have lifted this social and political ostracism from the mulatto, +who loved to make money and to own slaves, and whose passion for livid +mistresses was as great as any Frenchman's. They were the natural allies +of the proprietors, and should have been erected into an intermediate +class, bound to the whites by intelligence and selfish interest, and +drawn upon the mother's side to soften the condition of the slave. This +policy was often pressed by French writers, and discussed with every +essential detail; but the descendants of the buccaneers were bent upon +playing out the island's tragedy.</p> + +<p>The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery +disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a +splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause, +one of their number, Vincent Ogé, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's, +and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in +emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the +miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it +occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it +constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in +consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These +distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in +their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly, +to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate +amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition +in fifteen years."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations, +but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe +of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar +of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims +were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of +the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of +these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the +subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to +become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among +them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of +color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Ogé exclaimed, "If +we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that +thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our +former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there +was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of +their grievances could subdue,—and that, if the planters should +persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire +would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be +extinguished."—This was the position of the Mulatto party.</p> + +<p>The third class, of Little Whites, comprised the mechanics and artisans +of every description, but also included all whites whose number of +slaves did not exceed twenty-four. This party likewise hailed the +Revolution, because it hated the pride and privileges of the great +proprietors. But it also hated the mulattoes so much that the obvious +policy of making common cause with them never seemed to be suggested to +it. Among the Little Whites were a goodly number of debtors, who hoped +by separation from the mother-country to cancel the burdens incurred for +slaves and plantation-necessaries;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> but the majority did not favor +colonial independence. Thus the name of Liberty was invoked by hostile +cliques for selfish objects, and the whole colony trembled with the +passion of its own elements. Beneath it all lay stretched the huge +Enceladus, unconscious of the power which by a single movement might +have forestalled eruption by ruin. But he gave no sign.</p> + +<p>Several mulattoes had been already hung for various acts of sympathy +with their class, when Ogé appeared upon the scene at the head of a +handful of armed slaves and mulattoes, and attacked the National Guard +of Cap Français. He was routed, after bravely fighting with partial +success, fled into the Spanish quarter, whence he was reclaimed in the +name of the king, and surrendered by the governor. Thirteen of his +followers were condemned to the galleys, twenty-two were hung, and Ogé +with his friend Chavannes was broken upon the wheel. A distinction of +color was made at the moment of their death: the scaffold upon which +they suffered was not allowed to be erected upon the same spot devoted +to the execution of whites.</p> + +<p>Now the National Guard in all the chief towns was divided into adherents +of the mother-country and sympathizers with colonial independence. In a +bloody street-fight which took place at Port-au-Prince, the latter were +defeated. Then both factions sought to gain a momentary preponderance by +allying themselves with the mulattoes: the latter joined the +metropolitan party, which in this moment of extremity still thought of +color, and served out to the volunteers <i>yellow pom-pons</i>, instead of +the white ones which distinguished themselves. The mulattoes instantly +broke up their ranks, and preserved neutrality.</p> + +<p>It would be tedious to relate the disturbances, popular executions, and +ferocious acts which took place in every quarter of the island. Murder +was inaugurated by the colonists themselves: the provincial faction +avenged their previous defeat, and were temporarily masters of the +colony. On the 15th of May, 1791, the National Assembly had passed a +decree, admitting, by a precise designation, all enfranchised of all +colors who were born of free parents to the right of suffrage. When this +reached the island, the whites were violently agitated, and many +outrages were committed against the people of color. The decree was +formally rejected, the mulattoes again flew to arms, and began to put +themselves into a condition to demand the rights which had been solemnly +conceded to them. In that decree not a word is said of the slaves: the +<i>Amis des Noirs</i>, and the debates of the National Assembly, stretched +out no hand towards that inarticulate and suffering mass. The colonists +themselves had been for months shaking a scarlet rag, as if they +deliberately meant to excite the first blind plunge of the brute from +its harness.</p> + +<p>The mulattoes now brought their slaves into headquarters at +Croix-des-Bouquets, and armed them. The whites followed this example, +and began to drill a body of slaves in Port-au-Prince. Amid this +passionate preoccupation of all minds, the ordinary discipline of the +plantations was relaxed, the labor languished, the negroes were ill-fed +and began to escape to the <i>mornes</i>, the subtle earth-currents carried +vague disquiet into the most solitary quarters. Then the negroes began +to assemble at midnight to subject themselves to the frenzy of their +priestesses, and to conduct the serpent-orgies. But it is not likely +that the extensive revolt in the Plaine du Cap would have taken place, +if an English negro, called Buckman, had not appeared upon the scene, to +give a direction to all these restless hearts, and to pour his own clear +indignation into them. No one can satisfactorily explain where he came +from. One writer will prove to you that he was an emissary of the +planting interest in Jamaica, which was willing to set the fatal example +of insurrection for the sake of destroying a rival colony. Another pen +is equally fertile with assurances that he was bought with the gold of +Pitt to be a political instrument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span> of perfidious Albion. It is shown to +be more probable that he was the agent of the Spanish governor, whose +object was to effect a diversion in the interest of royalism. According +to another statement, he belonged to the Cudjoe band of Jamaica maroons, +which had forced a declaration of its independence from the governor of +that island. Buckman was acquainted with Creole French, and was in full +sympathy with the superstitious rites of his countrymen in San Domingo. +Putting aside the conjectures of the times, one thing is certain beyond +a doubt, that he was born of the moment, and sprang from the festering +history which white neglect and criminality had spread, as naturally as +the poisoned sting flutters from the swamps of summer. And he filled the +night of vengeance, which was accorded to him by laws that cannot be +repealed without making the whole life of the planet one sustained +expression of the wrath of God.</p> + +<p>A furious storm raged during the night of August 22: the blackness was +rent by the lightning that is known only to the hurricane-regions of the +earth. The negroes gathered upon the Morne Rouge, sacrificed a black +heifer with frantic dances which the elements seemed to electrify, +thunder emphasized the declaration of the priestess that the entrails +were satisfactory, and the quarters were thrown into a huge brazier to +be burned. At that moment a bird fell from the overhanging branch of a +tree directly into the cooking spell, and terrible shouts of +encouragement hailed the omen. Is it an old Pelasgic or a Thracian +forest grown mænadic over some forgotten vengeance of the early days? It +is the unalterable human nature, masked in the deeper colors of more +fervid skies, gathering a mighty breath into its lacerated bosom for a +rending of outrage and a lion's leap in the dark against its foe.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" cried Buckman. "The good God conceals himself in a cloud, He +mutters in the tempest. By the whites He commands crime, by us He +commands benefits. But God, who is good, ordains for us vengeance. Tear +down the figure of the white man's God which brings the tears to your +eyes. Hear! It is Liberty! It speaks to the hearts of us all."</p> + +<p>The morning broke clear, but the tempest had dropped from the skies to +earth. The costly habitations, whose cornerstones were dungeons, in +whose courts the gay guests of the planter used to season their dessert +with the punishments he had saved up for them, were carried off by +exulting flames. The great fields of cane, which pumped the earth's sap +and the negro's blood up for the slaveholder's caldron, went crackling +away with the houses which they furnished. Rich garments, dainty +upholstery, and the last fashions of Paris went parading on the negroes' +backs, and hid the marks of the floggings which earned them. The dead +women and children lay in the thickets where they had vainly implored +mercy. There are long careers of guiltiness whose devilish nature +becomes apparent only when innocence suffers with it. Then the cry of a +babe upon a negro's pike is the voice of God's judgment against a +century.</p> + +<p>Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from +the roofs of Cap Français broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and +murdered all they could find,—the paralytic old man in his bed, the +daughters in the same room, the men in the street,—murdered and +ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion +and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action +of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of +caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety +sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the +weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through +which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive +which heart was black and which was white.</p> + +<p>If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a +lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span> let them find +it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to +the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God +perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or +not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools +and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the +text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us +to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white +man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if +God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and +waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His +choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the +black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God. +In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the +story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream.</p> + + +<h4>NEGRO SOLDIERS.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +</h4> +<p>The native tribes of Africa differ as much in combative propensity and +ability for warlike enterprises as in their other traits. The people of +Wadai are distinguished for bravery above all their neighbors. The men +of Ashantee are great fighters, and have such a contempt for death that +they will continue their attacks upon a European intrenchment in spite +of appalling losses. A band that is overpowered will fight to the last +man; for it is the custom of the kingdom to punish cowardice with death. +They are almost the only negroes who will deliver battle in the open +field, in regular bodies with closed ranks. In Dahomey war is a passion +of the ruler and the people, and the year is divided between fighting +and feasting. The king's body-guard of five thousand unmarried women +preserves the tradition of bravery, as European regiments preserve their +flags. The mild Mandingos become obstinate in fight; they have minstrels +who accompany armies to war, and recite the deeds of former heroes; but +they are not capable of discipline. On the contrary, the negroes of +Fernando Po march and exercise with a great regard to order. In Ashantee +and upon the Gold Coast the negroes make use of horn signals in war to +transmit orders to a distance; and on the White Nile and in Kaffa +drummers are stationed in trees to telegraph commands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span> Great +circumspection is not universal; but the Veis maintain posts, and when +they are threatened, a watch is kept night and day. The negroes of Akkra +know the value of a ditched intrenchment.</p> + +<p>The English praise the negro soldiers whom they have in Sierra Leone for +good behavior, temperance, and discipline; and their Jolofs at the +Gambia execute complicated manœuvres in a striking way. West-Indian +troops have performed many distinguished services, and English officers +say that they are as brave as Europeans; but in the heat of a fight they +are apt to grow intractable and to behave wildly. The troops which +Napoleon used in Calabria, drawn from the French Colonies, emulated the +French soldiers, and arrived at great distinction.</p> + +<p>D'Escayrac says that the native negro has eminent qualities for the +making of a good soldier,—dependence upon a superior, unquestioning +confidence in his sagacity, an enthusiastic courage which mounts to +great audacity, passiveness, and capacity for waiting.</p> + +<p>From this the Congos must be excepted. Large numbers of them deserted +General Dessalines in San Domingo, and fled to the mountains, frightened +at the daring of the French. Here, if brave, they might have been armed +and officered by Spaniards to effect dangerous movements in his rear. +But he knew their timidity, and gave himself no trouble about them. +There is a genealogy which derives Toussaint from a Congo grandfather, a +native prince of renown; but it was probably manufactured for him at the +suggestion of his own achievements. The sullen-looking Congo is really +gay, rollicking, disposed to idleness, careless and sensual, fatigued by +the smallest act of reflection; Toussaint was grave, reticent, +forecasting, tenacious, secretive, full of endurance and concentration, +rapid and brave in war.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> What a confident and noble aspect he had, +when he left his guard and walked alone to the head of a column of old +troops of his who had deserted to Desfourneaux, and were about to +deliver their fire! "My children, will you fire upon your father?"—and +down went four regiments upon their knees. The white officers tried to +bring them under the fire of cannon, but it was too late. Here was a +greater risk than Napoleon ran, after landing at Fréjus, on his march +upon Paris.</p> + +<p>Contempt for death is a universal trait of the native African.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The +slaveholder says it is in consequence of his affinity to the brute, +which does not know how to estimate a danger, and whose nervous +organization is too dull to be thrilled and daunted in its presence. It +is really in consequence of his single-mindedness: the big necks lift +the blood, which is two degrees warmer than a white man's, and drench +the brain with an ecstasy of daring. If he can clearly see the probable +manner of his death, the blood is up and not down at the sight.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The +negro's nerves are very susceptible; in cool blood he is easily alarmed +at anything unexpected or threatening. His fancy is peopled with odd +fears; he shrinks at the prospect of a punishment more grotesque or +refined than usual. And when he becomes a Creole negro, his fancy is +always shooting timid glances beneath the yoke of Slavery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span> The negroes +and mulattoes at San Domingo looked impassively at hanging, breaking +upon the wheel, and quartering; but when the first guillotine was +imported and set in action, they and the Creole whites shrank appalled +to see the head disappear in the basket. It was too deft and sudden for +their taste, and this mode of execution was abandoned for the more +hearty and lacerating methods.</p> + +<p>When a negro has a motive, his nerves grow firm, his imagination escapes +before the rising passion, his contempt for death is not stolidity, but +inspiration. In the smouldering surface lies an ember capable of white +heat. That makes the negro soldier difficult to hold in hand or to call +off. He has no fancy for grim sitting, like the Indian, to die by +inches, though he can endure torture with tranquillity. He is too +tropical for that; and after the exultation of a fight, in which he has +been as savage as he can be, the process of torturing his foes seems +tame, and he seldom does it, except by way of close reprisals to prevent +the practice in his enemy. The French were invariably more cruel than +the negroes.</p> + +<p>Southern gentlemen think that the negro is incurably afraid of +fire-arms, and too clumsy to use them with effect. It is a great +mistake. White men who never touched a gun are equally clumsy and +nervous. When the slavers began to furnish the native tribes with +condemned muskets in exchange for slaves, many ludicrous scenes +occurred. The Senegambians considered that the object was to get as much +noise as possible out of the weapon. The people of Akkra planted the +stock against their hips, shut both eyes and fired; they would not take +aim, because it was their opinion that it brought certain death to see a +falling enemy. Other tribes thought a musket was possessed, and at the +moment of firing threw it violently away from them. When we consider the +quality of the weapons furnished, this action will appear laudable. But +as these superstitions disappeared, especially upon the Gold Coast and +in Ashantee, negroes have learned to use the musket properly. Among the +Gold-Coast negroes are good smiths, who have sometimes even made guns. +In the West Indies, the Creole negro has become a sharp-shooter, very +formidable on the skirts of woods and in the defiles of the <i>mornes</i>. He +learned to deliver volleys with precision, and to use the bayonet with +great valor. The old soldiers of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, veterans of +the Rhine and Italy, were never known to presume upon negro incapacity +to use a musket. The number of their dead and wounded taught them what +men who are determined to be free can do with the white man's weapons.</p> + +<p>Rainsford, who was an English captain of a West-Indian regiment, +describes a review of fifty thousand soldiers of Toussaint on the Plaine +du Cap. "Of the grandeur of the scene I had not the smallest conception. +Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual +exercise with a degree of expertness seldom witnessed, and performed +equally well several manœuvres applicable to their method of +fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, +then, separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their +backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire the whole of the time, till +they were recalled; they then formed again, in an instant, into their +wonted regularity. This single manœuvre was executed with such +facility and precision as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them +in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such +promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have +astonished any European soldier."</p> + +<p>These were the men whose previous lives had been spent at the +hoe-handle, and in feeding canes to the cylinders of the sugar-mill.</p> + +<p>Rainsford gives this general view of the operations of Toussaint's +forces:—"Though formed into regular divisions, the soldiers of the one +were trained to the duties of the other, and all understood the +management of artillery with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_781" id="Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span> the greatest accuracy. Their chief +dexterity, however, was in the use of the bayonet. With that dreadful +weapon fixed on muskets of extraordinary length in their hands, neither +cavalry nor artillery could subdue infantry, although of unequal +proportion; but when they were attacked in their defiles, no power could +overcome them. Infinitely more skillful than the Maroons of Jamaica in +their cock-pits, though not more favored by Nature, they found means to +place whole lines in ambush, continuing sometimes from one post to +another, and sometimes stretching from their camps in the form of a +horse-shoe. With these lines artillery was not used, to prevent their +being burdened or the chance of loss; but the surrounding heights of +every camp were well fortified, according to the experience and judgment +of different European engineers, with ordnance of the best kind, in +proper directions. The protection afforded by these outworks encouraged +the blacks to every exertion of skill or courage; while the alertness +constantly displayed embarrassed the enemy; who, frequently irritated, +or worn out with fatigue, flew in disorder to the attack, or retreated +with difficulty. Sometimes a regular battle or skirmish ensued, to +seduce the enemy to a confidence in their own superiority, when in a +moment reinforcements arose from an ambush in the vicinity, and turned +the fortune of the day. If black troops in the pay of the enemy were +despatched to reconnoitre when an ambush was probable, and were +discovered, not a man returned, from the hatred which their perfidy had +inspired; nor could an officer venture beyond the lines with impunity."</p> + +<p>The temporary successes enjoyed by the French General Le Clerc, which +led to the surrender of Toussaint and his subsequent deportation to +France, were owing to the defection of several black officers in command +of important posts, who delivered up all their troops and munitions to +the enemy. The whole of Toussaint's first line, protecting the +Artibonite and the mountains, was thus unexpectedly forced by the +French, who plied the blacks with suave proclamations, depreciating the +idea of a return to slavery. Money and promises of personal promotion +were also freely used. The negro is vain and very fond of pomp. This is +his weakest point. The Creole negro loved to make great expenditures, +and to imitate the lavish style of the slaveholders. So did many of the +mulattoes. Toussaint's officers were not all black, and the men of color +proved accessible to French cajolery.</p> + +<p>Take a single case to show how this change of sentiment was produced +without bribery. When the French expedition under Le Clere arrived, the +mulatto General Maurepas commanded at Port-de-Paix. He had not yet +learned whether Toussaint intended to rely upon the proclamation of +Bonaparte and to deliver up the military posts. General Humbert was sent +against him with a strong column, and demanded the surrender of the +fort. Said Maurapas,—"I am under the orders of Toussaint, who is my +chief; I cannot deliver the forts to you without his orders. Wait till I +receive his instructions; it will be only a matter of four-and-twenty +hours." Humbert, who knew that Toussaint was in full revolt, +replied,—"I have orders to attack."</p> + +<p>"Very well. I cannot surrender without an order from General Toussaint. +If you attack me, I shall be obliged to defend myself."</p> + +<p>"I also have my orders; I am forced to obey them."</p> + +<p>Maurepas retired, and took his station alone upon a rampart of the +works. Humbert's troops, numbering four thousand, opened fire. Maurepas +remains awhile in the storm of bullets to reconnoitre, then coolly +descends and opens his own fire. He had but seven hundred blacks and +sixty whites. The French attacked four times and were four times +repulsed, with the loss of fifteen hundred men. Humbert was obliged to +retreat, before the reinforcement which had been despatched under +General Debelle could reach him. Maurepas's orders were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span> to attack, +but to defend. So he instantly hastened to another post, which +intercepted the route by which General Debelle was coming, met him, and +fought him there, repulsed him, and took seven cannon.</p> + +<p>This was not an encouraging commencement for these children of the +French Revolution, who had beaten Suwarrow in Switzerland and blasted +the Mameluke cavalry with rolling fire, who had debouched from the St. +Bernard upon the plains of Piedmont in time to gather Austrian flags at +Marengo, and who added the name of Hohenlinden to the glory of Moreau. +Humbert himself, at the head of four thousand grenadiers, had restored +the day which preceded the surrender of the Russians at Zürich.</p> + +<p>Le Clerc was obliged to say that the First Consul never had the +intention of restoring slavery. Humbert himself carried this +proclamation to Maurepas, and with it gained admittance to the +intrenchments which he could not storm. This single defection placed +four thousand admirable troops, and the harbor of Port-de-Paix, in the +hands of the French, and exposed Toussaint's flank at Gonaïves; and its +moral effect was so great upon the blacks as to encourage Le Clerc to +persist in his enterprise.</p> + +<p>In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of +Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with +the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen +demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand +infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the +military department was in perfect order. There was an État-Major, +consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of +guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,—ten brigadier-generals +with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,—and a board of +health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six +surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also +thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 +francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; +officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and +private was 55 centimes per day.</p> + +<p>In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred +whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in +the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of +the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan.</p> + +<p>The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the +obstinate defence of Crête-à-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black +troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by +the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and +strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important +river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the +interior through the <i>mornes</i>, which are not many miles from the sea, +passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal +defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the +river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The +Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand +men accustomed to that kind of food.</p> + +<p>When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he +transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to +concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, +and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple +breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen +feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence +which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks +forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the +surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a +most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span> harass the +investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the +south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between +the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the +north,—a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French +columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many +different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The +first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn +up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one +or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The +French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged +with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. +Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the +French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. +General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were +stretched upon the field.</p> + +<p>The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that +opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had +to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced +and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "<i>En avant! Canons à +nous</i>," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the +supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the +redoubt was entered by the French.</p> + +<p>Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the +columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. +Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to +enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the +rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. +Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was +already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, +threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums +beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to +bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the +columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty +men, and two or three hundred to the latter.</p> + +<p>Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots +with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness.</p> + +<p>It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be +invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with +all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a +column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a +quarteroon named Lamartinière.</p> + +<p>While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of +the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their +lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The +soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which +carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" +they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the +soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments of <i>la +politique</i>?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and +adorers of Moreau had become <i>de trop</i> in the Old World, and had been +sent to leave their bones in the defiles of <i>Pensez-y-bien</i>.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>The investment of Crête-à-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an +engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were +established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got +into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little +redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the +fort of Bard, which held in check these very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg 784]</a></span> officers and men upon +their road to Marengo.</p> + +<p>Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, +and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten +feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the +Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three +hundred men, and gained nothing.</p> + +<p>"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there +were hardly twelve hundred men,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> had already cost us more than +fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we +should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained +cannonade."</p> + +<p>The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. +Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, +was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The +enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the +tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into +the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his +who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes +the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a +grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes +simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The +soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then +comes the cry, "<i>Gare à la bombe!</i>" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden +balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers +come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the +excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted +effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers +make their wills with <i>sang froid</i>, as if expecting a tranquil +administration of their estates.</p> + +<p>During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, +and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the +blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the +French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their +fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt +with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great +that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. +Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the +ditch, and escapes under a volley.</p> + +<p>The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises +Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from +the north, while Lamartinière issues from the redoubt. During +Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of +Rochambeau's division.</p> + +<p>General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the +commandant of Crête-à-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a +remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more +than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his +garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of +Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a +magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great +calibre."</p> + +<p>Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, +attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Français, ravaged +the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep +open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if +fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the +harbor.</p> + +<p>After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of +the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into +the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he +kept the best troops of France besieged. "<i>Ah! ce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg 785]</a></span> gaillard</i>," the +French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the +blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, +after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven +thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803.</p> + +<p>One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an +intrenchment, called Verdière, occupied by the French, upon a hill +overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with +three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, +"horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: +the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of +the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a +fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand +deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with +anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A +ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, +he runs to the head of the troops. '<i>En avant! En avant!</i>' he repeats, +with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from +his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the +assault. '<i>En avant! En avant!</i>'</p> + +<p>"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: '<i>Bravo! +bravo! vivat! vivat!</i>' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching +the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdière pauses, an +officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised +blacks, and saluting, says,—'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the +French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just +covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he +turned his horse, reëntered the city, and the assault is renewed. +Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the +besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines +sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned +horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as +a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had +been killed."</p> + +<p>The valor and fighting qualities of the blacks in San Domingo were +nourished by the wars which sprang from their own necessities. They were +the native growths of the soil which had been long enriched by their +innocent blood; more blood must be invested in it, if they would own it. +Learning to fight was equivalent to learning to live. Their cause was +neither represented nor championed by a single power on earth, and +nothing but the hope of making enormous profits out of their despair led +Anglo-American schooners to run English and French blockades, to land +arms and powder in the little coves of the island. Will the negro fight +as well, if the motive and the exigency are inferior?</p> + +<p>We make a present to the Southern negro of an excellent chance for +fighting, with our compliments. Some of us do it with our curses. The +war does not spring for them out of enthusiasm and despair which seize +their hearts at once, as they view a degradation from which they flee +and a liberty to which they are all hurrying. They are asked to fight +for us as well as for themselves, and this asking is, like emancipation, +a military necessity. The motive lacks the perfect form and +incandescence, like that of a star leaping from a molten sun, which +lighted battle-ardors in the poor slaves of San Domingo. And we even +hedge about this invitation to bleed for us with conditions which are +evidently dictated by a suspicion that the motive is not great enough to +make the negro depend upon himself. If the war does not entirely sweep +away these poor beginnings and thrust white and black together into the +arms of thrilling danger, we need not expect great fighting from him. He +may not disgrace himself, but he will not ennoble the republic till his +heart's core is the war's core, and the colors of two races run into +one.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<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> See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this +magazine.</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> <i>La Cause des Esclaves Nègres et des Habitans de la +Guinée, portée au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la +Politique</i>: I. 335; II. 66.</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> <i>Gros peau</i>, thick skin, was the French equivalent to +<i>Bozal</i>: <i>peau fin</i> was the Creole negro.</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> Clarkson's <i>History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade</i>, +Vol. II. p. 134.</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> <i>Anthropologie der Naturvölker</i>, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. +Zweiter Theil: die Negervölker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very +full, minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the +manners and habits of native Africans. +</p><p> +<i>Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Dominique.</i> +Par le Lieutenant-Général Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally +very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier. +</p><p> +<i>Le Système Colonial dévoilé.</i> Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible +account of the plantation cruelties. +</p><p> +<i>Mémoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti.</i> Par l'Adjutant-Général +Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from +Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a +mulatto. +</p><p> +<i>Des Colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Mémoire +Historique et Politique.</i> Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la +Légion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man. +</p><p> +<i>L. F. Sonthonax à Bourdon de l'Oise.</i> Pamphlet. The vindication of +Sonthonax for declaring emancipation. +</p><p> +<i>Colonies Étrangères et Haïti.</i> Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, +but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto. +</p><p> +<i>Histoire des Désastres de Saint-Domingue.</i> Paris, 1795. Journalistic, +with the coloring of the day. +</p><p> +<i>Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue, et Réfutation des Reproches +faits au Capitaine-Général Rochambeau.</i> Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, +Propriétaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself. +</p><p> +<i>Voyages d'un Naturaliste.</i> 3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but +filled with curious information. +</p><p> +<i>Expédition à St. Domingue.</i> Par A. Metral. Useful. +</p><p> +<i>The Empire of Hayti.</i> By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian +Regiment. Occasionally valuable.</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> The independent Congos in the interior are more active and +courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have +been subjected by the Portuguese.</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> When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, +upon the advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine +with a lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he +remained all night; but when the English came later than was expected, +his match had burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or +devotion to one?</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> Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French +artillery service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince +held the whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named +Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed +upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were +bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead +comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. +This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks +lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force +into the city.</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> <i>Think twice before you try me</i>: the name of a <i>morne</i> of +extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the +French columns.</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> Negro authorities say 750.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg 786]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Sunshine in Thought.</i> By <span class="smcap">Charles Godfrey Leland</span>, Author of +"Meister Karl's Sketch-Book," and Translator of "Heine's +Pictures of Travel." New York: Charles T. Evans. 16mo.</p></div> + +<p>We do not exactly know how to characterize this jubilant volume. The +author, not content to denounce generally the poets of sentimentality +and the prophets of despair, has evidently a science of Joy latent in +his mind, of which his rich, discursive, and somewhat rollicking +sentences give but an imperfect exposition. He is in search of an ideal +law of Cheerfulness, which neither history nor literature fully +illustrates, but which he still seeks with an undoubting faith. Every +transient glimpse of his law he eagerly seizes, whether indicated in +events or in persons. And it must be admitted that he is not ignorant +either of the great annalists or the great writers of the world. He +knows Herodotus as well as he knows Hume, Thucydides as intimately as +Gibbon. Xenophon and Plutarch are as familiar to him as Michelet, +Thiers, and Guizot. He has studied Aristænetus and Lucian as closely as +Horace Walpole and Thackeray,—is as ready to quote from Plato as from +Rabelais,—and throws the results of his wide study, with an occasional +riotous disregard of prim literary proprieties, into a fierce defiance +of everything which makes against his favorite theory, that there is +nothing in pure theology, sound ethics, and healthy literature, nothing +in the historic records of human life, which can justify the discontent +of the sentimentalist or the scorn of the misanthrope.</p> + +<p>Engaged thus in an almost Quixotic assault on the palpable miseries of +human existence,—miseries which are as much acknowledged by Homer as by +Euripides, by Ariosto as by Dante, by Shakspeare as by Milton, by Goethe +as by Lamartine,—he has a difficult work to perform. Still he does not +bate a jot of heart and hope. He discriminates, with the art of a true +critic, between objective representations of human life and subjective +protests against human limitations, errors, miseries, and sins. As far +as either representation embodies the human principle of Joy,—whether +Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, Christian or Pagan,—he is content +with the evidence. The moment a writer of either school insinuates a +principle or sentiment of Despair, whether he be a dramatist or a +sentimentalist, the author enters his earnest protest. Classical and +Romantic poets, romancers and historians, when they slip into +misery-mongers, are equally the objects of his denunciations. Keats and +Tennyson fare nearly as ill as Byron and Heine. Mr. Leland feels assured +that the human race is entitled to joy, and there is something almost +comical in his passionate assault on the morbid genius of the world. He +seems to say, "Why do you not accept the conditions of happiness? The +conditions are simple, and nothing but your pestilent wilfulness +prevents your compliance with them."</p> + +<p>This "pestilent wilfulness" is really the key to the whole position. All +objective as well as subjective writers have been impotent to provide +the way by which the seeker after perfect and permanent content can +attain and embody it. It has been sought through wit, humor, fancy, +imagination, reason; but it has been sought in vain. Our author, who, +after nearly exhausting all the concrete representatives of the +philosophy of Joy, admits that nobody embodies his ideal of happiness, +surrenders his ideal, as far as it has been practically expressed in +life or thought. Rabelais dissatisfies him; Scarron dissatisfies him; +Molière, Swift, Sterne, not to mention others, dissatisfy him. Every +ally he brings forward to sustain his position is reduced by analysis +into a partial enemy of his creed. But while we cannot concur in Mr. +Leland's theory in his exclusive statement of it, and confess to a +strong liking for many writers whom he considers effeminate, we +cordially agree with him in his plea for "Sunshine in Thought," and +sympathize in his vigorous and valorous assault on the morbid elements +of our modern literature. We think that poets should be as cheerful as +possible; whereas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg 787]</a></span> some of them seem to think it is their duty to be as +fretful as possible, and to make misery an invariable accompaniment of +genius. The primary object of all good literature is to invigorate and +to cheer, not to weaken and depress; it should communicate mental and +moral life, as well as convey sentiments and ideas,—should brace and +strengthen the mind, as well as fill it; and when it whimpers and wails, +when it teaches despair as philosophy, especially when it uses the +enchantments of imagination to weaken the active powers, its effect is +mischievous. Woe, considered as a luxury, is the most expensive of all +luxuries; and there is danger to the mental and moral health even in the +pensive sadness which, to some readers, sheds such a charm over the +meditations of that kind of genius which is rather thoughtful than full +of thought. For the melodious miseries which mediocrity mimics, for the +wretchedness which some fifth-rate rhymers assume in order to make +themselves interesting, there can, of course, be no toleration. Mr. +Leland pounds them as with the hammer of Thor, and would certainly beat +out their brains, had not Nature fortunately neglected to put such +perilous matter into craniums exposed to such ponderous blows.</p> + +<p>Apart from the general theory and purpose of the book, there is a great +deal of talent and learning exhibited in the illustrations of the +subject. The remarks on Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, and +Heine,—half analysis, half picture,—are very striking; and there are, +throughout the volume, continual flashes of suggestive thought and vivid +portraiture, which both delight and detain the reader. The style is that +of animated conversation,—the conversation of a man whose veins are as +full of blood as his mind is of ideas, who is hilarious from abounding +health, and whose occasional boisterousness of manner proceeds from the +robustness of his make and the cheer of his soul. The whole volume tends +to create in thought that "sunshine" which it so joyously recommends and +celebrates. The reader is warmed by the ardor and earnestness with which +propositions he may distrust are urged upon his attention, and closes +the volume with that feeling of pleased excitement which always comes +from contact with a fresh and original mind.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Gentleman.</i> By <span class="smcap">George H. Calvert</span>. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields.</p></div> + +<p>Paradoxical as it may appear, we believe there never was a time when the +true and pure standard of gentlemanhood could be more impressively +raised and upheld in this republic than now. The vast and keen civil +conflict which so deeply agitates our political life has laid bare the +groundwork and brought to the surface the latent elements of our social +life, so that a new, an obvious, and a searching test is instinctively +applied to character; as in all times of profound moral excitement, +<i>shams</i> grow fantastic and contemptible, and <i>principles</i> of action and +being rise to superlative worth. The question, What constitutes the +Gentleman? suggested at first by the preposterous and exclusive claims +thereto arrogantly put forth by a little community, in justification of +profane and destructive violence to a nation's welfare, has come to be +regarded as embracing all the obligations, responsibilities, and +humanities that make up and certify Christian manhood and genuine +patriotism; the wide and deep significance of a word too often +confounded with mere manners is thus practically found to indicate the +most vital elements of personal worth and social well-being. +Accordingly, a comprehensive, philosophical definition and illustration +of the Gentleman, in the ideal grace and greatness and in the real +authority and use of that so much misunderstood and seldom achieved +character, is doubly welcome at this hour, the strife and discussion +whereof bring out in such strong relief the true <i>animus</i> and equipment +of statesmen, soldiers, citizens, men and women, and force us to realize +the poverty of soul, the inherent baseness, or the magnanimity and +rectitude of our fellow-creatures, with a vividness never before +experienced. How indispensable to the welfare of the State is a society +based on higher motives than those of material ambition, and how +impossible is the existence of such a society, except through individual +probity and disinterestedness, is a lesson written in blood and tears +before our eyes to-day; and thrice welcome, we repeat, is the clear and +emphatic exposition of the Gentleman, as an incarnation of the justice, +love, and honor, whereon, in the last analysis, rest the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]</a></span> hopes and +welfare of the nation. No ethical or æsthetical treatise could be more +seasonable than this of Mr. Calvert's. We regard it as the best +lay-sermon thus far evoked by the moral exigencies of the hour; however +appropriate it may also be and is to any and all times and readers of +taste and thought, a superficial, merely dilettante essay on such a +subject and at such a time would repel instead of alluring.</p> + +<p>The charming little volume before us, while made genially attractive by +occasional playfulness and anecdote, is yet pervaded by an earnestness +born of strong conviction and deep sympathies. It analyzes the springs +of character, traces conduct to its elemental source, and follows it to +its ultimate influence. To a concise style it unites an expansive +spirit; with a tone of rich and high culture it blends the vivacity and +grace of the most genial colloquy. From the etymology of the word to the +humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent +discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in +society, in domestic life, and in literature,—and as he lives, a grand +and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. Beginning with +the meaning, origin, and use of the word Gentleman, Mr. Calvert gives a +critical analysis of its historical personation. As a chevalier type, in +such men as Sidney and Bayard. Its ethical and æsthetical meaning is +finely exemplified in the contrast between Charles Lamb and George IV., +Leicester and Hampden, Washington and Napoleon. The Gentleman in St. +Paul is well illustrated. The relation of this character to antiquity is +defined with a scholar's zest: whatever of its force and flavor is +discernible in Socrates and Brutus is gracefully indicated; the +deficiency of Homer's heroes, excepting Hector, therein, is ably +demonstrated. These and like illustrations of so prolific a theme +inevitably suggest episodes of argument, incidental, yet essential to +the main question; and the just and benign remarks on the Duel, the +Position of Women in Ancient and Modern Society, and the Influence of +Christianity upon Manners, are striking in their scope and style, and +breathe the lofty and tender spirit of that Faith which inculcates +<i>disinterestedness</i> as the latent and lasting inspiration of the +Gentleman. Perhaps the most delectable illustrations, which give both +form and beauty to this essay, are those drawn from modern literature: +they are choice specimens of criticism, and full of subtile +discrimination in tracing the relation of literature to life. We would +instance especially the chapters on Shakspeare's Gentleman; the +recognition of the Gentleman in Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and +Don Quixote; and the admirable distinction pointed out between the +characters of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There is no part of the +volume more worthy attention than the remarks of a "high-bred tone in +writing." The hollowness of Chesterfield's code is keenly exposed; Honor +and Vulgarity are freshly and ably defined; Fashion, Pride, and Vanity, +the conventional elements of the Gentleman, are treated with +philosophical justice; the favorite characters of fiction, and the most +renowned poets and heroes, beaux and braves, pass before us, and are +subjected to the test of that Christian ideal of the Gentleman so +clearly defined and firmly applied by the intrepid author; and many a +disguised coxcomb is stripped of his borrowed plumes, imperial +<i>parvenus</i> exposed as charlatans in manners as well as morals, and +heroic, but modest souls, of whom the world's court-calendar gives no +hint, stand forth exemplars of the highest, because the most soulful +breeding.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. +68, June, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 35226-h.htm or 35226-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/2/35226/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/35226-h/images/p671-illo1.jpg b/35226-h/images/p671-illo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..688d680 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p671-illo1.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p671-illo2.jpg b/35226-h/images/p671-illo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..06949c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p671-illo2.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p672-illo1.jpg b/35226-h/images/p672-illo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fad256 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p672-illo1.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p672-illo2.jpg b/35226-h/images/p672-illo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..06db781 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p672-illo2.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p672-illo3.jpg b/35226-h/images/p672-illo3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef5ab0b --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p672-illo3.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p673-illo1.jpg b/35226-h/images/p673-illo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..61935b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p673-illo1.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p673-illo2.jpg b/35226-h/images/p673-illo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9918fe3 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p673-illo2.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p674-illo1.jpg b/35226-h/images/p674-illo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..318390d --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p674-illo1.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p674-illo2.jpg b/35226-h/images/p674-illo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dd6f6c --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p674-illo2.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p749-illo.jpg b/35226-h/images/p749-illo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..656558c --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p749-illo.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p751-illo1.jpg b/35226-h/images/p751-illo1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a01b57 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p751-illo1.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p751-illo2.jpg b/35226-h/images/p751-illo2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f81e731 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p751-illo2.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p751-illo3.jpg b/35226-h/images/p751-illo3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..01bccf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p751-illo3.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p751-illo4.jpg b/35226-h/images/p751-illo4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5fa169 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p751-illo4.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p752-illo.jpg b/35226-h/images/p752-illo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3016782 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p752-illo.jpg diff --git a/35226-h/images/p753-illo.jpg b/35226-h/images/p753-illo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..674ac95 --- /dev/null +++ b/35226-h/images/p753-illo.jpg diff --git a/35226.txt b/35226.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7647d4c --- /dev/null +++ b/35226.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9247 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 68, +June, 1863, 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 11, No. 68, June, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: February 9, 2011 [EBook #35226] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XI.--JUNE, 1863.--NO. LXVIII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by TICHNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + + + +WEAK LUNGS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM STRONG. + + +The highest medical authorities of this century have expressed the +opinion that tubercular disease of the various tissues is justly +chargeable with one-third of the deaths among the youth and adults of +the civilized world. The seat of this tubercular disease is, in great +part, in the lungs. + +Before the taint is localized, it is comparatively easy to remove it. If +in regard to most other maladies it may be said that "an ounce of +prevention is worth a pound of cure," in reference to tubercular +consumption it may be truly declared that an ounce of prevention is +worth tons of cure. + +Had the talent and time which have been given to the treatment of +consumption been bestowed upon its causes and prevention, the percentage +of mortality from this dreaded disease would have been greatly reduced. + + +NATURE OF CONSUMPTION. + +Genuine consumption does not originate in a cold, an inflammation, or a +hemorrhage, but in tubercles. And these tubercles are only secondary +causes. The primary cause is a certain morbid condition of the organism, +known as the tubercular or scrofulous diathesis. This morbid condition +of the general system is sometimes hereditary, but much more frequently +the result of unphysiological habits. Those cases to which our own +errors give rise may be prevented, and a large proportion of those who +have inherited consumptive taint may by wise hygiene be saved. + +_Consumption is not a Local Disease._--It is thought to be a malady of +the lungs. This notion has led to most of the mistakes in its treatment. + +Salt rheum appears on the hand. Some ignorant physician says, "It is a +disease of the skin." An ointment is applied; the eruption disappears. +Soon, perchance, the same scrofulous taint appears in the lungs in the +form of tubercles. The doctor cannot get at it there with his ointment, +and resorts to inhalation. He is still determined to apply his drug to +the local manifestation. + +Salt rheum is not a disease of the skin. It is a disease of the system, +showing itself at the skin. Consumption is not a disease of the lungs. +It is a disease of the system, showing itself in the lungs. + +A ship's crew is seized with some fearful malady. They hang out a flag +of distress. Another ship passes near the infected vessel. Its captain +discovers the flag of distress. A boat's crew is sent to cut it down. +The captain turns to his passengers with the triumphant exclamation, "We +have saved them! All signs of distress have disappeared!" + +A human body is diseased in every part. A flag of distress is hung out +in the form of some malady at the surface. Some physician whose thinking +is on the surface of things applies an ointment, which compels the +malady to go back within the body again. Then he cries, "I have cured +him; see, it is all gone!" + +It may be said, that, when the disease attacks the lungs, it must be +driven from that vital organ at any sacrifice. I reply, if the drug +vapors which are inhaled could disperse the tuberculous deposit,--which +is impossible,--the tubercle could not be transferred to any other +internal organ where it would do less harm. No other internal organ can +bear tuberculous deposit or ulceration with less danger to life. + +In 1847, two brothers, bank-officers, afflicted with chronic +inflammation of the eyes, came under my care. I repeatedly prescribed +for them, but their eyes got no better. Indeed, they had little hope of +relief; for, during their years of suffering, many physicians had +treated them without avail. At length I told them there was no hope but +in absence from their business, and such recreation as would elevate the +general tone. A few months of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment in the +country sufficed to remove the redness and weakness from their eyes. As +I have argued, the disease was not one of the eyes, but of the entire +system, which had assumed a local expression. + +This dependence of particular upon general disease is a common idea with +the people. A young man begins business with a large capital. He falls +into dissipation. In ten years it exhausts his fortune. When at last we +see him begging for bread, we do not say this exhibition of his poverty +is his financial disease. His financial _constitution_ has been ruined. +The begging is only an unpleasant exhibition of that ruin. During this +course of dissipation, the young man, in addition to the exhaustion of +his fortune, ruins his health. His lungs fall into consumption. Some +doctor may tell you it is disease of the lungs. But it is no more +disease of the lungs than was begging the man's financial malady. In +either case, the apparent disease is only an exhibition of the +constitutional malady. + +In brief, a local disease is an impossibility. Every disease must be +systemic before it can assume any local expression. Or, in other words, +every local pathological manifestation is an expression of systemic +pathological conditions. + +Now what is the practical value of this argument? I reply: So long as +people believe bronchitis to be a disease of the throat, or consumption +a disease of the lungs, so long will they labor under the hallucination +that a cure is to be found in applications to these parts. But when they +are convinced that these diseases are local expressions of morbid +conditions pervading the whole organism, then whatever will invigorate +their general health, as Nature's hygienic agents, will receive their +constant and earnest attention. + + +CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION. + +Sir James Clarke says,--"It may be fairly questioned whether the +proportion of cures of confirmed consumption is greater at the present +day than in the time of Hippocrates: and although the public may +continue to be the dupes of boasting charlatans, I am persuaded that no +essential progress has been made or _can be made_ in the cure of +consumption, until the disease has been treated upon different +principles from what it hitherto has been. If the labor and ingenuity +which have been misapplied in fruitless efforts to cure an irremediable +condition of the lungs had been rightly directed to the investigation of +the causes and nature of tuberculous disease, the subject of our inquiry +would have been regarded in a very different light from that in which it +is at the present period." + +While I shall not attempt a discussion of all the causes of _phthisis +pulmonalis_, I shall, in a brief and familiar way, consider the more +obvious sources of this terrible malady, and particularly those which +all classes may remove or avoid. + +_Impure Air a Cause of Consumption._--In discussing the causes of a +disease whose principal expression is in the lungs, nothing can be more +legitimate than a consideration of the air we breathe. In full +respiration, it penetrates every one of the many millions of air-cells. + +_Dust._--Every species of dust must prove injurious. Workers in those +factories where tools are ground and polished soon die of pulmonary +disease. The dust of cotton and woollen factories, that of the street, +and that which is constantly rising from our carpets, are all +mischievous. M. Benoiston found among cotton-spinners the annual +mortality from consumption to be 18 in a thousand; among coal-men, 41; +among those breathing an atmosphere charged with mineral dust, 30, and +with dust from animal matter, as hair, wool, bristles, feathers, 54 per +thousand: of these last the greatest mortality was among workers in +feathers; least among workers in wool. The average liability to +consumption among persons breathing the kinds of dust named was 24 per +thousand, or 2.40 per cent. In a community where many flints were made, +there was great mortality from consumption, the average length of life +being only 19 years. + +_Gases._--Among the poisonous gases which infest our atmosphere, +carbonic acid deserves special consideration. The principal result of +all respiration and combustion, it exists in minute quantities +everywhere, but when it accumulates to the extent of one or two per +cent, it seriously compromises health. I have seen the last half of an +eloquent sermon entirely lost upon the congregation; carbonic acid had +so accumulated that it operated like a moderate dose of opium. No +peroration would arouse them. Nothing but open windows could start +life's currents. In lectures before lyceums, I often have a quarrel with +the managers about ventilation. There is, even among the more +intelligent, a strange indifference to the subject. + +The following fact graphically illustrates the influence of carbonic +acid on human life. + +A young Frenchman, M. Deal, finding his hopes of cutting a figure in the +world rather dubious, resolved to commit suicide; but that he might not +leave the world without producing a sensation and flourishing in the +newspapers, he resolved to kill himself with carbonic acid. So, shutting +himself up in a close room, he succeeded in his purpose, leaving to the +world the following account, which was found near his dead body, the +next morning. + +"I have thought it useful, in the interest of science, to make known the +effects of charcoal upon man. I place a lamp, a candle, and a watch on +my table, and commence the ceremony. + +"It is a quarter past ten. I have just lighted the stove; the charcoal +burns feebly. + +"Twenty minutes past ten. The pulse is calm, and beats at its usual +rate. + +"Thirty minutes past ten. A thick vapor gradually fills the room; the +candle is nearly extinguished; I begin to feel a violent headache; my +eyes fill with tears; I feel a general sense of discomfort; the pulse is +agitated. + +"Forty minutes past ten. My candle has gone out; the lamp still burns; +the veins at my temple throb as if they would burst; I feel very sleepy; +I suffer horribly in the stomach; my pulse is at eighty. + +"Fifty minutes past ten. I am almost stifled; strange ideas assail +me.... I can scarcely breathe.... I shall not go far.... There are +symptoms of madness.... + +"Eleven o'clock. I can scarcely write.... My sight is troubled.... My +lamp is going out.... I did not think it would be such agony to die.... +Ten...." + +Here followed some quite illegible characters. Life had ebbed. The +following morning he was found on the floor. + +The steamer Londonderry left Liverpool for Sligo, on Friday, December +2d, 1848, with two hundred passengers, mostly emigrants. A storm soon +came on. The captain ordered the passengers into the steerage cabin, +which was eighteen feet long, eleven wide, and seven high. The hatches +were closed, and a tarpaulin fastened over this only entrance to the +cabin. + +The poor creatures were now condemned to breathe the same air over and +over again. Then followed a dreadful scene. The groans of the dying, the +curses and shrieks of those not yet in the agonies of death, must have +been inconceivably horrible. The struggling mass at length burst open +the hatches, and the mate was called to gaze at the fearful spectacle. +Seventy-two were already dead, many were dying, their bodies convulsed, +the blood starting from their nostrils, eyes, and ears. + +It does not appear that the captain designed to suffocate his +passengers, but that he was simply ignorant of the fact that air which +has passed to and fro in the lungs becomes a deadly poison. + +The victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta and of the Steamer +Londonderry, with the thousand other instances in which immediate death +has resulted from carbonic acid, are terrible examples in the history of +human suffering; but these cases are all as nothing, compared with those +of the millions who nightly sleep in unventilated rooms, from which they +escape with life, but not without serious injury. As a medical man, I +have visited thousands of sick persons, and have not found one hundred +of them in a pure atmosphere. I have often returned from church +seriously doubting whether I had not committed a sin in exposing myself +to its poisonous air. There are in our great cities churches costing +fifty thousand dollars, in the construction of which not fifty dollars +were expended in providing means for ventilation. Ten thousand dollars +for ornament, but not ten dollars for pure air! Parlors with +furnace-heat and a number of gas-burners (each of which consumes as much +oxygen as several men) are made as close as possible, and a party of +ladies and gentlemen spend half the night in them. In 1861 I visited a +legislative hall. The legislature was in session. I remained half an +hour in the most impure air I ever attempted to breathe. If the laws +which emanated from such an atmosphere were good, it is a remarkable +instance of the mental and moral rising above a depraved physical. Our +school-houses are, some of them, so vile in this respect that I would +prefer to have my son remain in utter ignorance of books, rather than +breathe, during six hours of every day, so poisonous an atmosphere. +Theatres and concert-rooms are so foul that only reckless people can +continue to visit them. Twelve hours in a railway-car exhausts one, not +because of the sitting, but because of the devitalized air. While +crossing the ocean in the Cunard steamer Africa, and again in the +Collins steamer Baltic, I was constantly amazed that men who knew enough +to construct such noble ships did not know enough to furnish air to the +passengers. The distresses of sea-sickness are greatly intensified by +the sickening atmosphere which pervades the ship. Were carbonic acid +black, what a contrast would be presented between the air of our hotels +and their elaborate ornamentation! + +It is hardly necessary to say that every place I have mentioned might be +cheaply and completely ventilated. + +Consumption originates in the tubercular diathesis. This diathesis is +produced by those agencies which deprave the blood and waste vitality. +Of these agencies none is so universal and potent as impure air. When we +consider, that, besides mingling momentarily with the blood of the +entire system, it is in direct and constant contact with every part of +the lungs, we cannot fail to infer that foul air must play a most +important part in that local expression of the tubercular taint known as +pulmonary consumption. + +The author of an excellent work on consumption declares,-- + +"Wholesome air is equally essential with wholesome food; hence it is +that crowding individuals together in close, ill-ventilated apartments, +as is often the case in boarding-schools, manufactories, and +work-houses, is extremely prejudicial, both as a predisposing and +exciting cause of tubercular disease." + +The great Baudeloque considers impure air the only real cause of +scrofula, other causes assisting. He thinks that no scrofula could be +developed without this cause, whatever others might be in operation. + +An English writer who was physician to the Princess Victoria +says,--"There can be no doubt that the confined air of gloomy alleys, +manufactories, work-houses, and schools, and of our nurseries and very +sitting-rooms, is a powerful means of augmenting the hereditary +predisposition to scrofula, and of inducing such a disposition _de +novo_." + +To drink from the same tumbler, to eat from the same plate, to wear the +same under-clothes, to wash in the same water, even with the cleanest of +friends, would offend most people. But these are as alabaster whiteness +and absolute purity, compared with the common practice of crowding into +unventilated rooms, and thus sucking into the innermost parts of our +vital organs the foulest secretions from each other's skins and lungs. I +wish it were possible for these vile exhalations to be imbued with some +dark color, if but temporarily. Then decency would join with reason in +demanding a pure atmosphere. + + +NIGHT AIR. + +Consumptives, and all invalids, and indeed persons in health, are +cautioned to avoid the night air. Do those who offer this advice forget +that there is no other air at night but "night air"? Certainly we cannot +breathe day air during the night. Do they mean that we should shut +ourselves up in air-tight rooms, and breathe over and over again, +through half the twenty-four hours, the atmosphere we have already +poisoned? We have only the choice between night air pure and night air +poisoned with the exhalations from our skins and lungs, perhaps from +lungs already diseased. A writer pertinently speaks on this point after +the following fashion:-- + +"Man acts strangely. Although a current of fresh air is the very life of +his lungs, he seems indefatigable in the exercise of his inventive +powers to deprive himself of this heavenly blessing. Thus, he carefully +closes his bed-chamber against its entrance, and prefers that his lungs +should receive the mixed effluvia from his cellar and larder, and from a +patent little modern aquarius, in lieu of it. Why should man be so +terrified at the admission of night air into any of his apartments? It +is Nature's ever-flowing current, and never carries the destroying angel +with it. See how soundly the delicate little wren and tender robin sleep +under its full and immediate influence, and how fresh and vigorous and +joyous they rise amid the surrounding dew-drops of the morning. Although +exposed all night long to the heaven, their lungs are never out of +order; and this we know by daily repetition of the song. Look at the +new-born hare, without any nest to go to. It lives and thrives and +becomes strong and playful under the unmitigated inclemency of the +falling dews of night. I have a turkey full eight years old that has not +passed a single night in shelter. He roosts in a cherry-tree, and is in +primest health the year through. Three fowls, preferring this to the +warm perches in the hen-house, took up their quarters with him early in +October, and have never gone to any other roosting-place. The cow and +the horse sleep safely on the ground, and the roebuck lies down to rest +on the dewy mountain-top. I myself can sleep all night long, bareheaded, +under the full moon's watery beams, without any fear of danger, and pass +the day in wet shoes without catching cold. Coughs and colds are +generally caught in the transition from an over-heated room to a cold +apartment; but there would be no danger in this movement, if ventilation +were properly attended to,--a precaution little thought of nowadays." + +Dr. James Blake advises the consumptive to join with several friends, +procure horses and wagons, and set off upon a long journey, sleeping in +the open air, no matter what the weather. He seems to think this the +only way in which it is possible to induce the consumptive to sleep in +the fresh air. Doctor Jackson gives the case of a consumptive young man +(he does not state the condition of his lungs) who was cured by sleeping +in the open air on a hay-stack. This advice and experience do not quite +harmonize with the common terror of night air. + +But while I believe that breathing the pure out-door air all night is an +important curative means in this disease, I do not believe that sleeping +in the open fields of a stormy night is the _best means_ for securing +pure night air, in the case of a feeble woman; on the contrary, I think +it might be more pleasantly, and quite as effectually, secured in a +comfortable house, with open windows and an open fire. + +No doubt the lives of thousands would be saved by destroying their +houses, and compelling them to sleep in the open air;--not because +houses are inevitable evils, but because they are so badly used. Windows +are barred and closed, as if to keep out assassins; draughts defended +against, as if they were bomb-shells; and the furnace heat still more +corrupts the air, which has done duty already--to how many lungs, for +how many hours? + +Let the consumptive thank God for the blessing of a house, but let him +use it wisely. How my heart has ached, to see the consumptive patient +put away in a bed, behind curtains, in an unventilated room, the doors +and windows carefully closed, to shut out the very food for which his +lungs and system were famishing! + +I do not wonder that Blake, Jackson, and many others have advised an +out-door life of the wildest and most exposed sort, to invalids of this +class,--but I do wonder that they have not equally insisted upon +abundance of air for them, as pure as that of the fields and mountains, +in their own homes, and in the midst of friends and comforts. + + +MOISTURE IN THE ATMOSPHERE. + +It is the common belief that a dry atmosphere is most favorable to the +consumptive. Many medical authors have advanced this assumption. It is, +nevertheless, an error. In the British Isles and in France, outside the +cities and manufactories, the mortality from pulmonary diseases is much +less than among the agricultural classes of this country. And on the +western shores of this continent consumption is comparatively unknown. + +Our disadvantage in this comparison is attributable, in considerable +part, to the lack of humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evidence of +facts, we might, _a priori_, argue, that excessive dryness of the air +would produce dryness and irritability of the air-passages. From time +immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a remedy in irritation and +inflammation of the respiratory organs. + +A hundred times have my consumptive patients expressed surprise that the +wet weather, in which I have insisted they should go out as usual, has +not injured them,--that they even breathe more freely than on pleasant +days. Of course, I tell them, if the body is well protected, the more +moist the air, the more grateful to your lungs. + +There is no possible weather which can excuse the consumptive for +keeping in-doors. Give him sufficient clothing, protect his feet +carefully, and he may go out freely in rain, sleet, snow, and wind. +Ignorance of this fact has killed thousands. + +That point of temperature at which the moisture of the air first becomes +visible is known as the dew-point. According to one authority, the mean +dew-point of England, from the first of November to the last of March, +is about 35 deg.; that of our Northern States about 16 deg.. Now suppose a house +in England is kept at a temperature of 70 deg., the drying power would there +be represented by 35. A house with the same temperature in Albany, for +example, would possess a drying power of 54. This great contrast in the +atmosphere of the two countries is strikingly illustrated by the +difference between the plump body and smooth skin of the Englishman, and +the lean, juiceless body, and dry, cracked skin of the Yankee. It is +also shown by the well-known difference in the influence of house-heat +upon furniture. Our chairs and sofas and wood-work warp and shrink, +while nothing of the sort occurs in England. + +As we cannot increase the amount of moisture in the atmosphere of our +continent, we must limit our practical efforts to the air of our houses. +If we use a stove, its entire-upper surface may be made a reservoir for +water; ornamental work, of but little cost, may be used to conceal it. +The furnace may be made to send up, with its heat, many gallons of water +daily, in the form of vapor. In justice to stoves and furnaces, I must +say here, that, in the opportunity to do this, they possess one +advantage over open fire-places. + +By adding artificial moisture in this way to the air of our houses, we +not only save our furniture from drying and shrinking, but protect our +skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs from undue dryness, and from the +affections to which it would give rise. It is found necessary, in our +cloth-manufactories, to maintain a moist atmosphere in order to +successful spinning. Intelligent managers have assured me that coughs +and throat difficulties are comparatively rare in the spinning +department. + +We must all have observed, that, while the air of a hot kitchen is +comfortable, that of a parlor at the same heat, from an air-tight stove, +is almost suffocating. The kitchen has a hot stove, but the steam of its +boiling kettles moistens the air. + +Your country aunt, who has lived over her cooking-stove for years +without serious inconvenience, after spending an afternoon in your +parlor, heated by a stove or furnace, returns home "glad to get out of +that hot, stifling air." And yet the thermometer may have indicated that +the kitchen was ten degrees warmer than the parlor. The dry heat of the +parlor produced headache, irritability, and perhaps a sense of stricture +in the chest. If we would avoid these, a dry chapped skin, an irritable +nervous system, and a dry hacking cough, we must add the needed humidity +by artificial means. + + +CLIMATE + +The influence of climate in the production of tuberculosis was formerly +much exaggerated. Removal to a warm latitude, so generally prescribed +some years ago, is now rarely advised. Although the bland atmosphere and +out-of-door life of the tropics may often check the progress of the +malady, yet the constitution is generally so enervated that the return +to home and friends involves often not only a return of the malady, but +its more rapid progress. At present, a winter at Lake Superior, or other +region where the cold is intense and uniform, is the popular +prescription. I do not doubt the value of the expedient in many cases. +But the consumptive who can afford a winter neither in the Mediterranean +nor at the frigid North may comfort himself that the value of such trips +has been greatly overrated. Advice to the phthisical to spend a season a +thousand miles from home is, to a large majority of them, not unlike +that of the whimsical London doctor to the rag-picker he found coughing +in the streets:--"That's a bad cough, a bad cough, you have. I advise +you to make a journey on the Continent; and, in order to secure all the +advantages, you had better travel in your own carriage." Happily for +those with short purses, health in this, as in most other cases, is more +easily found at home. + +I do not believe that the prejudice against our New-England climate, +entertained by consumptives, is well-founded. The slight percentage of +difference against us, as compared with the people of other parts of the +country, in the number of deaths from consumption, is to be traced, I +believe, not so much to our climate as to our manufactories. New England +contains nearly all the great factories, labor in which is so +prejudicial to health,--as well as a greater number of furnaces, +air-tight stoves, and close houses. + +I do not believe that the sudden changes of the New-England climate are +disastrous to the consumptive who is well protected. While it is true +that our climate provokes a greater number of colds than that of +Florida, it is not less true that our atmosphere is more invigorating. + +"The Climate of the United States," by Dr. Samuel Forry, of the United +States Army, one of the best works of the kind ever published, gives a +great number of facts, interesting in this connection. His statistics +are gathered exclusively from the army. The men of the army are, in +great part, of the same age, from the same rank in life, of the same +habits, and have the same clothing, food, and labor, and when sick the +same treatment. The influence of climate upon human health may, +therefore, be ascertained with more accuracy from careful observations +among this class of men than from any other source. In comparing the +populations of New York and New Orleans, for instance, it is almost +impossible to make accurate allowance for the manifold differences in +habits, diet, occupation, etc. + +Dr. Forry shows conclusively, that, while colds and influenzas are more +common in the northern branches of the regular army, as 552 to 271, +consumption is more common in the southern, in the proportion of 10-1/2 +to 7-2/3. In the southern divisions there are 708 cases of fever of +various sorts to 192 in the northern. "We may safely infer," he says, +"that whatever tends to impair the constitution, as fevers, tends to +develop consumption in every class which is predisposed, and in all +climates and countries." Dr. Forry's tables present some curious facts. +One which will most impress the general reader is, that rheumatism is +more common at Key West than on the coast of New England. But it will +not surprise the reflecting, that a change of 5 deg. at Key West is felt as +much as one of 20 deg. at Boston. The slight changes, however, do not +equally purify the atmosphere and invigorate the body. + + +DRESS + +No subject is so intimately connected with the health of the respiratory +apparatus as dress. And, as bearing upon pulmonary consumption, there +are certain errors in the dress of children which must be noticed. I +believe I echo the voice of my profession, when I declare that the seeds +of consumption are planted in thousands by these mistakes in dress +during infancy and childhood. To correct these, permit me a few +practical suggestions. + +The skirt-bands must be left very loose. If you would give the baby's +lungs and heart the best chance for development, the dress about the +chest and waist should be so loose, that, if the child be held up by the +shoulders, its entire dress, except as sustained by the shoulders, will +fall to the floor. With such a dress the blood is so much sooner +oxygenated, that, other things being equal, the characteristic dark red +color of the skin will disappear much sooner than with a close dress. + +The bones surrounding the small, feeble lungs, now for the first time +beginning to move, are so soft and pliable, that, under the slightest +pressure, they will yield, and the capacity of the lungs be reduced. Yet +I have seen the nurse use the entire strength of her fingers in the +first application of the skirt-bands. No thoughtful person, acquainted +with the anatomy of the thorax in a new-born babe, can escape the +conclusion that its vitality is seriously compromised by this pressure +upon the principal organs of that vitality. In many instances I have +seen the character of the little one's respiration and pulse decidedly +affected by enlarging the skirt-bands. + +Mothers, if you think all this pressure necessary to give your babes a +form, as I have heard some of you say, you forget that the Creator of +your child has all wisdom and skill, and that any changes in the baby's +form and proportions must prove only mischievous. And perhaps you may +not feel your pride hurt by the suggestion, that His taste is quite +equal to yours. That a corset or other machine is needed to give a human +being a form, as is so often suggested, is an imputation on the Creator +which no thoughtful and conscientious person can indulge. + +_Dress of Children's Arms._--Prominent among the errors in the dress of +children is the custom of leaving their arms nude. + +I speak of the dress for the damp and cold seasons. It should be added, +that during the cool summer evenings too much care cannot be exercised +in protecting the baby's arms and shoulders. If the mother desires to +exhibit her darling's beautiful skin, let her cut out a bit of the dress +near its heart, and when the neighbors come in, let her show the skin +thus exposed to the company. This is so near the central furnace of the +body that it has no chance to get cold; but in the case of the arms and +legs, we have parts far removed from the furnace, and such parts require +special protection. + +Take the glass tube of the thermometer out of the frame, and put the +bulb in your baby's mouth. The mercury-rises to 98 deg.. Now, on a cool +evening, place the same bulb in its little hand; (I am supposing it has +naked arms;) the mercury will sink to 60 deg. or less. Need I say that all +the blood which has to make its way through the diminutive and tortuous +vessels of those cold arms must become nearly as cold as the arms and +hands themselves? And need I add, that, as the cold currents of blood +come from both arms back into the vital organs, they play the mischief +there? + +If you would preserve your child from croup, pneumonia, and a score of +other grave affections, you should keep its arms warm. Thick woollen +sleeves, fitting the little dimpled arms down to the hands, at least, +constitute the true covering. + +A distinguished physician of Paris declared just before his death,--"I +believe that during the twenty-six years that I have practised my +profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne to the +cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms." + +When in Harvard College, many years ago, I heard the eminent Dr. Warren +say,--"Boston sacrifices hundreds of babes every year by not clothing +their arms." + +What has been said of the dress of children is none the less applicable +to the dress of adults. One of the gravest mistakes in the dress of +women is the very thin covering of their arms and legs. A young lady +once asked me what she could do for her very thin arms. She said she was +ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and +found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make +muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly,--but exercise makes them +grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise +will do less to give those cold, naked arms circulation than would a +single month, were they warmly clad. + +The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A +cold gymnasium is unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty +and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know our +servant-girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise, +acquire large, fine arms, in spite of their nakedness; and if our young +ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful +classes, they may have as fine arms; but even then it is doubtful if +they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach, +without more dress upon the arms and legs. + +Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that +has the latter has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your +body. Now place it upon your arm. If you find the temperature of the +body over 90 deg. and that of your arm under 60 deg., you have lost the +equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing +headache; or the chest too much, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain +in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach too much, +producing indigestion. Any or all these difficulties are temporarily +relieved by immersion of the hands or feet in hot water, and permanently +relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the +derivation permanent. + +The most earnest efforts looking towards dress-reform have had reference +to the length of the skirt. I think it is one of woman's first duties to +make herself beautiful. The long skirt, the trail even, is in fine +taste. Among the dress features of the stage none is so beautiful. The +artist is ever delighted to introduce it in his pictures of woman. For +the drawing-room, it is superb. When we meet on dress occasions, I +cannot see why we may not introduce this exquisite feature. If it is +said that expense and inconvenience are involved, I reply, so they are +in paintings and statuary. + +For church and afternoon-sittings, skirts that nearly touch the floor +seem to me in good taste; but for the street, when snowy or muddy, for +the active duties of house-keeping, for the gymnasium, and for +mountain-trips, it need not be argued, with those whose brains are not +befogged by fashion, that the skirts should fall to about the knee. + +Dr. Clarke says,--"Since the free expansion of the chest, or, in other +words, the unimpeded action of the respiratory organs, is essential to +health, the employment of tight stays and those forms of dress which +interfere with these natural actions must be injurious, and cannot +therefore be too strongly censured." + +The celebrated Dr. James Johnson declares,--"The growth of the whole +body and the freedom of all its functions so much depend upon perfect +digestion, that every impediment to that digestion, such as compression +of the middle of the body, must inevitably derange the whole +constitution. Although the evils of tight lacing are as patent as the +sun at noonday, I have never known its commission to be acknowledged by +any fair dame. It is considered essential to a fine figure, yet I never +could discover any marks of stays in the statues of the Medicean Venus, +or the Apollo. And I venture to aver that the Cyprian goddess was not in +the habit of drawing her zone as tight as the modern fair ones, else the +sculptor would have recorded the cincture in marble. The comfort and +motions of the foot are not more abridged and cramped by the Chinese +shoe than are respiration and digestion by the stay." Thus wrote the +physician to the father of the present queen of England. + +A former professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the +university of Vermont says,--"Undue confinement of the chest must at all +periods of life be prejudicial; hence the practice of tight lacing we +almost always find classed among the causes of phthisis, as well as of +numerous other ills." And he adds,--"It is surely an erroneous notion +that women need the support of stays." + + +BEST MATERIAL FOR DRESS. + +In all seasons of the year, and in all climates, the best material for +dress, for old and young, for strong and weak, is woollen. It is the +poorest conductor of heat, and therefore secures the most equable +temperature. This is the principal object of dress. The superiority of +woollen clothing for babes is even greater in July than in January. In +the warmest days a single thickness of soft flannel will suffice. But if +linen or cotton be worn, the garment is soon moistened by perspiration, +and two or three additional thicknesses are needed to protect the child +against the ill-effects of a draught. + +In warm weather we find it necessary to wear woollen garments in the +gymnasium, as a protection against a chill from draughts while +perspiring. Our soldiers in the South find flannel their best friend, +securing them against the extremes and exposures of their camp and field +life. Blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-men, and others exposed to the +highest temperatures, find woollen indispensable. + +Few practices will do so much to secure the comfort and protect the +health of young children as dressing them in flannel night and day, the +year round. It may be objected that flannel irritates a delicate skin. +This is often so, as the skin is now treated. But there is no baby's +skin so thin and delicate that daily bathing and faithful friction may +not remove this extreme susceptibility. And as the skin is the organ +upon which the outer world makes its impressions, nothing is more +important than that all morbid susceptibility should be removed. + +An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its +mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one +of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react +upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of +the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially +need a vigorous treatment of the skin. + +Professor Dunglison says,--"The best clothing to protect us from +external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one +that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case +with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over +them when they expose themselves to the sun. + +Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most +precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much +to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the +vicissitudes of weather." + +Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the +Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool." + +Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in +preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and +drains. + +Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the +icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return +to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and +while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the +loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of +flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had +every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his +flannels. + +A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and +those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of +flannel. + +Dr. Willich says,--"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the +covering of those animals most resembling man in structure." + +Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all +seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to +which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness. + +The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous, +those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all +invalids. + +Another writer says that desperate diseases would be prevented, and many +valuable lives saved, by its more universal use. + +A distinguished American physician says that flannel next the skin is of +service to the consumptive by the irritation it produces, as well as +the defence it affords against the cold. + +An English authority says,--"Experience has so fully evinced the utility +of covering the skin with flannel, that no person habituated to its use, +in our damp climate, can be persuaded to dispense with it at any season +of the year." + + +EXERCISE + +Motion is the great law of the universe. It is the first instinct of +animal life. When it ceases, life ceases. The degree of life may be +measured by the amount of normal motion. When the life-forces run low, +the natural and most effectual method of invigorating those forces is +found in motion. + +The popular education of our children is a lamentable violation of this +law. The young child, left in freedom, keeps its nurse on the _qui vive_ +during every waking hour by its uncontrollable activity. The effort +which our school-system makes to crush out this instinct, by compelling +children to sit on hard chairs, bent over desks, motionless six hours a +day, is, considered in its influence upon the vitality of the nation, +the saddest of all possible mistakes. + +A radical change in this respect is imperatively demanded by the growing +intelligence of the people. The Germans,--God bless them!--having given +more faithful study to the various problems of human development, have +devised better modes. The Kindergarten, one of the many beautiful +blossoms of the genius of that noble people, is being transplanted to +this country. Wise parents, thank Heaven, and take heart. Miss Peabody's +Kindergarten, in Boston, should be visited by the friends of education. + +Nothing at this hour is so much needed in the development of the young +as some system of physical training, which, under competent masters, may +be introduced as a part of the daily drill into all our schools, public +and private. The routine should be so arranged that study and physical +exercise should alternate in periods not longer than half an hour +throughout the day. For example: the school opens at 9 o'clock. The +first half-hour is devoted to study and recitation. Let the second be +given to vigorous training in the gymnasium under a drill-master, and to +music. The third to study and recitation. The fourth to drill, in which +those with weak stomachs form a class by themselves, with special +exercises; those with weak chests another; those with weak spines still +another: all classified and treated according to their several needs. +The fifth half-hour to study and recitation. The sixth to declamation, +singing, or culture of the vocal organs, in general and special ways. +The seventh and eighth half-hours to study, conversation, etc. And again +in the afternoon an alternation of intellectual and physical exercises, +the latter so ordered as to bring into play every muscle, and thus +secure the symmetrical development of the body. Who can doubt that under +this system greater progress would be made in intellectual culture than +at present? The mind would find more effective tools for its work. But, +with an incredulous shake of the head, the people say, "Yes, this is all +very fine, but quite impracticable," If by this they mean that it is not +practicable until the public conscience is better enlightened, I grant +the force of the objection. But if they mean to say, that, with a due +appreciation of physical culture, such a school is an impracticability, +I am confident they are mistaken. The order I suggest could be +introduced in a week in any existing school, did the parents and +teachers so will. I am happy to be able to say that such a school as I +have described, possessing all the best facilities for classical and +scientific instruction, and under the management of eminent educators, +will be opened in an American city within the present year. The school +has been determined upon from the conviction that only in beginning with +the rising generation can the results of physical culture, or the system +combining both physical and intellectual culture, in their natural +relations, be thorough and satisfactory, and that the results of this +experiment would do more than all that can be said or written to arouse +public attention. + +Sweetser says,--"Were I required to name the remedy which promises most +aid in the onset of consumption, I should say, daily gentle and +protracted exercise in a mild and equable atmosphere.... Exercise, +moreover, determines the blood to the surface of the body, rendering the +cutaneous functions more active and healthful, and may in this way also +contribute to the advantage of the lungs." + +Dr. Parrish says that "vigorous and free exposure to the air is by far +the most efficient remedy in pulmonary consumption." + +Dr. Pitcher states that "the consumptive Indians of the Osage tribe have +their symptoms suspended during their semi-annual buffalo-hunts, but +that these soon return on becoming again inactive in their towns." + +Dr. Rush informs us that he saw three persons who had been cured of +consumption by the hardships of military life in the Revolutionary War. +The same distinguished authority affirms that "the remedy for +consumption must be sought in those exercises and employments which give +the greatest vigor to the constitution." + +Dr. Chambers, physician to St. Mary's Hospital, says,--"If we examine +the history of those who have lived longest with consumption, we shall +not find them to have been those who have lived in-doors, hanging their +lives on their thermometers." He gives the case of a friend of his "who +from his youth has had tubercular disease, but has kept hounds, +contested elections, sat in Parliament, but never allows any one to +doctor his chest." + +Lord Bacon asserted that "there was no disease among pupils that +gymnastics and calisthenics could not cure." And Galen declared "him to +be the best physician who was the best teacher of gymnastics." While +Dryden, long ago, sang,-- + + "The wise for cure on _exercise_ depend." + +Consumptives are advised to ride on horseback, to make long journeys in +the saddle. This is doubtless one of the most valuable exercises. There +are numerous well-authenticated instances of cures by its means, even in +the advanced stages of the disease. But many persons cannot avail +themselves of its advantages. In our cities, not one phthisical invalid +in ten, especially among women, can command facilities for daily +horseback-riding, still less can they take long journeys. + +Hunting, fishing, and mountain-air are advised. But how can many who +reside in towns and cities, and who most need muscular training, secure +such recreations? + +Walking is very generally prescribed, and is doubtless the most +available of the exercises named. But in the case of women, the present +mode of dress seriously interferes with the ease and physiological +benefits of this exercise; and few would exchange the long skirt for the +short one with pantalets or Turkish trousers. And yet this change is +indispensable to the best results. + +While I would encourage all out-door exercises and amusements, it is +evident that exercises which can be introduced into every house, which +may be practised by persons of both sexes, all ages and degrees of +strength, and which possess such fascination as shall make them +permanently attractive, are greatly to be desired, to meet wants not +otherwise supplied. + +Many exercises have been advised with reference to general health and +strength. I submit a series possessing peculiar virtues for the +consumptive. To him all exercises are not equally profitable. Ten +movements of a sort adapted to his special needs are worth a hundred not +so adapted. He has a narrow chest and drooping shoulders. This +distortion results in displacement of the lungs. And yet he may have +legs and hips comparatively vigorous. Ten movements concentrated upon +those muscles whose deficiency permits the drooping of the shoulders +will be more valuable than a hundred for the legs. There are several +hundred muscles in the human body. In every case of consumption certain +groups of these muscles are defective. Restoration of the lost symmetry +calls for those exercises which will develop the defective groups. +Prescribing a walk for a patient whose legs are already vigorous, but +whose arms and shoulders are contracted and weak, is like prescribing a +medicine because it _is a medicine_, without regard to the nature of the +malady. + +A blister applied to the chest relieves pain within. It accomplishes +this by drawing the blood to the surface, and thus subtracting from the +congestion at the point of disease. If the blister were applied to the +foot or leg, it would not sensibly relieve the congestion in the chest. + +If, instead of applying a blister, we use exercise as the remedial +measure, and by drawing blood into the muscles we would relieve the +congestion within, the importance of subtracting from the vessels which +bear the blood to the diseased part is not less than in the case of the +blister. For the relief or cure of disease in any of the chest organs a +few well-directed movements of those muscles about the chest which lack +circulation will accomplish more than hours of walking. + +The intelligent physician, in prescribing muscular training, will not +say, simply and generally, "I advise you to exercise," but he will +indicate the particular exercises applicable to the case. He will first +thoughtfully ask, "What group of muscles is defective?" When he has +answered this question accurately, he is prepared for a second,--"What +exercises will bring into direct training the defective group?" When +these points are settled, he can direct the training wisely. To +recommend horseback-riding--good as it is--for _all_ consumptives, is +not a whit more discriminating than to prescribe a particular variety of +food for all invalids. The medical man who has a general formula for a +certain class of patients is hardly more thoughtful than the vender of +the "all-healing ointment." + +Little or no attention has been given to the vital subject of exercise +as a curative means. In many cases treated by Ling's methods, when +skilfully applied, the results have been so marvellous that medical men +who had not studied the philosophy of the Movement Cure have attributed +the rapid improvement to Animal Magnetism. They could not conceive that +muscular exercise alone could produce such wonderful results. + +Symmetry of body and mind is vital to health. Its loss in the mind leads +not unfrequently to insanity,--its loss in the body to numberless +maladies. The great defect in our system of education lies just here. +There is no discrimination between the members of a class, part of which +needs one kind of culture to produce symmetry and health, while another +part needs quite another. The gymnasium, where all perform the same +exercises, may be charged with the same radical defect. In a school for +thorough mental or physical training, pupils must be classified and +trained with reference to their individual needs. This principle +underlies the successful treatment of consumption. He who would +contribute to its cure by exercise--the most efficient of all possible +remedies--must not say to his patients simply, "Exercise, exercise, +exercise," but he must distinctly mark out those exercises which are +precisely adapted to the case of each. + +As an additional reason for discrimination in prescribing physical +exercises for consumptives, it may be mentioned that in almost every +patient belonging to this class there are complications with other +diseases each of which requires consideration. + + +EXERCISES POSSESSING PECULIAR VALUE FOR CONSUMPTIVES. + +Most consumptive invalids are indisposed to exercise, and particularly +indisposed to employ their arms. Many attempt training of the shoulders +and chest, and abandon it in disgust. But if in the systematic +performance of the exercises other persons are interested, the patient +cannot withdraw. Besides, those exercises in which others participate +have social attractions, to which consumptives, as a class, are +peculiarly susceptible. + +For example, a consumptive young lady has brothers who assist her in +certain prescribed exercises. These are to be executed twice a day, at +hours when the brothers are at home. There is an affectionate interest +in the group with reference to the pleasant duty. It is not forgotten. +Suppose the brother is the patient, the sisters or mother will act as +assistants. In every family such exercises are sure of the proper +attention. I need scarcely say, that, if the patient undertake to +exercise alone, with dumb-bells or some similar means, it will soon grow +tiresome, and be abandoned. + +Moreover, it is a matter of no small moment that other members of the +family--who are not unlikely to be predisposed to the same malady--will +thus secure a series of profitable exercises. I must add my conviction, +that by no other variety of training can the efforts be so accurately +directed to the muscles whose weakness permits the distortion of chest +which is often the exciting cause of the malady. + +With a good-sized room, and open windows, the air may be pure, while the +exercise will prove the occasion of a thorough ventilation of the house. + +I am indebted to Friedrich Robert Nitzsche of Dresden for the drawings +of the accompanying cuts. His works are invaluable. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +Fig. 1. Assistant, standing behind the patient, grasps his hands. +Patient draws up the hands, as shown in the dotted lines, assistant +resisting. Patient forces his hands back again to the first position, +assistant resisting. Repeat five times. + +In this, as in the other exercises advised, _the resistance should be +adapted to the patient's strength_. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +Fig. 2. Assistant, standing behind the patient, who is seated, grasps +his uplifted hands. Patient draws down the hands, as shown by the dotted +lines, assistant resisting. Patient forces the hands back to the first +position, assistant resisting. Repeat three times. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +Fig. 3 shows an improvement on Fig. 2 for those cases in which, either +from the strength of the patient or the weakness of the assistant, it +might prove more agreeable to employ two assistants. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + +Figs. 4 and 5 represent an exercise which hardly needs description. The +patient should exert the positive force in both directions, the +assistants resisting. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 7.] + +Fig. 6 or 7 may be used next in order. + +[Illustration: Fig. 8] + +[Illustration: Fig. 9] + +Fig. 8 shows an exercise valuable in the treatment of drooping +shoulders. When the patient has raised his arms, as in the dotted lines, +he may bring them back to the horizontal in front, without the +interference of the assistant. + +Fig. 9 illustrates an exercise which may be used twenty or thirty times, +if managed with gentleness. + +I cannot here undertake to say how often these exercises should be +employed, nor in what cases; they are given merely as suggestive. A +complete series of "Mutual Help Exercises," adapted to the treatment of +the consumptive, includes a large number, many of which are not only +valuable, but cannot fail to deeply interest all concerned. + +If to the Mutual Help Exercises it is desired to add those in which the +health-seeker can work alone, I would suggest the new exercises with the +wooden dumbbell, wand, and club, and the one hundred and seven exercises +with Schreber's Pangymnastikon. + +Consumption--genuine tuberculous consumption--can be cured, even in the +stage of softening or abscess. Dr. J. Hughes Bennett, Professor Calkins, +Dr. Parrish, Dr. Carswell, Laennec, Professor Lee, Dr. Abernethy, Sir +James Clarke, and fifty other distinguished authors, declare their faith +in its curability. + +In not less than a thousand _post-mortem_ examinations, the lungs have +exhibited scars, concretions, or other indubitable evidences of recovery +from genuine consumption. I have cured many cases with exercise and +other hygienic agents. + + + + +VIOLET-PLANTING. + + + The heavy apple-trees + Are shaking off their snow in breezy play; + The frail anemones + Have fallen, fading, from the lap of May; + Lanterned with white the chestnut-branches wave, + And all the woods are gay. + Come, children, come away, + And we will make a flower-bed to-day + About our dear one's grave! + Oh, if we could but tell the wild-flowers where + Lies his dear head, gloried with sunny hair, + So noble and so fair, + How would they haste to bloom and weep above + The heart that loved them with so fond a love! + + Come, children, come! + From the sweet, ferny meads, + Wherein he used to walk in days of yore,-- + From the green path that leads, + Where the long dusty road seems wearisome, + Up to his father's door,-- + Gather the tender shoots + Of budding promise, fragrance, and delight, + Fresh-sprouting violet-roots, + That, when the first June night + Shall draw about his bed its fragrant gloom, + This grave-mound may be bathed in balmy bloom, + With loving memories eloquently dumb. + Come, children, come! + + No more, alas, alas! + O fairest blossoms which the wild bee sips, + Along your pleasant places shall he pass, + Ere from your freshened leaves the night-dew drips, + Culling your blooms in handfuls from the grass, + Pressing your tender faces to his lips,-- + Ah, never any more! + Yet I recall, a little while before + He passed behind this mystery of death, + How, bringing home great handfuls, won away + From the dark wood-haunts where he loved to stray + Until his dewy garments were replete + With wafts of odorous breath, + With sods all mossy-sweet + And all awake and purple with new bloom + He filled and crowded every window-seat, + Until each pleasant room + Was fragrant with your mystical perfume: + Now vainly do I watch beside the door,-- + Ah, never any more! + + Alas, how could I know + That I so soon should strew + Your blossoms, warm with tears, above his head? + That your wet roots would cling + About the hand that wears his bridal ring, + When he who placed it there lay cold and dead? + + O violets, live and grow, + That, ere the bright days go, + This turf may be with rarest beauty crowned!-- + Nay, shrink not from my touch, + For these are careful and most loving hands, + Fearing and hoping much, + Which thus disturb your fair and wondering bands, + But to transfer them to more holy ground. + + Dear violets, bloom and live! + To this beloved tomb + Your beauty and your bloom + Are the most precious tribute we can give. + And, oh, if your sweet soul of odor goes, + Blended with the clear trills of singing-birds, + Farther than my poor speech + Or wailing cry can reach + Into that realm of shadowy repose + Toward which I blindly yearn, + Praying in silence, "Oh, my love, return!" + Yet dare not try to touch with groping words, + So far it seems, and sweet,-- + That realm wherein I may not hope to be + Until my wayworn feet + Put off the shoes of this mortality,-- + Oh, let your incense-breath, + Laden with all this weight of love and woe + For him who went away so long ago, + Bridge for me Time and Death! + + Blow, violets, blow! + And tell him in your blooming, o'er and o'er, + How in the places which he used to know + His name is still breathed fondly as of yore; + Tell him how often, in the dear old ways + Where bloomed our yesterdays, + The radiant days which I shall find no more, + My lingering footsteps shake + The dew-drops from your leaves, for his dear sake. + Wake, blue eyes, wake! + + The earliest breath of June + Blows the white tassels from the cherry-boughs, + And in the deepest shadow of the noon + The mild-eyed oxen browse. + How tranquilly he sleeps, + He, whom so bitterly we mourn as dead!-- + Although the new month sweeps + The over-blossomed spring-flower from his bed, + Giving fresh buds therefor,-- + Although beside him still Love waits and weeps, + And yonder goes the war. + + Wake, violets, wake! + Open your blue eyes wide! + Watch faithfully his lonely pillow here; + Let no rude foot-fall break + Your slender stems, nor crush your leaves aside; + See that no harm comes near + The dust to me so dear;-- + O violets, hear! + The clouds hang low and heavy with warm rain,-- + And when I come again, + Lo, with your blossoms his loved grave shall be + Blue as the marvellous sea + Laving the borders of his Italy! + + + + +PAUL BLECKER. + +PART II. + + +You do not like this Lizzy Gurney? I know. There are a dozen healthy +girls in that country-town whose histories would have been pleasanter to +write and to read. I chose hers purposely. I chose a bilious, morbid +woman to talk to you of, because American women are bilious and morbid. +Men all cling desperately to the old book-type of women, delicate, +sunny, helpless. I confess to even a man's hungry partiality for +them,--these roses of humanity, their genus and species emphasized by +but the faintest differing pungency of temper and common sense,--mere +crumpling of the rose-leaves. But how many of them do you meet on the +street? + +McKinstry (with most men) kept this ideal in his brain, and bestowed it +on every woman in a street-car possessed of soft eyes, gaiter-boots, and +a blush. Dr. Blecker (with all women) saw through that mask, and knew +them as they are. He knew there was no more prurient sign of the age of +groping and essay in which we live than the unrest and diseased brains +of its women. + +Lizzy Gurney was but like nine-tenths of the unmarried young girls of +the Northern States; there was some inactive, dumb power within,--she +called it genius; there was a consciousness that with a man's body she +would have been more of a man than her brother; there was, stronger than +all, the unconquerable craving of Nature for a husband's and child's +love,--she, powerless. So it found vent in this girl, as in the others, +in perpetual self-analyzing, in an hysteric clinging to one creed after +another,--in embracing the chimera of the Woman's-Rights prophets with +her brain, and thrusting it aside with her heart: after a while, to +lapse all into a marriage, made in heaven or hell, as the case might be. + +Dr. Blecker used no delicate euphuism in talking of women, which, maybe, +was as well. He knew, that, more than men, though quietly, they are +facing the problem of their lives, their unused powers, their sham +marriages, and speak of these things to their own souls with strong, +plebeian words. So much his Northern education opened his eyes to see, +but he stopped there; if he had been a clear-sighted truth-seeker, he +would have known that some day the problem would be solved, and by no +foul Free Love-ism. But Paul was enough Southerner by birth to shrink +from all inquiry or disquiet in women. If there were any problem of life +for them, Grey Gurney held it solved in her nature: that was all he +cared to know. Did she? + +After the regiment was gone, she went into the old work,--cooking, +sewing, nursing Pen. Very little of her brain or heart was needed for +that; the heavy surplus lay dormant. No matter; God knew. Jesus waited +thirty years in a carpenter's shop before He began His work,--to teach +_us_ to wait: hardest lesson of all. Grey understood that well. Not only +at night or morning, but through the day, at the machine, or singing +songs to Pen, she used to tell her story over and over to this Jesus, +her Elder Brother, as she loved to call Him: _He_ would not be tired of +hearing it, how happy she was,--she knew. She did not often speak of the +war to Him,--knowing how stupid she was, near-sighted, apt to be +prejudiced,--afraid to pray for one side or the other, there was such +bitter wrong on both; she knew it all lay in His hand, though; so she +was dumb, only saying, "_He_ knows." But for herself, out of the need of +her woman's nature, she used to say, "I can do more than I do here. Give +me room, Lord. Let me be Paul Blecker's wife, for I love him." She +blushed, when even praying that silently in her heart. Then she used to +sing gayer songs, and have a good romp with the children and Pen in the +evenings, being so sure it would all come right. How, nobody could see: +who could keep this house up, with the ten hungry mouths, if she were +gone? But she only changed the song to an earnest hearty hymn, with the +thought of that. It would come at last: _He_ knew. + +Was the problem solved in her? + +It being so sure a thing to her that this was one day to be, she began +in a shy way to prepare for it,--after the day's work was done to the +last stitch, taking from the bottom of her work-basket certain pieces of +muslin that fitted herself, and sewing on them in the quiet of her own +room. She did not sing when she worked at these; her cheeks burned, +though, and there was a happy shining in her eyes bright enough for +tears. + +Sitting, sewing there, when that July night came, she had no prescience +that her trial day was at hand: for to stoop-shouldered women over +machines, as well as to Job, a trial day does come, when Satan obtains +leave in heaven to work his will on them, straining the fibre they are +made of, that God may see what work they are fit for in the lives to +come. This was the way it came to the girl. That morning, when she was +stretching out some muslin to bleach in a light summer shower, there was +a skirmish down yonder in among some of the low coal-hills along the +Shenandoah, and half a dozen men were brought wounded in to Harper's +Ferry. There was no hospital there then; one of the half-burnt +Government offices was used for the purpose; and as the surgeon at that +post, Dr. Blecker, was one of the wounded, young Dr. Nott came over from +the next camp to see to them. His first cases: he had opened an office +only for six months, out in Portage, Ohio, before he got into the army; +in those six months he played chess principally, and did the poetry for +the weekly paper,--his tastes being innocent: the war has been a grand +outlet into a career for doctors and chaplains of that calibre. Dr. +Nott, coming into the low arsenal-room that night, stopped to brush the +clay off his trousers before going his rounds, and to whisk the attar of +rose from his handkerchief. "No fever? All wounds?" of the orderly who +carried the flaring tallow candle. + +All wounds: few of them, but those desperate. Even the vapid eyes of +Nott grew grave before he was through, and he ceased tipping on his +toes, and tittering: he was a good-hearted fellow, at bottom, growing +silent altogether when he came to operate on the surgeon, who had waited +until the last. "The ball is out, Dr. Blecker,"--looking up at length, +but not meeting the wounded man's eye. + +"I know. Cross the bandage now. You'll send a despatch for me, Nott? +There is some one I want to see, before----I'll hold out two or three +days?" + +"Pooh, pooh! Not so bad as that. We'll hope at least, Dr. Blecker, not +so bad as that. I've paper and pencil here." So Dr. Blecker sent the +despatch. + +It was a hot July night, soon after the seven days' slaughter at +Richmond. You remember how the air for weeks after that lay torpid with +a suppressed heat,--as though the very earth held her breath to hear the +sharp tidings of death. It never was fully told aloud,--whispered +only,--and even that hoarse whisper soon died out. We were growing used +to the taste of blood by that time, in North and South, like bulls in a +Spanish arena. This night, and in one or two following it, the ashy +sultriness overhead was hint of some latent storm. It is one of the vats +of the world where storms are brewed,--Harper's Ferry: stagnant +mountain-air shut in by circling peaks whose edges cut into the sky; the +sun looking straight down with a torrid compelling eye into the water +all the day long, until at evening it goes wearily up to him in a pale +sigh of mist, lingering to rest and say good-bye among the wooded sides +of the hills. Our hill-storms are generally bred there: it was not +without a certain meaning that the political cloud took its rise in this +town, whose thunder has shaken the continent with its bruit. + +Paul Blecker lay by a window: he could see the tempest gathering for +days: it was a stimulus that pleased him well. Death, or that nearness +to it which his wound had brought, fired his brain with a rare life, +like some wine of the old gods. The earth-life cleared to him, so tired +he grew then of paltry words and thoughts, standing closer to the inner +real truth of things. So, when he had said to the only creature who +cared for him, "They say I will not live, come and stay with me," he +never had doubted, as a more vulgar man might have done, that she would +come,--never doubted either, that, if it were true that he should die, +she would come again after him some day, to work and love yonder with +him,--his wife. Nature sends this calmness, quiet reliance on the real +verities of life, down there into that border-ground of death,--kind, as +is her wont to be. When the third day was near its close, he knew she +would come that night; half smiling to himself, as he thought of what an +ignorant, scared traveller she would be; wishing he could have seen her +bear down all difficulties in that turbulent house with her child-like +"He wants me,--I must go." How kind people would be to her on the road, +hearing her uncertain timid voice! Why, that woman might pass through +the whole army, even Blenker's division, unscathed: no roughness could +touch her, remembering the loving trust in her little freckled face, and +how innocently her soul looked out of her hazel eyes. He used to call +her Una sometimes: it was the only pet name he gave her. She was in the +Virginia mountains now. If he could but have been with her when she +first saw them! She would understand there why God took his prophets up +into the heights when He would talk to them. + +So thinking vaguely, but always of her, not of the fate that waited him, +if he should die. Literally, the woman was dearer to him than his own +soul. + +The room was low-ceiled, but broad, with windows opening on each side. +Overhead the light broke in through broken chinks in the rafters,--the +house being, in fact, but a ruin. + +A dozen low cots were scattered about the bare floor: on one a man lay +dead, ready for burial in the morning; on the others the men who were +wounded with him, bearing trouble cheerfully enough, trying, some of +them, to hum a chorus to "We're marching along," which the sentry sang +below. + +The room was dark: he was glad of that; when she came, she could not see +his altered face: only a dull sconce spattered at one end, under which +an orderly nodded over a dirty game of solitaire. + +Outside, he could see the reddish shadow of the sky on the mountains: a +dark shadow, making the unending forests look like dusky battalions of +giants scaling the heights. Below, the great tide of water swelled and +frothed angrily, trying to bury and hide the traces of the battles +fought on its shore: ruined bridges, masses of masonry, blackened beams +of cars and engines. One might fancy that Nature, in her grand +temperance, was ashamed of man's petty rage, and was striving to hide it +even from himself. Laurel and sumach bushes were thrusting green foliage +and maroon velvet flowers over the sand ledges on the rock where the +Confederate cannon had been placed; and even over the great masses of +burnt brick and granite that choked the valley, the delicate moss, +undaunted and indefatigable, was beginning to work its veiling way. Near +him he saw a small square building, uninjured,--the one in which John +Brown had been held prisoner: the Federal troops used it as a +guard-house now for captured Confederates. + +One of these men, a guerrilla, being sick, had been brought in to the +hospital, and lay in the bed next to Blecker's,--a raw-boned, +wooden-faced man, with oiled yellow whiskers, and cold, gray, sensual +eye: complaining incessantly in a whining voice,--a treacherous humbug +of a voice, Blecker fancied: it irritated him. + +"Move that man's bed away from mine to-morrow," he said to the nurse +that evening. "If I must die, let me hear something at the last that has +grit in it." + +He heard the man curse him; but even that was softly done. + +The storm was gathering slowly. Low, sharp gusts of wind crept along the +ground at intervals, curdling the surface of the water, shivering the +grass: far-off moans in the mountain-passes, beyond the Maryland +Heights, heard in the dead silence: abrupt frightened tremors in the +near bushes and tree-tops, then the endless forests swaying with a +sullen roar. The valley darkened quickly into night; a pale greenish +light, faint and fierce, began to flash in the north. + +"Thunder-storm coming," said the sleepy orderly, Sam, coming closer to +fasten the window. + +"Let it be open," said Blecker, trying nervously to rise on one arm. "It +is ten o'clock. I must hear the train come in." + +The man turned away, stopping by the bed of the prisoner to gossip +awhile before going down to camp. He thought, as they talked in a +desultory way, as men do, thrown together in the army, of who and what +they had been, that the Yankee doctor listened attentively, starting +forward, and throwing off the bed-clothes. + +"But he was an uneasy chap always, always," thought Sam, "as my old +woman would say,--in a kippage about somethin' or other. But darned ef +this a'n't somethin' more 'n usual,"--catching a glimpse of Blecker's +face turned toward the prisoner, a curious tigerish look in his +half-closed eyes. + +The whistle of the train was heard that moment far-off in the gorge. +Blecker did not heed it, beckoning silently to the orderly. + +"Go for the Colonel, for Sheppard," in a breathless way; "bring some +men, stout fellows that can lift. Quick, Sam, for God's sake!" + +The man obeyed, glancing at the prisoner, who lay with his eyes closed +as though asleep. + +"Blecker glowers at him as though he were the Devil,"--stopping outside +to light a cigar at the oil-lamp. "That little doctor has murder writ in +his face plain as print this minute." + +Sam may not have been wrong. Paul Blecker was virulent in hates, loves, +or opinions: in this sudden madness of a moment that possessed him, if +his feet would have dragged him to that bed yonder, and his wrists been +strong enough, he would have wrung the soul out of the man's body, and +flung him from his way. Looking at the limbs stretched out under the +sheet, the face, an obscene face, even with the eyes closed, as at a +deadly something that had suddenly reared itself between him and his +chance of heaven. The man was Grey Gurney's husband. She was coming: in +a moment, it might be, would be here. She thought that man dead. She +always should think him dead. He held back his breath in his clinched +teeth: that was all the sign of passion; his brain was never cooler, +more alert. + +Sheppard, the colonel of the regiment, a thick-set, burly little fellow, +with stubbly black whiskers and honest eyes, came stumping down the +room. + +"What is it, hey? Life and death, Blecker?" + +"More, to me," with a smile. "Make your men remove that man Gurney into +the lower ward. Don't stop to question, Colonel: I'll explain +afterwards. I'm surgeon of this post." + +"You're crotchety as a woman, Paul," laughed the other, as he gave the +order. + +"What d' ye mean to do, old fellow, with this wound of yours? Go under +for it, as you said at first?" + +"This morning I would have told you yes. I don't know now. I can't +afford to leave the world just yet. I'll fight death to the last +breath." Watching the removal of the prisoner as he spoke; when the door +closed on him, letting his head fall on the pillow with a sigh of +relief. "Sheppard, there was another matter I wished to see you about. +Your mother came to see me yesterday." + +"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our +broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"---- + +"Very good;--but there was another favor I wished to ask." + +"Well?"--staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor +crotchety Blecker's face grew. + +"By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you +told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I +believe." + +The redness grew hotter. + +"It was that I meant to ask of her,--you knew?" + +"Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good +and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate +it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for +mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? +Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow +already!" + +Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long +hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his +very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the +prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him +dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for +that crime, he took it on his own soul,--now. And so turned with a smile +to meet her. + +"Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, +hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs +shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of +nursing; 's got no notion of dying." + +"I knew he wouldn't die," she said, half to herself, not speaking to +Paul,--only he held both her hands in his, and looked in her eyes. + +Sheppard, after the first glance over the little brown figure and the +face under the Shaker hood, had stood, hat in hand, with something of +the same home-trusty smile he gave his wife on his mouth. The little +square-built body in black seeded silk and widow's cap, that had +convoyed the girl in, touched the Colonel's elbow, and they turned their +backs to the bed,--talking of hot coffee and sandwiches. Paul drew her +down. + +"My wife, Grey? _Mine?_" his breath thin and cold,--because no oath now +could make that sure. + +"Yes, Paul." + +He shut his eyes. She wondered that he did not smile when she put her +timorous fingers in his tangled hair. He thought he would die, maybe. He +could not die. Her feet seemed to take firmer root into the ground. A +clammy damp broke out over her body. He did not know how she had +wrestled in prayer; he did not believe in prayer. He could not die. That +which a believer asked of God, believing He would grant, was granted. +She held him in life by her hand on Christ's arm. + +"Were you afraid to travel alone, eh?" + +Grey looked up. The little figure facing her had a body that somehow put +you in mind of unraised dough: and there was nothing spongy or porous or +delusive in the solid little soul either, inside of the body,--that was +plain. She looked as if Kentucky had sent her out, a tight, right, +compact drill-sergeant, an embodiment of Western reason, to try by +herself at drum-head court-martial the whole rank and file of +Northernisms, airy and intangible illusions. Nothing about her that did +not summon you to stand and deliver common sense; the faint down on her +upper-lip, the clog-soled shoes, the stiff dress, the rope of a gold +watch-chain, the single pure diamond blazing on one chubby white hand, +the general effect of a lager-bier keg, unmovable, self-poised, the +round black eyes, the two black puffs of hair on each temple, said with +one voice, "No fooling now; no chance for humbug here." Why should there +be? One of the Shelbys; well-built in bone and blood, honest, +educated,--mule-raisers; courted by General Sheppard according to form, +a modest, industrious girl, a dignified, eminently sensible wife, a +blindly loving mother, a shrewd business-woman as a widow. Her son was a +Christian, her slaves were fat and contented, her mules the best stock +imported. She hated the Abolitionists, lank, uncombed, ill-bred +fanatics; despised the Secessionists as disappointed Democrats; clung +desperately to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the +laws, not knowing she was holding to the most airy and illusive nothings +of all. So she was here with Pratt, her son, at Harper's Ferry, nursing +the sick, keeping a sharp eye on the stock her overseer sold to +Government, looking into the face of every Rebel prisoner brought in, +with a very woman's sick heart, but colder growing eyes. For Buckner, +you know, had induced Harry to go into the Southern army. Harry Clay, +(they lived near Ashland,)--Harry was his mother's pet, before this, the +youngest. If he was wounded, like to die, not all their guerrillas or +pickets should keep her back; though, when he was well, she would leave +him without a word. He had gone, like the prodigal son, to fill his +belly with the husks the swine did eat,--and not until he came back, +like the prodigal son, would she forgive him. But if he was wounded--If +Grey had stopped one hour before coming to this man she loved, she would +have despised her. + +"Were you afraid to travel alone?" + +"Yes; but I brought Pen for company, Paul. You did not see that I +brought Pen." + +But Pen shied from the outstretched hand, and had recourse to a vial of +spirituous-looking liquorice-water. + +It was raining now, heavily. By some occult influence, Mrs. Sheppard had +caused a table to spring up beside the bed, whereon a cozy +round-stomached oil-lamp burned and flared in the wind, in a jolly, +drunken fashion, and a coffee-pot sent out mellow whiffs of brown steam. + +"It's Mocha, my dear,--not rye. I mean to support my Government, and +I'll not shirk the duty when it comes to taxes on coffee. So you were +afraid? It's the great glory of our country that a woman can travel +unprotected from one end to----Well. But you are young and silly yet." + +And she handed Grey a cup with a relaxing mouth, which showed, that, +though she were a woman herself, capable of swallowing pills without +jelly, she did not hope for as much from weaker human nature. + +Paul Blecker had not heard the thunder the first hour Grey was there, +nor seen the livid flashes lighting up those savagest heights in the +mountains: his eye was fixed on that yellow door yonder in the +flickering darkness of the room, and on the possibility that lay beyond +it. + +Now, while Grey, growing used to her new home, talked to Pen and her +hostess, Paul's thoughts came in cheerier and warmer: noting how the +rain plashed like a wide sweep of loneliness outside, forcing all +brightness and comfort in,--how the red lamp-light glowed, how even the +pale faces of the men, in the cold beds yonder, grew less dour and +rigid, looking at them; hearing the low chirp of Grey's voice now and +then,--her eyes turned always on him, watchful, still. It was like home, +that broad, half-burnt arsenal-room. Even the comfortable little black +figure, sturdily clicking steel needles through an uncompromising pair +of gray socks, fitted well and with meaning into the picture, and burly +Pratt Sheppard holding little Pen on his knee, his grizzly black brows +knitted. Because Mary, down at home there, was nursing his baby boy now, +most likely, just as he held this one. His baby was only a few months +old: he had never seen it: perhaps he might never see it. + +"She looks like Mary, a bit, mother, eh?"--nodding to Grey, and +steadying one foot on the rung of his chair. + +Mrs. Sheppard shot a sharp glance. + +"About the nose? Mary's is sharper." + +"The forehead, _I_ think. Hair has the same curly twist." + +Grey, hearing the whisper, colored, and laughed, and presently took off +the Shaker hood. + +"'Pon my soul, mother, it's a remarkable likeness.--You're _not_ related +to the Furnesses, Miss Gurney,--Furnesses of Tennessee?" + +"Pratt sees his wife in every woman he meets," said his mother, toeing +off her sock. + +She had not much patience with Pratt's wife-worship: some of these days +he'd be sold to those Furnesses, soul and body. They were a mawkish, +"genteel" set: from genteel people might the Lord deliver her! + +"Does the boy look like this one at all, mother?--I never saw my boy, +Miss Gurney,"--explaining. "Fellows are shirking so now, I won't ask for +a furlough." + +"The child's a Shelby, out and out,"--angrily enough. "Look here, Dr. +Blecker,"--pulling up her skirt, to come at an enormous pocket in her +petticoat. "Here's the daguerreotype, taken when he was just four weeks +old, and there's Pratt's eyes and chin to a T. D'ye see? Pratt _was_ a +fine child,--weighed fourteen pounds. But he was colicky to the last +degree. And as for croup----Does your Pen have croup, Miss Grey? Sit +here. These men won't care to hear our talk." + +They did care to hear it. It was not altogether because Blecker was +weakened by sickness that he lay there listening and talking so +earnestly about their home and Grey's, the boy and Mary,--telling +trifles, too, which he remembered, of his own childhood. It was such a +new, cordial, heartsome life which this bit of innocent gossip opened to +him. What a happy fellow old Pratt was, with his wife and child! Good +fighter, too. Well, some day, maybe, he, too---- + +They were all quiet that night, coming closer together, maybe because +they heard the rain rushing down the gorges, and knew what ruin and +grief and slaughter waited without. Looking back at that night often +through the vacancy of coming days, Paul used to say, "I was at home +then," and after that try to whistle its thought off in a tune. He never +had been at home before. + +So, after that night, the summer days crept on, and out of sight: the +sea of air in which the earth lay coloring and massing the sunlight down +into its thin ether, until it ebbed slowly away again in yellow glows, +tinctured with smells of harvest-fields and forests, clear and pungent, +more rare than that of flowers. Here and there a harvest-field in the +States was made foul with powder, mud,--the grain flat under broken +artillery-wheels, canteens, out of which oozed the few drops of whiskey, +torn rags of flesh, and beyond, heaped in some unploughed furrow, a +dozen, a hundred, thousands, it may be, of useless bodies, dead to no +end. Up yonder in New England, or down in some sugar-plantation, or +along the Lakes, some woman's heart let the fresh life slip out of it, +to go down into the grave with that dead flesh, to grovel there, while +she dragged her tired feet the rest of the way through the world. Her +pain was blind; but that was all that was blind. The wind, touching the +crimson moccasin-flower in the ditch, and the shining red drops beside +it, said only, "It is the same color; God wills they shall be there," +and went unsaddened on its appointed way. The white flesh, the curly +hair, (every ring of that hair the woman yonder knew by heart,) gave +back their color cheerily in the sunlight, and sank into the earth to +begin their new work of roots and blossoming, and the soul passed as +quietly into the next wider range of labor and of rest. And God's +eternal laws of sequence and order worked calmly, and remained under +all. + +This world without the valley grew widely vague to Blecker, as he lay +there for weeks. These battles he read of every morning subserved no +end: the cause stood motionless; only so many blue-coated machines +rendered useless: but behind the machines--what? That was what touched +him now: every hour some touch of Grey's, some word of the home-loving +Kentuckians, even Pen's giant-stories, told as he sat perched on +Blecker's bolster, made him think of this, when he read of a battle. So +many thousand somethings dead, who pulled a trigger well or ill, for +money or otherwise; so much brute force lost; behind that, a home +somewhere, clinging little hands, a man's aspirations, millions of fears +and hopes, religion, chances of a better foothold in the next life. It +was that background, after all, the home-life, the notions of purity, +honor, bravery absorbed there, that made the man a man in the +battle-field. + +So, lying on the straw mattress there, this man, who had been making +himself from the first, got into the core of the matter at last, into +his own soul-life, brought himself up face to face with God and the +Devil, letting the outside world, the great war, drift out of sight for +the time. His battle-field was here in this ruined plat of houses, +prisoned by peaks that touched the sky. The issues of the great +struggles without were not in his hands; this was. What should he do +with this woman, with himself? + +He gained strength day by day. They did not know it, he was so grave and +still, not joining in the hearty, cheery life of the arsenal-room; for +Mrs. Sheppard had swept the half-drunken Dutch nurses out of the +hospital, and she and Grey took charge of the dozen wounded men (many +dainty modiste-made ladies find that they are God-made women in this +war). So the room had whitened and brightened every day; the red, +unshaved faces slept sounder on their clean pillows; the men ate with a +relish; and Grey, being the best of listeners, had carried from every +bed a story of some home in Iowa or Georgia or the North. Only behind +the yellow door yonder she never went. Blecker had ordered that, and +she obeyed like a child in everything. + +So like a child, that Mrs. Sheppard, very tender of her, yet treated her +with as much deference as she might a mild kitten. That girl was just as +anxious that Bill Sanders's broth should be properly salted, and Pen's +pinafore white, as she was to know Banks's position. Pish! Yet Mrs. +Sheppard told Pen pages of "Mother Goose" in the evenings, that the girl +might have time to read to Doctor Blecker. She loved him as well as if +he were her husband; and a good wife she would be to him! Paul, looking +at the two, as they sat by his bedside, knew better than she; saw +clearly in which woman lay the spring of steel, that he never could +bend, if her sense of right touched it. He used to hold her freckled +little hands, growing yellow and rough with the hard work, in his, +wondering what God meant him to do. If they both could lie dead together +in that great grave-pit behind the Virginia Heights, it would have been +relief to him. If he should let her go blindfold into whatever hell lay +beyond death, it would be more merciful to her than to give her to her +husband yonder. For himself--No, he would think only of her, how she +could be pure and happy. Yet bigamy? No theory, no creed could put that +word out of his brain, when he looked into her eyes. Never were eyes so +genial or so pure. The man Gurney, he learned from Sheppard and Nott, +recovered but slowly; yet there was no time to lose; a trivial accident +might reveal all to her. Whatever struggle was in Blecker's mind came to +an end at last; he would go through with what he purposed; if there were +crime in it, he took it to his own soul's reckoning, as he said before. + +It was a cool morning in early August, when the Doctor first crept out +of bed; a nipping north-wind, with a breath of far-off frost in it, just +enough to redden the protruding cheek of the round gum-trees on the +mountain-ledges and make them burn and flame in among the swelling green +of the forests. He dragged himself slowly to the wooden steps and waited +in the sunshine. The day would be short, but the great work of his life +should be done in it. + +"Sheppard!" he called, seeing the two square, black figures of the +Colonel and his mother trotting across the sunny street. + +"Hillo! you'll report yourself ready for service soon, at this rate, +Doctor." + +"In a week. That man Gurney. When can he be removed?" + +"What interest can you have in that dirty log, Blecker? I've noticed the +man since you asked of him. He's only a Northern rogue weakened into a +Southern bully." + +"I know. But his family are known to me. I have an order for his +exchange: it came yesterday. He holds rank as captain in the other +service, I believe?" + +"Yes,--but he's in no hurry to leave his bed, Nott tells me." + +"This order may quicken his recovery, eh?" + +"Perhaps." + +Sheppard laughed. + +"You are anxious to restore him to his chances of promotion down yonder; +yet I fancied I saw no especial love for him in your eyes, heh? Maybe +you'd promote him to the front rank, as was done with Uriah,--what d' ye +say, Paul?" + +He went on laughing, without waiting for an answer. + +"As was done with Uriah?" Pah, what folly was this? He took out his +handkerchief, wiping his face and neck; he felt cold and damp,--from +weakness, it might be. + +"You will tell that man Gurney, Sam," beckoning to the orderly who was +loitering near, "that an order for his exchange is made out, when he is +able to avail himself of it." + +"Won't you see him yerself, Doctor?" insinuated Sam. "He's a weak +critter, an' 'll be monstrous thankful, I'm thinkin'." + +Blecker shook his head and turned off, waiting for Mrs. Sheppard. She +was on the sidewalk, laying down the law to the chaplain, who, with his +gilt-banded cap, looked amazingly like a footman. The lady's tones had +the Kentucky, loud, mellow ring; her foot tapped, and her nervous +fingers emphasized the words against her palm. + +"Ill-bred," thought the young man; but he bowed, smiling suavely. "If I +have been derelict in duty, Madam, I will be judged by a Higher Power." + +"But it's my way, young Sir, to go to the root of the matter, when I see +things rotting,--be it a potato-field or a church. We're plain-tongued +in my State. And I think the Higher Power needs a mouth-piece just now." + +And something nobler of mien than good-breeding gave to Sarah Sheppard's +earnest, pursy little figure meaning just then, before which the flimsy +student of the Thirty-Nine Articles stood silent. + +"I'm an old woman, young man; you're a boy, and the white cravat about +your neck gives me no more respect for you than the bit of down on your +chin, so long as you are unworthy to wear either. We Virginians and +Kentuckians may be shelled up yet in our old-fogy notions; it's likely, +as you say. We don't understand the rights of man, maybe, or know just +where Humanity has got to in its progress. But we've a grip on the +old-fashioned Christianity, and we mean to make it new again. And when I +see hundreds of young, penniless preachers, and old, placeless +preachers, shoving into the army for the fat salaries, drinking, +card-playing with the men, preaching murder instead of Christ's gospel +of peace, I'll speak, though I am a woman. I'll call them the Devil's +servants instead of the Lord's, and his best and helpfullest servants, +too, nowadays. If there's a time when a man's soul cries out to get a +clear sight of God, it's when he's standing up for what he thinks right, +with his face to the foe, and his country behind him. And it's not the +droning, slovenly prayers nor hashed-up political speeches of such men +as you, that will show Him to them. Oh, my son!" putting her hand on the +young man's arm, her voice unsteady, choking a minute, "I wish you'd be +earnest, a peace-teacher like your Master. It's no wonder the men +complain of the Federal chaplains as shams and humbugs. I don't know how +it is on the other side. I've a son there,--Harry. I'd like to think +he'd hear some live words of great truth before he goes into battle. Not +vapid gabbling over the stale, worn-out cant, nor abuse of the enemy. +When he's lying there, the blood coming from his heart on the sod, life +won't be stale to him, nor death, nor the helping blood of the cross. +And for his enemy, when he lies dead there, my Harry, would God love his +soul better because it came to Him filled with hate of his brother?" + +She was half talking to herself now, and the young man drew his +coat-sleeve out of her hold and slipped away. Afterwards he said that +old lady was half-Secesh, because she had a son in the Rebel army; but I +think her words left some meaning in his brain other than that. + +She met Blecker, her face redder, her eyebrows blacker than usual. + +"You up and out, Doctor Blecker? Very well! You'll pay for it in fever +to-morrow. But every young man is wiser in his own conceit, to-day, than +seven men that can render a reason. It was not so in my day. Young +people knew their age. I never sat down before my mother without +permission granted, nor had an opinion of my own." + +She stood silent a moment, cooling. + +"Pha, pha! I'm a foolish old body. Fretting and fuming to no purpose, +likely. There's Pratt, now, laughing, down the street. 'Mother, if +you're going to have one of your brigazoos with that young parson, I'm +off,' he says. He says,--'You're not in your own country, where the +Shelbys rule the roast.' What if I'm not, Doctor Blecker? Truth's truth. +I'm tired of cant, whether it belongs to the New-England new age of +reason, their Humanity and Fourierism and Broad-Church and Free-Love, +or what not, or our own Southern hard-bit, tight-reined men's creeds. +Not God's,--driving men headlong into one pit, all but a penned-up +dozen. I'm going back of all churches to the words of Jesus. There's my +platform. But you said you wanted to speak with me. What's _your_ +trouble?" + +Blecker hesitated,--not knowing how this sturdy interpreter of the words +of Jesus would look on his marriage with another man's wife, if she +understood the matter clearly. He fumbled his cravat a minute, feeling +alone, as if the earth and heaven were vacant,--no background for him to +lean against. Men usually do stand thus solitary, when they are left to +choose by God. + +"You're hard on the young fellow, Mrs. Sheppard. I wish for my own sake +he was a better specimen of his cloth. There's no one else here to marry +me." + +"Tut! no difference what _he_ is,"--growing graver, as she spoke. "God's +blessing comes pure, if the lips are not the cleanest that speak it. You +are resolved, then, on your course, as you spoke to me last night?" + +"Yes, I am, if Grey will listen to reason. You and the Colonel leave +to-morrow?" + +"Yes, and she cannot stay here behind me, to a certainty. Pratt is +ordered off, and I must go see to my three-year-olds. Morgan will have +them before I know what I'm about. I'll take the girl back to Wheeling, +so far on her way home. As to this marriage"---- + +She stopped, with her fingers on her chin. The Doctor laughed to +himself. She was deciding on Grey's fate and his, as if they were a pair +of her three-year-olds that Government wanted to buy. + +"It's unseemly, when the child's father is not here. That's how it seems +to me, Dr. Blecker. As for love, and that, it will keep. Pha, pha! +There's one suggestion of weight in favor of it. If you were killed in +battle, the girl would have some provision as your widow that she could +not have now. D'ye see?" + +Blecker laughed uneasily. + +"I see; you come at the bone of the matter, certainly. I have concluded, +Mrs. Sheppard, Grey must go with you; but she shall leave here as my +wife. If there is any evil consequence, it shall come to me." + +There was a moment's silence. He avoided the searching black eyes fixed +on his face. + +"It is not for me to judge in this matter," she said, with some reserve. +"The girl is a good girl, however, and I will try and take the place of +a mother to her. You have reasons for this haste unknown to me, +probably. When do you wish the ceremony, and where, Doctor? The church +up yonder," sliding into her easy, dogmatic tone again; "it's one of the +few whole roofs in the place. That is best,--yes. And for time, say +sunset. That will suit me. I must go write to that do nothing M'Key +about the trousers for Pratt's men. They're boxed up in New York yet: +and then I've to see to getting a supply of blue pills. If you'll only +give one to each man two nights before going into battle, just enough to +stir their livers up, you'll find it work like a charm in helping them +to fight. Sundown,--yes. I cannot attend to it possibly before." + +"It was the time I had fixed upon, if Grey consents." + +"Pah! she's a bit of linen rag, that child. You can turn her round your +finger, and you know it. You will find her down on the shore, I think. I +must go and tell my young parson he had better read over the ceremony +once or twice to be posted up in it." + +"To be sure, Pratt," she said, a few moments after, as she detailed the +intended programme to the Colonel, farther down the street,--"to be +sure, it's too hasty. I have not had time to give it consideration as I +ought. These wartimes, my brain is so thronged night and day. But I +think it's a good match. There's an honest, downright vein in young +Blecker that'll make a healthy life. Wants birth, to be sure. Girl's got +that. You needn't sneer, Pratt. It is only men and women that come of +the old rooted families, bad or good, that are self-poised. Made men +always have an unsteady flicker, a hitch in their brains +somewhere,--like your Doctor, eh? Grey's out of one of the solid old +Pennsylvania stocks. Better blooded the mule, the easier goer, fast or +not." + +She shut her porte-monnaie with a click, and repinned her little veil +that struck out behind her, stiff, pennant-wise, as she walked. + +"Well, I've no time now. I'm going to drop in and see that Gurney, and +tell him he's exchanged. And the sooner he's up and out, the better for +him. Dyspepsia's what ails _him_. I'll get him out for a walk to-day. 'S +cool and bracing." + +It was a bracing day, the current of wind coming in between the Maryland +Heights fresh and vigorous, driving rifts of gray cloud across the +transparent blue overhead. A healthy, growing day, the farmers called +it; one did fancy, too, that the late crops, sowed after the last +skirmish about the town, did thrust out their green blades more +hopefully to-day than before; the Indian corn fattened and yellowed +under its tresses of soft sun-burnt silk. Grey, going with Pen that +afternoon through a great field of it, caught the clean, damp perfume of +its husk; it put her in mind of long ago, somehow, when she was no older +than Pen. So she stopped to gather the scarlet poppies along the fence, +to make "court-ladies" out of them for him, as she used to do for +herself in those old times. + +"Make me some shawls for them," said Pen, presenting her some +lilac-leaves, which she proceeded to ornament by biting patterns with +her teeth. + +"Oth said, if I eat poppy-seeds, I'd sleep, an' never waken again. Is +that true, Sis?" + +"I believe it is. I don't know." + +Death and eternal sleeps were dim, far-off matters to Grey always,--very +trivial to-day. She was a healthy, strong-nerved woman, loving God and +her kin with every breath of her body, not likely to trouble herself +about death, or ever to take her life as a mean, stingy makeshift and +cheat, a mere rotten bridge to carry her over to something better, as +more spiritually-minded women do. It was altogether good and great; +every minute she wanted a firmer hold on it, to wring more work and +pleasure out of it. She was so glad to live. God was in this world. +Sure. She knew that, every moment she prayed. In the other? Yes; but +then that was shadowy, and there were no shadows nor affinity for them +in Grey. This was a certainty,--here. And to-day----So content to be +alive to-day, that a something dumb in her brown eyes made Pen, looking +up, laugh out loud. + +"Kiss me, Sis. You're a mighty good old Sis to-day. Let's go down to the +river." + +They went down by the upper road, leaving the town behind them. The road +was only a wide, rutted cow-path on the side of the hill. Here and there +a broken artillery-wheel, or bomb-shell, or a ragged soldier's jacket +lay among the purple iron-weed. She would not see them--to-day. Instead, +she saw how dark the maple-leaves were growing,--it was nearly time for +them to turn now; the air was clear and strong this morning, as if it +brought a new lease of life into the world; on the hill-banks, brown and +ash-colored lichen, and every shade of green, from pale apple-tint to +the blackish shadows like moss in October, caught the sunshine, in the +cheeriest fashion. Yellow butterflies chased each other about the grass, +tipsily; the underbrush was full of birds, chattering, chirping calls, +stopping now and then to thrill the air up to heaven with a sudden +shiver of delight,--so glad even they were to be alive. Mere flecks of +birds, some of them, bits of shining blue and scarlet and brown, +trembling in and out of the bushes: chippeys, for instance,--you +know?--so contemptibly little; it was ridiculous, in these sad times, +to see how much joy they made their small bodies hold. But it isn't +their fault that they only have instinct, and not reason. I'm afraid +Grey, with most women, was very near their predicament. That day was so +healthy, though, that the very bees got out of their drowsiness, and +made a sort of song of their everlasting hum; and that old coffin-maker +of a woodpecker in the hollow beech down by the bridge set to work at +his funereal "thud, thud," with such sudden vigor, it sounded like a +heartsome drum, actually, beating the reveille. Not much need of that: +Grey thought the whole world was quite awake: looking up to the +mountains, she did not feel their awful significance of rest, as Paul +Blecker might have done. They only looked to her like the arms this +world had to lift up to heaven its forests and flowers,--to say, "See +how glad and beautiful I am!" Why, up there in those barest peaks above +the clouds she had seen delicate little lakes nestling, brimming with +light and lilies. + +They came to the river, she and Pen, where it bends through the gorge, +and sat down there under a ledge of sandstone, one groping finger of the +sunshine coming in to hold her freckled cheek and soft reddish hair. +They say the sun does shine the same on just and unjust; but he likes +best to linger, I know, on things wholesome and pure like this girl. +When Pen began to play "jacks" with the smooth stones on the shore, she +spread out her skirt for him to sit on,--to keep him close, hugging him +now and then, with the tears coming to her eyes: because she had seen +Paul an hour before, and promised all he asked. And Pen was the only +thing there of home, you know. And on this her wedding-day she loved +them all with a hungry pain, somehow, as never before. She was going +back to-morrow; she could work and help them just as before; and yet a +gulf seemed opening between them forever. She had been selfish and +petulant,--she saw that now; sometimes impatient with her old father's +trumpery rocks, or Lizzy's discontent; in a rage, often, at Joseph. Now +she saw how hardly life had dealt with them, how poor and bare their +lives were. _She_ might have made them warmer and softer, if she had +chosen. Please God, she would try, when she went home again,--wiping the +hot tears off, and kissing Pen's dismal face, until he rebelled. The +shadows were lengthening, the rock above her threw a jagged, black +boundary about her feet. When the sun was behind yon farthest hill she +was going back, up to the little church, with Pen; then she would give +herself to her master, forever. + +Whatever feeling this brought into her soul, she kept it there silent, +not coming to her face as the other had done in blushes or tears. She +waited, her hands clutched together, watching the slow sinking of the +sun. Not even to Paul had she said what this hour was to her. She had +come a long journey; this was the end. + +"I would like to be alone until the time comes," she had said, and had +left him. He did not know what he was to the girl; she loved him, +moderately, he thought, with a temperate appreciation that taunted his +hot passion. She did not choose that even he should know with what +desperate abandonment of self she had absorbed his life into hers. She +chose to be alone, shrinking, with a sort of hatred, from the vulgar or +strange eyes that would follow her into the church. In this beginning of +her new life she wanted to be alone with God and this soul, only kinsman +of her own. If they could but go, Paul and she, up into one of these +mountain-peaks, with Him that made them very near, and there give +themselves to each other, before God, forever! + +She sat, her hands clasped about her knees, looking into the gurgling +water. The cool, ashen hue that precedes sunset in the mountains began +to creep through the air. The child had crouched down at her feet, and +fallen into a half doze. It was so still that she heard far down the +path a man's footsteps crushing the sand, coming close. She did not +turn her head,--only the sudden blood dyed her face and neck. + +"Paul!" + +She knew he was coming for her. No answer. She stood up then, and looked +around. It was the prisoner Gurney, leaning against the rock, +motionless, only that he twisted a silk handkerchief nervously in his +hand, looking down at it, and crunching tobacco vehemently in his teeth. + +"I've met you at last, Grey. I knew you were at the Ferry." + +The girl said nothing. Sudden death, or a mortal thrust of Fate, like +this, brings only dumb astonishment at first: no pain. She put her +fingers to her throat: there was a lump in it, choking her. He laughed, +uneasily. + +"It's a devilish cool welcome, considering you are my wife." + +Pen woke and began to cry. She patted his shoulder in a dazed way, her +eyes never leaving the man's face; then she went close, and caught him +by the arm. + +"It is flesh and blood,"--shaking her off. "I'm not dead. You thought I +was dead, did you? I got that letter written from Cuba,"--toying with +his whiskers, with a complacent smirk. "That was the sharpest dodge of +my life, Grey. Fact is, I was damnably in debt, and tied up with your +people, and I cut loose. So, eh? What d' ye think of it, Puss?" putting +his hand on her arm. "_Wife_, eh?" + +She drew back against the sandstone with a hoarse whisper of a cry such +as can leave a woman's lips but once or twice in a lifetime: an animal +tortured near its death utters something like it, trying to speak. + +"Well, well, I don't want to incommode you,"--shifting his feet +uncertainly. "I--it's not my will I came across you. Single life suits +me. And you too, heh? I've been rollicking round these four years,--Tom +Crane and I: you don't know Tom, though. Plains,--Valparaiso,--New +Orleans. Well, I'm going to see this shindy out in the States now. Tom's +in it, head-devil of a guerrilla-band. _I_ keep safe. Let Jack Gurney +alone for keeping a whole skin! But, eh, Grey?"--mounting a pair of +gold-rimmed eye-glasses over his thick nose. "You've grown. Different +woman, by George! Nothing but a puling, gawky girl, when I went away. +Your eyes and skin have got color,--luscious-looking: why, your eyes +flash like a young bison's we trapped out in Nevada. Come, kiss me, +Grey. Eh?"--looking in the brown eyes that met his, and stopping short +in his approach. + +Of the man and woman standing there face to face the woman's soul was +the more guilty, it may be, in God's eyes, that minute. She loathed him +with such intensity of hatred. The leer in his eyes was that of a fiend, +to her. In which she was wrong. There are no thorough-bred villains, out +of novels: even Judas had a redeeming trait (out of which he hanged +himself). This man Gurney had a weak, incomplete brain, strong sensual +instincts, and thick blood thirsty for excitement,--all, probably, you +could justly say of Nero. He did not care especially to torment the +woman,--would rather she were happy than not,--unless, indeed, he needed +her pain. So he stopped, regarding her. Enough of a true voluptuary, +too, to shun turmoil. + +"There! hush! For God's sake don't begin to cry out. I'm weak yet; can't +bear noise." + +"I'm not going to cry," her voice so low he had to stoop to hear. +Something, too, in her heart that made her push Pen from her, when he +fumbled to unclasp her clinched hands,--some feeling she knew to be so +foul she dared not touch him. + +"Do you mean to claim me as your wife, John?" + +He did not reply immediately; leisurely inspecting her from head to +foot, as she stood bent, her eyes lying like a dead weight on his, +patting and curling his yellow whiskers meanwhile. + +"Wife, heh? I don't know. Your face is getting gray. Where's that +pretty color gone you had a bit ago, Puss? By George!"--laughing,--"I +don't think it would need much more temptation to make a murderer out of +you. I did not expect you to remember the old days so well. I was hard +on you then,"--stopping, with a look of half admiration, half fear, to +criticize her again. "Well, well, I'll be serious. Will I claim you +again? N--o. On the whole, I believe not. I'll be candid, Grey,--I +always was a candid man, you know. I'd like well enough to have the +taming of you. It would keep a man alive to play Petruchio to such a +Kate, 'pon honor! But I do hate the trammels,--I've cut loose so long, +you see. You're not enough to tempt a fellow to hang out as family man +again. It's the cursedest slavery! So I think," poising his ringed +finders on his chin, thoughtfully, "we'd best settle it this way. I'll +take my exchange and go South, and we'll keep our own counsel. Nobody's +wiser. If it suits you to say I'm dead, why, I'm dead at your service. I +won't trouble you again. Or if you would rather, you can sue out a +divorce in some of the States,--wilful desertion, etc. I'm willing." + +She shook her head. + +"In any case you are free." + +She wrung her hands. + +"I am never free again! never again!"--sobs coming now, shaking her +body. She crouched down on the ground, burying her head out of sight. + +"Tut! tut! A scene, after all! I tell you, girl, I'll do what you wish." + +She raised her head. + +"If you were _dead_, John Gurney! That is all. I was going to be a pure, +good, happy woman, and now"---- + +Her eyes closed, her head fell slowly on her breast, her hands and face +gray with the mottled blood blued under the eyes. + +"Oh, damn it! Poor thing! She won't know anything for a bit," said +Gurney, laying her head back against the sandstone. "I'll be off. What a +devil she is, to be sure! Boy, you'd best put some water on your +sister's face in a minute or two,"--to the whimpering Pen. "If I was +safe out of this scrape, and off from the Ferry"---- + +And thrusting his eye-glass into his pocket, he went up the hill, still +chafing his whiskers. Near the town he met Paul Blecker. The sun was +nearly down. The Doctor stopped short, looking at the man's face +fixedly. He found nothing there, but a vapid self-complacency. + +"He has not seen her," said Paul, hurrying on. "Another hour, and I am +safe." + +But Gurney had a keen twinkle in his eye. + +"It's not the first time that fellow has looked as if he would like to +see my throat cut," he muttered. "I begin to understand, eh? If he has a +mind to the girl, I'm not safe. Jack Gurney, you'd best vamose this +ranch to-night. Sheppard will parole me to headquarters, and then for an +exchange." + + + + +THE HANCOCK HOUSE AND ITS FOUNDER. + + "Every man's proper mansion-house and home, being the + Theater of his hospitality, the seate of selfe-fruition, the + comfortablest part of his own life, the noblest of his + sonne's inheritance, a kind of private princedome, nay, to + the possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, may + well deserve, by these attributes, according to the degree + of the master, to be decently and delightfully + adorned."--SIR HENRY WOTTON. + + +In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, _AEtatis suae_ 60, took it +upon himself to publish a plan of "The _Town_ of BOSTON in New-England. +_Engraven_ and _printed_ by Fra: Dewing and Sold by _Capt. Bonner and +Will'm. Price_, against y'e Town House." From the explanation given +on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42, +Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near +12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the +Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary +grandeur,--the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and +far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of +Beacon Hill,--a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing +settlement. + +Fifteen years later, a great improvement began to be visible in this +hitherto neglected suburb. The whole southerly slope of the hill had +been purchased in 1735 by a citizen of renown, and soon a fair stone +mansion began to show its elegant proportions on the most eligible spot +near its centre. By this time, as we have it, on the authority of no +less reputable a chronicler than Mr. John Oldmixon, "the Conversation of +the Town of Boston is as polite as in most of the Cities and Towns of +England; many of their merchants having traded into Europe, and those +that stayed at home having the Advantage of Society with travellers" +(including, of course, Mr. Oldmixon himself). "So that a gentleman from +London would almost think himself at home at Boston," (this is in Mr. +Anthony Trollope's own vein,) "when he observes the numbers of people, +their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and +conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most +considerable tradesman in London." _Primus inter pares_, however, stood +the builder of the house on Beacon Hill, and there seems to be little +doubt that Mr. Hancock's doings on his fine estate created a great stir +of admiration, and that the new stone house was thought to be a very +grand and famous affair in the infant metropolis of New England, in the +year 1737. + +The precise period which brought Mr. Hancock to undertake the building +of the house in Beacon Street was one in which it might not have been +altogether uninteresting to have lived. The affairs of the mother +country had been carried on for nearly twenty years of comparative +peace, under the dexterous guidance of Sir Robert Walpole,--that +cleverest, if not most scrupulous, minister of the British crown,--while +my Lord Bolingbroke--permitted to return from France, but living under a +qualified attainder, and closely watched by the keen-sighted +minister--was occupying himself in writing his bitter and uncompromising +pamphlets against the government of the House of Hanover. The minister's +son Horace, an elegant, indolent youth, fresh from Cambridge, was +travelling on the Continent in company with a shy and sensitive man of +letters, not much known at the time,--by the name of Gray. This +gentleman gained no small credit, however, some ten or twelve years +afterwards, by the publication of "An Elegy written in a Country +Churchyard,"--a piece which, notwithstanding the remote date of its +appearance, it is possible that some of our readers may have chanced to +come across in the course of their literary researches. Giddiness, loss +of memory, and other alarming symptoms of mental disorder had begun to +attack the great intellect of Dr. Swift, and forced him to lay aside the +pen which for nearly half a century had been alternately the scourge and +the support of the perplexed cabinets of the time. His friend Mr. Pope, +however, was living quite snug and comfortable, on the profits of his +translations, at his pretty villa at Twickenham, and adding to his fame +and means by the publication of his "Correspondence" and his "Universal +Prayer." The learned Rector of Broughton, Dr. Warburton, encouraged by +the advice of friends, had just brought out his first volume of "The +Divine Legation of Moses"; the Bishop of Bristol had carried his great +"Analogy of Religion" through the press the year before; Dr. Watts was +getting old and infirm, but still engaged in his thirty years' visit to +his friend Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, of Abney Park, Stoke +Newington. That remarkable young Scotchman, David Hume, was paying his +respects to the sensational philosophy of Locke in a series of essays +which "spread consternation through every region of existing +speculation"; Adam Smith was a promising pupil under Hutcheson,--the +father of Scotch metaphysics,--at the University of Glasgow. General +Fielding's son Henry--but just married--was spending his charming young +wife's portion of fifteen hundred pounds in the careless hospitality of +his Derbyshire house-keeping,--three years' experience of which, +however, reduced him to the necessity of undertaking his first novel for +the booksellers, in the story of "Joseph Andrews." Captain Cook, at the +age of thirteen, was a restless apprentice to a haberdasher near Whitby. +And although "the age of steam" had certainly not then arrived, it must +yet be allowed--in the words of the Highland vagrant to Cameron of +Lochiel, not long after--that already + + "Coming events cast their shadows before,"-- + +since we find that there lay in his nursery, in the family of Town +Councillor Watt, the Bailie of Greenock, in the spring of the year 1736, +a quiet, delicate, little Scotch baby, complacently sucking the tiny +fist destined in after years to grasp and imprison that fearful vapory +demon whose struggle for escape from his life-long captivity now +furnishes the motive-power for the most mighty undertakings of man +throughout the civilized world. It would surely have been something, we +think,--the opportunity to have seen all these, from Bolingbroke in his +library to James Watt in his cradle. + +Turning to affairs somewhat nearer home, perhaps a slight glance at +"y'e conversation and way of living" of the good people of Boston, +during the years that Mr. Hancock was carrying on his building and +getting himself gradually settled in its comforts, may help us to +conceive a better idea of the form and pressure of the age. Well,--Mr. +Peter Faneuil was just then laboring to persuade the town that it might +not be the worst thing they could do to accept the gift of a handsome +new Town-Hall which he was very desirous to build for them,--an opinion +so furiously combated and opposed by the conservatives and practical men +of that day, that Mr. Faneuil succeeded in carrying his revolutionary +measure, at last, in the open town-meeting, by a majority of only seven +votes (a much larger majority, however, it is but fair to observe, than +that which adopted a decent City-Hall for the same municipality only +last year). Whitefield was preaching on the Common, in front of Mr. +Hancock's premises, to audiences of twenty thousand people, "as some +compute," "poor deluded souls," says the unemotional Dr. Douglass, +writing at the period, "whose time is their only Estate; called off to +these exhortations, to the private detriment of their families, and +great Damage to the Public: _thus perhaps every such exhortation of his +was about L1000 damage to Boston_." Governor Belcher, who came home from +England with the same instructions as Governor which he was sent out to +oppose as envoy, had been superseded in his high office by "William +Shirley, Esquire,--esteemed for his gentlemanly deportment." Watchmen +were required "_in a moderate tone_ to cry the time o' night, and give +an Account of the Weather as they walk't their rounds after twelve +o'clock." The men that had been raised in town for the ill-starred +expedition to Carthagena were being drilled on the Common,--and Hancock, +writing to a friend, tells him, "We have the pleasure of Seeing 'em +Disciplin'd every Day from 5 in morning to 8, & from 5 afternoon 'till +night, before our house,--many Gentle'n & others Daily fill y'e +Common,--& wee have not y'e Less Company for it, but a quicker draft +for Wine & Cider." Annually, on the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes, the +Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender were burned on the Common, amidst +much noise and rioting, often degenerating into the tapping of claret +and solid cracking of crowns between the North End and South End +champions,--who made this always their field-day, _par excellence_,--to +the great worriment of the Town Constables, and the infinite wrath and +disgust of the Select Men. And, finally, we remark, "the goodness of the +pavement in Boston might compare with most in London, for to gallop a +Horse on it is three Shillings and fourpence Forfeit!" + +Such were the curious and simple, but, withal, rather cozy and jolly old +years in which the Hancock House was planned and built and first +occupied. Always a really fine residence, it is now the sole relic of +the family mansions of the _old_ Town of Boston, as in many respects it +has long been the most noted and interesting of them all. One hundred +and twenty-seven years have passed away since its erection, and old +Captain Bonner's map now requires a pretty close study to enable our +modern eyes to recognize any clue to its present locality. It stands, in +fact, a solitary monumental pillar in the stream of time,--a link to +connect the present with the eventful past; and the prospect of its +expected removal--though not, we trust, of its demolition--may render +the present a fitting opportunity to call up some few of the quaint old +reminiscences with which it is connected. + +We have now before us, as we write, the original Contract or Indenture +for the freestone work of the venerable structure. It is a document +certainly not without a curious interest to those of us who have passed +and repassed so often in our daily walks the gray old relic of New +England's antiquity, to the very inception of which this faded paper +reverts. It is an agreement made between Mr. Thomas Hancock and one +"Thomas Johnson of Middleton in the County of Hartford and Colony of +Connecticut In New-England, Stone-Cutter." By this instrument the +Connecticut brown-stone man of that day binds himself to "Supply and +Furnish the said Thomas Hancock with as much Connecticut Stone as Shall +be Sufficient to Beatify and build Four Corners, One Large Front Door, +Nine Front Windows and a Facie for the Front and back Part Over the +Lower Story Windows of a certain Stone House which the Said Thomas +Hancock is about to Erect on a Certain Piece of Land Situate near Beacon +Hill in Boston aforesaid; as also So much of said Connecticut Stone as +shall be Sufficient to make a water Table round the Said House, which +Said Stone the Said Johnson Covenants and Agrees shall be well Cut, +fitted and polished, workmanlike and According to the Rules of Art every +way Agreeable, & to the Liking and Satisfaction of Mr. Hancock." The +stone is to be delivered to Mr. Hancock's order at Boston, all "In Good +Order and Condition, not Touched with the Salt Water, and at the proper +Cost, Charge and Risque of the s'd Johnson." The consideration paid to +Johnson is fixed at "the Sum of three hundred Pounds _in Goods_ as the +Said Stone Cutter's work is Carryed on." The latter stipulation as to +the payment would be curious enough at the present day, though it +appears to have been not uncommon at the time this contract was +executed. The perusal of Mr. Thomas Hancock's letter-book, however, now +also lying before us, will not leave one in any need of this additional +proof of the old Boston merchant's keen eye always to a business profit. + +The Indenture is written in a clear, round, mercantile hand,--evidently +Mr. Hancock's own, but his _best_, by comparison with the +letter-book,--the leading words of the principal paragraphs being +garnished with masterly flourishes, and the top of the paper "indented" +by cutting with a knife so as to fit or "tally," after the fashion of +those days, with the corresponding copy delivered to Johnson. It has +been indorsed and filed away with evident care, and is consequently now +in a state of absolute and perfect preservation. With the exception, +however, of that little matter of the _store-pay_, and of the wording of +the date of its execution, which is given as the "Tenth Year of the +Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God of +Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.," +the document differs but little in its phraseology--so conservative is +the letter of the law of real estate--from those in use for precisely +such contracts in the year 1863. + +"Thomas Hancock, of Boston in the County of Suffolk and Province of the +Massachusetts Bay in New England, Merchant," as he is named and +described in the paper before us, was the founder of the fortunes of the +family, and a man of the most considerable note and importance in his +day. He was the son of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, of Lexington, in +which town he was born on the 13th of July, 1703. He was sent to Boston +early in life to learn the business of a stationer,--with which calling +those of bookseller and bookbinder were then combined,--and served his +time accordingly with the leading provincial bibliopole of the day, "the +enterprising Bookseller Henchman," who died in 1761. Quick, active, +thrifty, young Hancock soon made his way in the world,--his famous +bookstore in Ann Street was known as the "Stationers' Arms" as early as +1729; the industrious apprentice in due course married his master's fair +daughter Lydia; and so our Thomas Hancock went on his way to credit and +fortune, and last and best of all to house-building after his own mind, +"the comfortablest part of his own life," with strides quite as easy and +certain as did his contemporary, the Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq., +of London,--whose career was, at that very time, so impressing itself +upon the notice of that eminent hand, Mr. William Hogarth, of Leicester +Fields in the Parish of St. Martin's, as to lead him to depict its +events in the remarkable series of prints, "Industry and Idleness," in +which they are now handed down for the admiration of posterity. And what +the great painter tells us of his hero is equally true of ours,--that, +"by taking good courses, and pursuing those points for which he was put +apprentice, he became a valuable man, and an ornament to his country." + +The pursuits connected with book-making were not, however, without their +trials and troubles, even at that early day. From some of Hancock's +letters for the year 1736, we find that one Cox was a sad thorn in his +side, a grievous lion in his daily path. His chief correspondent among +the booksellers in London at this period was Mr. Thomas Longman,--the +founder of the renowned house of Longmans of our own time,--and to him +Hancock often pours out his trials and grievances in the quaint and +pointed style of the business letters of "The Spectator's" own day. +Under date of April 10, 1736, for instance, he writes,--"I cannot Think +of Doing much more in the Book way at present, unless Cox Recalls his +Agent, which I am Certain He never will if you give up this point," (_i. +e._ of making larger consignments to Hancock on his own account,) "as I +can Improve my Money In other Goods from Great Brittan to so much better +Advantage." Yet, he continues, "I am unwilling Quite to Quit The Book +branch of Trade, and you Can't but be Senceable that it was my Regard to +you has Occasioned it's being forced from me in this way." + +About the month of May, 1738, Cox appears to have become wellnigh +intolerable. On the 24th of that month our bookseller writes to +Longman,--"Cox has Sent some more Books here this Spring, & I Cannot +Learn that he's Called his man home Yet. I am a Great Sufferer by him, +as well as you, having above L250 Sterling in Books by me, before what +Came from you now." Sometimes, however, Cox makes a slight mistake, and +then our bookseller again takes heart of courage. Thus, under date of +October 29, 1739, he again writes to Longman,--"Cox's man Caine in +Hall's ship about a month Agoe, brought Eight Trunks and a Box or two of +Books, has opened his Shop, but makes no Great Figure & is but little +taken Notice off, _which is a a Good Symtom of a bad Sortment_,--his +Return here was Surprising to me; truly I did not Expect it. At present +I don't know how to Govern myself as to the Book Trade, _but am willing +to do the Needful to Discountenance him_, and will write you again in +little Time." But, alas! by the 10th of December following, Cox had +rallied bravely, and, accordingly, Hancock again writes in despair,--"I +know not how to Conduct my Affairs as to the Book Trade. Cox's Shop is +opened, & he has a pretty Good Collection of Books. He brought with him +8 Trunks, & 4 Came in y'e next Ship. His Coming is A Great Damage to +me, having many Books by me unsold for Years past, & most all which I +had of you this Year. I am Ready Sometimes to Give up that part of my +Business, & I think I should have done it ere now, were I not in hopes +of Serving you in that Branch of Trade. _Could you propose any Scheem to +discountenance our Common Enemy I will Gladly Joyn you_. I fear he will +have more Goods in the Next Ship. I have Nothing to Add at this time +only that I am with Great Esteem Your Assur'd Fr'd &c. T. H." + +We may remark, that, if Longman were not by this time brought to be +fully _Senceable_ of the sacrifices which had been made here for his +interest, it was assuredly through no fault of his Boston customer. In a +letter dated April 30, 1736, Hancock had felt emboldened to inform +him,-- + + "I have Occasion for Tillotson's Works, Rapine's History of + England, Chamber's Dictionary & Burkitt on N. Testament for + my own use, and as the Burthen of y'e two Last years Sale + of Books & Returns for them has mostly Laine on my Self, & + as I have rec'd no Commitions, Some Debts yet outstanding, + and many books by me now on Sold, which shall be glad to + Sell for what I allowed you & now have paid for,--I say if + you'l please make a Present to me of y'e above named, or + any part of 'em They will be very Acceptable to me. My Last + to you was of y'e 10th & 14th Instent, which hope you have + Rec'd ere This & I am + + "Your obliged Humb. Serv. + + "T. H." + +Once only, in the whole correspondence, are we able to find that this +interloping caitiff of Cox's was fairly circumvented. With what an +inward glow of satisfaction must our Boston bookseller have found +himself sufficiently master of the situation to be able to write to +Longman (under date of May 10th, 1739),-- + + "Pr. this Conveyance Messr's. Joseph Paine & Son of London + have Orders from this place to buy L50. Sterling worth of + Books; I have Engaged Mr. Cushing, who writes to Paine to + Order him to buy them of you, & that you would Use them + well, which I Desire you to Doe; it will be ready money & I + was Loth you should miss of it, (this is the Case,--_Cox's + man_ had Engaged to Send for them & let the Gentleman have + 'em at the Sterling Cost,) but the Gentleman being my + friend, I interposed, & So Strongly Sollicited on your + behalf that I fix't it right at last & you may Certainly + depend on the Comition, tho' it may be needful you See Mr. + Paine as Soon as this Comes to hand. Pray procure me such a + Bible as you think may suit me & Send when Oppertunity + offers. + + "I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H." + +Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just +published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an +acknowledgment of this letter about the _Comition_ in more ways than +one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the +absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority, +gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty +to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least, +as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be +allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three +different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very +little thought at any time,--taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and +really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the [Greek: +batrachomyomachia] and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how +grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."[1] That +such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we +freely admit,--nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to +maintain,--but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and +a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as +the generality of his neighbors. + +There is one most extraordinary _escapade_ of his, however, in this line +of performance, which we do not know how we _can_ undertake wholly to +defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of +Exchange, he writes,--"As to the L100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above +mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that +Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,--he being the +_Topinest_ merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra'y for +it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective _topping_, +our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of +the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"--rather too +much, indeed, even for 1739. + +That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the +cacography of his time, we give _verbatim_ the following letter from +Christopher Kilby,[2] a letter among many of the same sort found with +Mr. Hancock's papers. + + "_London, 15 February 1727._ + + "HONEST FR'D. This not only advises you of my arrival but + acknowledges the rec't of your favour. By your desire I + waited upon Mr. Cox, & have told him and every body else, + where it was necessary, as much as you desired, & account it + part of my Felicity that I have so worthy a friend as Mr. + Hancock. When you arrive here you'l find things vastly + beyond your imagination,--I shall give you no other + Character of England than this, that it is beyond + expression, greater and finer than any thing I could ever + form an Idea of. I wish you may arrive before I leave it, + that you may with me, gaze and Wonder at a place that wee + can neither of us give a good Discripsion of. Pray present + my Services to Mr. Wood, Mr. Cunnington, and if Mr. + Leverett be not so engaged at the Annual meeting in Choosing + Hogg Constables &c. that to mention it to him might be an + interruption in so important affairs, my Service to him + also,--but rather than he shou'd loose any part of his + Pleasure while you take up his Time in doing it, I begg + you'l wait till a more leisure opportunity, when you may + assure him that I am at his Service in anything but being + Bread Weigher, Hogg Constable or any of those honourable + posts of pleasure & profit. I have nothing more to add but + Service to all friends, & assurance of my being + + "Your sincere friend & very + + "humble Servant, + + "CHRIS'R. KILBY." + +There is a letter in another book--Mr. Hancock's letter-book from 1740 +to 1744--in which poetical justice to the arch-disturber of his peace is +feelingly recorded. Cox[3] comes to grief at last,--surely, though late. +Observe with what placid resignation Hancock regards his rival's mishap. +The letter is to Longman, and bears date April 21st, 1742. + + "----Thomas Cox has sent Orders to a Gentle'n here to + Receive from his man all his Effects,--the Shop is + Accordingly Shutt up, & I am told his man is absconded & has + Carried of all the money, I hear to the value of L500 + Sterling; of Consequence a very bad Acco'tt must be + rendered to his Master & no doubt 't will put a final Stop + to his unjust proceedings & Trade to New-Eng'd. _I pray + God it may have this long wished for Effect_, the Good + fruits of which, I hope you & we shall soon partake of." + +The correspondence with Longman is kept up with great activity through +the whole of the first third of the volume before us. Gradually, +however, Hancock had been growing into a larger way of business, and his +Bills of Exchange for L500 and L600, drawn generally by Mr. Peter +Faneuil,[4] begin to be of more frequent occurrence,--bills which he +writes his London correspondents "are Certainly very Good, & will meet +with Due Honour." We read here and there of ventures to _Medara_ and to +_Surranam_, and of certain consignments of "Geese and Hogges to y'e +New Found Land." "Be so Good," he says, in a letter of May 17th, 1740, +to a friend then staying in London, "as to Interist me in y'e half of +8 or 10 Ticketts when any Lottery's going on, you think may doe, and am +oblidged to you for mentioning your Kind intention herein. Please God +y'e Young Eagle, Philip Dumerisque Com'r comes well home, and I +believe I shall make no bad voyage." It is easy to see that the snug +little business of the "Stationers' Arms" is soon to be given up, for +what Drake[5] describes as "the more extensive field of mercantile +enterprise."[6] By this time, too, the signs of the French War began to +loom alarmingly upon the horizon of the little colony, and Hancock rose +with the occasion to the character of a man of large and grave affairs. +Cox's man, and his Trunks and Sortments of Books, appear, after this, to +have but little of his attention. There was need of raising troops, and +of fitting out vessels; and when the famous expedition against Louisburg +was determined on, Hancock had a large share in the matter of providing +its munitions and equipment. His correspondence with Sir William +Pepperell in these great affairs still lies preserved in good order in +boxes in the attic of the old mansion. + +Meanwhile, as he rose in the world, he had been laying out his grounds, +and building and furnishing his house; his first letter from which is +addressed to his "Dear Friend," Christopher Kilby, then in London, and +is dated, rather grandly, "At my house in Beacon Street, Boston y'e +22'd Mar. 1739-40." Let us look back, then, a little over the yellow, +time-stained record of the letter-book before us, and see what were the +experiences of a gentleman, in building and planting in Beacon Street, +so long before our grandfathers were born. + +Under date of the 5th of July, 1736, Hancock writes to his friend and +constant correspondent in London, "Mr. Francis Wilks Esq'r,"[7] +inclosing a letter to one James Glin at Stepney, with orders for some +trees, concerning which he tells Wilks, "I am advised to have 'em +bought,--but if you Can find any man Will Serve us Better I Leave it to +your Pleasure." He must have thought it a great pity, from the sequel of +this affair, that Mr. Wilks's Pleasure did not happen to lie in another +direction. "I am Recommended by Mr. Tho's. Hubbard of This Town," runs +the letter inclosed to Glin, "to you for A number of Fruit Trees,--be +pleased to waite on Mr. Wilks for the Inv'o of them & Let me have +y'e best Fruit, & pack't in y'e best manner, & All numbered, with +an Acco't of y'e Same. I pray you be very Carefull That y'e Trees +be Took up in y'e Right Season, and if these Answer my Expectations I +shall want more, & 't will Ly in my way to Recommend Some Friends to +you. I Intreat the Fruit may be the best of their Kind, the Trees +handsome Stock, well Pack't, All N'o'd & Tally'd, & particular Inv'o +of 'em. I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H." + +This careful order was evidently duly executed by the nurseryman, and at +first all appears to have gone smoothly enough, since, on the 20th of +December following, (1736,) we find another letter to Glin, as +follows:-- + + "SIR,--My Trees and Seeds pr. Cap't. Bennett Came Safe to + hand and I Like them very well. I Return you my hearty + Thanks for the Plumb Tree & Tulip Roots you were pleased to + make a Present off, which are very Acceptable to me. I have + Sent my friend Mr. Wilks a mem'o to procure for me 2 or 3 + Doz. Yew Trees Some Hollys & Jessamin Vines & if you have + any Particular Curious Things not of a high price will + Beautifie a flower Garden, Send a Sample with the price or a + Catalogue of 'em; pray Send me a Catalogue also of what + Fruit you have that are Dwarf Trees and Espaliers. I shall + want Some next Fall for a Garden I am Going to lay out next + Spring. My Gardens all Lye on the South Side of a hill, with + the most Beautifull Assent to the Top & it's Allowed on all + hands the Kingdom of England don't afford So Fine a Prospect + as I have both of Land and water. Neither do I intend to + Spare any Cost or Pains in making my Gardens Beautifull or + Profitable. If you have any Knowlidge of S'r John James he + has been on the Spott & is perfectly acquainted with its + Situation & I believe has as high an Opinion of it as myself + & will give it as Great a Carrictor. Let me know also what + you'l Take for 100 Small Yew Trees in the Rough, which I'd + Frame up here to my own Fancy. If I can Do you any Service + here I shall be Glad & be Assured I'll not forgett your + Favour,--which being y'e needful Concludes, + + "S'r. + + "Your most Ob'edt. Servant, + + "THO'S. HANCOCK." + +But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the +force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to +blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The +maxim, "_L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose_," was found to be as +inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true +that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of +arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of +Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the +grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock, +therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural +disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate +nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most +righteous indignation. + + "SIR,--I Rec'd. your Letter & your Baskett of flowers per. + Capt. Morris, & have Desired Francis Wilks Esq'r to pay + you L26 for them _Though they are Every one Dead_. The Trees + I Rec'd Last Year are above half Dead too,--the Hollys all + Dead but one, & worse than all is, the Garden Seeds and + Flower Seeds which you Sold Mr. Wilks for me Charged at L6. + 8's. 2'd. Sterling were not worth one farthing. Not one + of all the Seeds Came up Except the Asparrow Grass, So that + my Garden is Lost to me for this Year. I Tryed the Seeds + both in Town and Country & all proved alike bad. I Spared + Mr. Hubbard part of them _and they All Serv'd him the + Same_." (Rather an unlucky blow this for poor Glin, as Mr. + Hubbard had been his first sponsor and perhaps his only + friend in New England.) "I think Sir, you have not done well + by me in this thing, for me to send a 1000 Leagues and Lay + out my money & be so used & Disapointed is very hard to + Bare, & so I doubt not but you will Consider the matter & + Send me over Some more of the Same Sort of Seeds that are + Good & Charge me nothing for them,--if you don't I shall + think you have imposed upon me very much, & 't will + Discourage me from ever Sending again for Trees or Seeds + from you. I Conclude, + + "Your Humble Serv't. + + "T. H. + + "P. S. _The Tulip Roots you were pleased to make a present + off to me are all Dead as well._" + +The last paragraph is truly delicious,--a real Parthian arrow, of the +keenest, most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined +that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,--not in the matter of +the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had +had the effrontery to send him. + +After learning the opinion entertained by Mr. Hancock of his estate, its +situation, prospect, and capacities, and understanding his intentions in +regard to its improvement, as expressed in his first letter to Glin,--it +may naturally be expected that we shall come upon some further allusions +to the works he had thus taken in hand, in the antiquated volume before +us. In this respect, as we turn over its remaining pages, we shall find +that we are not to be disappointed. His letters on the subject, +addressed to persons on the other side of the water, and particularly to +the trusty Wilks, are, in fact, for the space of the next three or four +years, most refreshingly abundant. Some of these are so minute, +characteristic, and interesting, that we shall need no apology for +transcribing them, most literally, here. On June 24th, 1737, he had +written to Wilks,-- + + "This waites on you per M'r Francis Pelthro who has Taken + this Voyage to Lond'o. in order to be Cutt for y'e Stone + by D'r. Cheselden;[8] he Is my Friend & a Very honest + Gentleman. In case he needs your advise in any of his + affairs & _Calls on you for it_, I beg y'e fav'r of you + to do him what Service falls in your way, which Shall Take + as done to my Self, and as he's a Stranger, Should he have + occasion for Ten Guineas please to Let him have it & Charge + to my Acco't. I suppose he's sofficeint with him--Except + Some Extrordinary accidant happen. + + "I beg your particular Care about my Glass, that it be the + best, and Every Square Cutt Exactly to the Size, & not to + worp or wind in the Least, & Pack't up So that it may take + no Damage on the passage,--it's for my Own Use & would have + it Extrordinary. I am S'r + + "Your most oblid'gd obed. Sev't. + + "T. H." + +By one of those stupid accidents,--not, as we are sorry to record, +altogether unknown to the business of house-building in our own +day,--the memorandum previously sent for the glass turned out to be +entirely incorrect. In less than a fortnight after, Mr. Hancock +accordingly hastens to countermand his order, as follows:-- + + "_Boston, N.E. July 5'th. 1737._ + + FRANCIS WILKS, ESQ'R. + + "S'R,--Sheperdson's Stay being Longer than Expected Brings + me to the 5'th of July, and if you have not bought my + Glass According to the Demention per Cap't. Morris I Pray + you to have no regard to those, but the following viz. + + "380 Squares of best London Crown Glass all Cutt Exactly 18 + Inches Long & 11-1/2 Inches wide of a Suitable Thickness to + the Largness of the Glass free from Blisters and by all + means be Carefull it don't wind or worp.-- + + "100 Squares Ditto 12 Inches Long 8-1/2 wide of the Same + Goodness as above. + + "Our Friend Tylers Son William Comes per This Conveyance, I + only add what Service's you doe him will Assuredly be + Retaliated By his Father, & will Oblidge S'r + + "Your most Obedient Hum'e Serv't + + "T. H." + +The window-glass being fairly off his mind, Mr. Hancock next turns his +attention to the subject of wall-papers, on which head he comes out in +the most strong and even amazing manner. We doubt if the documentary +relics of the last century can show anything more truly _genre_ than the +following letter "To Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London," dated + + "_Boston, N. E. Jan. 23'd. 1737-8._ + + "Sir,--Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a + Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have + Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for + my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for + me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of + the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room + Lately Come over here, & it takes much in y'e Town & will + be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion + may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get + mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it + more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there, + with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let + the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & + Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would + have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks + Esq'r. had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much + handsomeer Sent over here for M'r Sam'l Waldon of this + place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he + or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts + of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of + Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers + &c, But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. + Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same + hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have + two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer & + Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your + particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the + pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods. + Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Tho's. Pike of Pool[9] to pay + you L10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by + Sam'll Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have + also Crist'o Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esq'r. for L10 + wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other + Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain S'r. Your + Assured Fr'd & Hum'e. Servt. + + "T. H." + +There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the +glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of +New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is +fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear +Kilby," dated + + "22'd Mar. 1739-40. + + "I Pray the favour of you to Enquire what a pr. of Capitolls + will Cost me to be Carved in London, of the Corinthian + Order, 16-1/2 Inches One Way and 9 y'e Other,--to be well + Done. Please to make my Compliments Acceptable to Mr. Wilks, + & believe me to be + + "S'r. + + "Your assu'd. Friend & very + + "Hum'e. Sev't. + + "T. H." + +One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr. +Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by +his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where +all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an +elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties +necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so +bountiful a _cuisine_, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th, +1738, inclosing an order in these terms:-- + +"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,--Good works, with Iron Barrell, +a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it." + +Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters, +certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on +the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not +without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable +admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a +postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,--"I Desire you also +to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a +letter to Captain Partington, master of one of his vessels, then in +Europe, he writes,--"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring +me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, & +Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of +those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost +Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter & +Rob't. Scott," as follows:--"I have the favour to ask of you, when +please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return +the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,--I don't Stand for any +Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in +Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my +own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he +orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6 +Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fash'd wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers, +Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses, +12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby, +not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill." + +There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which +takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate +and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no +doubt a most stately and learned lady,--she looks very splendid in her +royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of +Windsor; but can her pompous old _stylus_ bring back for us the +every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,--paint for us the +things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"--or show +us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times, +one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We +seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried +years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of +their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr. +Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the +earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to +the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers. +Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions +revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems +to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and +downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for +one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of +his time, and that is their _directness_. He is the very antipode to Don +Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he +draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his +argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to +his meaning by inferences,--_he comes to the point_. If he likes more +"Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,--if he +thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by +him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end. + + ----"He pours out all, as plain + As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." + +Perhaps the particular phase of change which the language itself was +going through at the time may assist in giving these letters, to us, +something of their air of genuine force and originality. But after +making due allowance for the freshness of a vocabulary as yet unimpeded +by any cumbrous burden of euphemism, we are still convinced that we must +recognize the source of much of the quality we have noted only in the +_naive_ and outspoken nature of the writer. For, if ever there was a man +who knew just what he wanted and just how he wanted it, it was the T. H. +of the amusing correspondence before us. + +Thus lived, for some quarter of a century more, this cheery and +prosperous gentleman, growing into a manly opulence, and enjoying to the +full the pleasant "seate of self-fruition" which he had so carefully set +up for himself on Beacon Hill. Not much addressing himself, indeed, to +"looking abroad into universality," as Bacon calls it, but rather +honestly and heartily "doing his duty in that state of life unto which +it had pleased God to call him." He filled various posts of honor and +dignity meanwhile,--always prominent, and even conspicuous, in the +public eye,--and was "one of His Majesty's Council" at the commencement +of the troubles which led to the War of the Revolution. The full +development of this mighty drama, however, Thomas Hancock did not live +to see. He died of an apoplexy, on the first day of August, 1764, about +three of the clock in the afternoon, having been seized about noon of +the same day, just as he was entering the Council Chamber. He was then +in the sixty-second year of his age. By his will he gave one thousand +pounds sterling for the founding of a professorship of the Oriental +languages in Harvard College, one thousand pounds lawful money to the +Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, six hundred pounds +to the town of Boston, towards an Insane Hospital, and two hundred +pounds to the Society for carrying on the Linen Manufactory,--an +enterprise from which much appears, just then, to have been expected. +His property was valued, after his decease, at about eighty thousand +pounds sterling,--a very much larger sum for that time than its precise +money equivalent would represent at the present day. Having no issue of +his own, he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew John,--a gentleman +who, without a tithe of the nerve and pith and vigor of this our Thomas, +has yet happened, from the circumstances of the time in which he bore up +the family-fortunes, to have acquired a much more distinguished name and +filled a much larger space in the tablets of History than has ever +fallen to the share of his stout old uncle. + +The Hancock estate, as we have been accustomed to see it of late years, +is greatly reduced from its original dimensions, and shorn of much of +its ancient glory.[10] The property, in Mr. Thomas Hancock's time, +extended on the east to the bend in Mount Vernon Street, including, of +course, the whole of the grounds now occupied by the State +House,[11]--on the west to Joy Street, called Hancock Street on the +ancient plan of the estate now before us,--and in the rear about to what +is now Derne Street, on the north side of Beacon Hill, and comprising on +that side all the land through which Mount Vernon Street now runs, for +the whole distance from Joy Street to Beacon-Hill Place. Thus was +included a large part, too, of the site of the present reservoir on +Derne Street, a portion of which, being the last of the estate sold up +to the present year, was purchased by the city from the late John +Hancock, Esq., some ten or twelve years ago. The two large wings of the +house--the one on the east side containing an elegant ball-room, and +that on the west side comprising the kitchen and other domestic +offices--have long ago disappeared. The centre of the mansion, however, +remains nearly intact, and with its antique furniture, stately old +pictures, and the quaint, but comfortable appointments of the past +century, still suffices to bring up to the mind of the visitor the most +vivid and interesting reminiscences both of our Colonial and +Revolutionary history. + +The central and principal portion of the house, which remains entire, is +a very perfect and interesting specimen of the stateliest kind of our +provincial domestic architecture of the last century. There are several +other houses of a similar design still standing in the more important +sea-port towns of New England. The West House, on Essex Street, in +Salem, has but lately disappeared; but another in that neighborhood, the +Collins House in Danvers, (now the property of Mr. F. Peabody, of +Salem,) the Dalton House, on State Street, Newburyport, the Langdon +House, (now the residence of the Reverend Dr. Charles Burroughs,) in +Portsmouth, N. H., and the Gilman House, in Exeter, N. H., removed, not +long since, to make way for the new Town Hall, were all almost identical +with this in the leading features of their design. A broad front-door +opening from a handsome flight of stone steps, and garnished with +pillars and a highly ornamental door-head, a central window, also +somewhat ornamented, over it, and four other windows in each story, two +being on either side of the centre, a main roof-cornice enriched with +carved modillions, a high and double-pitched or "gambrel" roof with bold +projecting dormer-windows rising out of it, and a carved balcony-railing +inclosing the upper or flatter portion of the roof, are features common +to them all. The details of the Hancock House are all classical and +correct; they were doubtless executed by the master-builder of the day +with a scrupulous fidelity of adherence to the plates of some such work +as "Ware's Compleat Body of Architecture," or "Swan's Architect,"--books +of high repute and rare value at the time, and contemporary copies of +which are still sometimes to be found in ancient garrets. There is a +very perfect specimen of the former in the Athenaeum Library, and another +at Cambridge, while of the latter an excellent copy is in the possession +of the writer,--and it is not difficult to trace, in the soiled and +well-thumbed condition of some of the plates, evidences of the bygone +popularity of some peculiarly apposite or useful design. + +The material of the walls is of squared and well-hammered granite +ashlar,--probably obtained by splitting up boulders lying on the surface +of the ground only, above the now extensive quarries in the town of +Quincy. We incline to this conjecture, because it bears an exact +resemblance to the stone of the King's Chapel, built in 1753, and which +is known to have been obtained in that way. In fact, the wardens and +vestry of the Chapel, in their report on the completion of the +building, congratulated themselves that they had had such good success +in getting all the stone they needed for that building, as it was +exceedingly doubtful, they remarked, whether the whole country could be +made to furnish stone for another structure of equal extent. + +The interior of the house is quite in keeping with the promise of its +exterior. The dimensions of the plan are fifty-six feet front by +thirty-eight feet in depth. A nobly panelled hall, containing a broad +staircase with carved and twisted balusters, divides the house in the +centre, and extends completely through on both stories from front to +rear. On the landing, somewhat more than half-way up the staircase, is a +circular headed window looking into the garden, and fitted with +deep-panelled shutters, and with a broad and capacious window-seat, on +which the active merchant of 1740 doubtless often sat down to cool +himself in the draught, after some particularly vexatious morning's work +with poor Glin's "Plumb Trees and Hollys." On this landing, too, stood +formerly a famous eight-day clock, which has now disappeared, no one +knows whither. But the order for its purchase is before us in the old +letter-book, and will serve to give a very graphic idea of its unusual +attractions. The order is addressed, as usual, to Mr. Wilks, and bears +date December 20th, 1738. As the safe reception of the time-piece is +acknowledged in a subsequent letter, there can be little doubt as to its +identity. + + "I Desire the favour of you to procure for me & Send with my + Spring Goods, a Handsome Chiming Clock of the newest + fashion,--the work neat & Good, with a Good black Walnutt + Tree Case, Veneer'd work, with Dark, lively branches,--on + the Top insteed of Balls let be three handsome Carv'd + figures, Gilt with burnished Gold. I'd have the Case without + the figures to be 10 foot Long, the price 15 not to Exceed + 20 Guineas, and as it's for my own use I beg your particular + Care in buying of it at the Cheapest Rate. I'm advised to + apply to one Mr. Marmaduke Storr at the foot of Lond'n + Bridge, but as you are best Judge I leave it to you to + purchase it where you think proper,--wh. being the needfull, + Concludes + + "Sir Your &c. T. H." + +On the right of the hall, as you enter, is the fine old drawing-room, +seventeen by twenty-five feet, also elaborately finished in moulded +panels from floor to ceiling. In this room the founder of the Hancock +name, as a man of note, and a merchant of established consequence, must +often have received the Shirleys, the Olivers, the Pownalls, and the +Hutchinsons of King George's colonial court; and here, too, some years +later, his stately nephew John dispensed his elegant hospitalities to +that serene Virginian, Mr. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the +Army of the Revolution, and to the ardent young French Marquis who +accompanied him. The room itself, hung with portraits from the honest, +if not flattering hand of Smibert, and the more courtly and elegant +pencil of Copley, still seems to bear witness in its very walls to the +reality of such bygone scenes. We enter the close front-gate from the +sunny and bustling promenade of Beacon Street, pass up the worn and gray +terrace of the steps, and in a moment more closes behind us the door +that seems to shut us out from the whirl and turmoil and strife of the +present, and, almost mysteriously, to transport us to the grave shadows +and the dignified silence of the past of American history. + +Over the chimney-piece, in this room, hangs the portrait of John +Hancock, by Copley,--masterly in drawing, and most characteristic in its +expression. It was painted apparently about ten or twelve years earlier +than the larger portrait in Faneuil Hall,--an excellent copy of which +latter picture, but by another hand, occupies the centre of the wall at +the end of the room opposite the windows. But by far the most +interesting works of this great artist are the two pictures on the long +side of the room opposite the chimney,--the portraits of Thomas Hancock +and his handsome wife Lydia Henchman, done in colored crayons or +_pastel_, and which still retain every whit of their original freshness. +These two pictures are believed to be unique specimens of their kind +from the hand of Copley,--and equally curious are the miniature copies +of them by himself, done in oil-color, and which hang in little oval +frames over the mantel. That of the lady, in particular, is exquisitely +lifelike and easy. On the same long side of the room with the pastel +drawings are the portraits of Thomas Hancock's father and mother,--the +minister of Lexington and his dignified-looking wife,--by Smibert. In +one of the letters to "Dear Kilby," of which we have already made +mention in this article, there is an allusion to this portrait of his +father which shows in what high estimation it was always held by Mr. +Hancock. "My Wife & I are Drinking your health this morning, 8 o' the +Clock, in a Dish of Coffee and under the Shade of your Picture which I +Rec'd not long Since of Mr. Smibert, in which am much Delighted, & have +Suited it with a Frame of the fashion of my other Pictures, & fix'd it +at the Right hand of all, in the Keeping-room. Every body that Sees it +thinks it to be Exceedingly Like you, as it really is. I am of Opinion +it's as Good a Piece as Mr. Smibert has done, and full as Like you as my +Father's is Like him, which all mankind allows to be a Compleat +Picture." It is to be regretted that the picture of Kilby has now +disappeared from this collection. We have called the pastel portraits of +Thomas Hancock and his wife unique specimens; we should add this +qualification, however, that there is a _copy_ of the former in this +room,--also by Copley, but differing in the costume, and perhaps even +more carefully finished than the one already mentioned. + +The chamber overhead, too, has echoed, in days long gone by, to the +footstep of many an illustrious guest. Washington never slept here, +though it is believed that he has several times been a temporary +occupant of the room; but Lafayette often lodged in this apartment, +while a visitor to John Hancock, during his earlier stay in America. +Here Lord Percy--the same + + "who, when a younger son, + Fought for King George at Lexington, + A Major of Dragoons"-- + +made himself as comfortable as he might, while "cooped up in Boston and +panting for an airing," through all the memorable siege of the town. It +was from the windows of this chamber, on the morning of the 5th of +March, 1776, that the officers[12] on the staff of Sir William Howe +first beheld, through Thomas Hancock's old telescope, the intrenchments +which had been thrown up the night before on the frozen ground of +Dorchester Heights,--works of such a character and location as to +satisfy them that thenceforth "neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax could +afford them worse shelter than Boston." And here, too, years after the +advent of more peaceful times, the stately old Governor, racked with +gout, and "swathed in flannel from head to foot," departed this life on +the night of the 8th of October, 1793. As President of the Continental +Congress of 1776, he left a name everywhere recognized as a household +word among us; while his noble sign-manual to the document of gravest +import in all our annals--that wonderful signature, so bold, defiant, +and decided in its every line and curve--has become, almost of itself, +his passport to the remembrance and his warrant to the admiration of +posterity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Religio Medici_, Part II., Sec. 3. + +[2] Christopher Kilby was one of the Representatives of the Town in the +General Court, (1739,) and was appointed by that body to go to England, +as an agent for the Province. He soon after embarked for London, where +he resided for several years. He was called the "Standing Agent" of the +Province, and was likewise the Special Agent of the Town. Five years +after this, we find a record of his election, at which he had 102 votes +out of 109. When the General Court passed an act granting the King an +excise on spirituous liquors, wines, limes, lemons, and oranges, the +Town "voted unanimously to employ him to appear on behalf of the Town, +and to use his utmost endeavour to prevent said Act's obtaining the +Royal Assent," and likewise to be its agent in other matters. This +action of the Town was June 3d, 1755.--See Drake's _History of Boston_, +p. 606. + +[3] It would be interesting to know, something more of Cox,--who he was, +and what was his standing in the trade. Did he take rank with Tonson, +Watts, Lintot, Strahan, Bathurst, and the rest,--publishers of Pope, +Gay, Swift, etc.? or was his an Ishmaelite of the Row?--and did all the +trade think so badly of him as Hancock did? + +[4] The following letter from Mr. Faneuil's own hand, found among Mr. +Hancock's papers, is sufficiently curious to warrant its insertion +here:-- + + "_Boston, February 3'd._ 1738. + + "CAPT. PETER BUCKLEY, + + "S'r,--Herewith you have Invoice of Six hh's. fish, & 8 + Barrells of Alewifes, amounting to L75. 9. 2--which when you + arrive at Antiguas be pleased to Sell for my best advantage, + & with the net produce of the Same purchase for me, for the + use of my house, as likely a Strait limbed Negro lad as + possible you can, about the Age of from 12 to fiveteen + years, & if to be done, one that has had the Small pox, who + being for my Own service, I must request the fav'r. you + would let him be one of as tractable a disposition as you + can find, w'ch. I leave to your prudent care & management, + desireing after you have purchased him you would send him to + me by the first good Opportunity, recommending him to a + Particular care from the Captain by whom you send him. Your + care in this will be an Obligation,--I wish you a good + Voyage, & am + + "S'r. your humble Servant + + "PETER FANEUIL. + + "P.S. Should there not be En'o to purchase the Boy desir'd + be pleased to Add, & if any Overplus, to Lay it out for my + Best Advantage in any thing you think proper. P. F." + +Truly, in confronting this ghost of departed manners, may we say with +the Clown in "Twelfth Night,"--"Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his +revenges." The Hall which was the gift to the town of this merchant, who +proposes to trade codfish and _alewifes_ for a slave, afterward became +everywhere known to the world as the very "Cradle of Liberty." + +[5] _History of Boston_, p. 681. + +[6] Mr. Hancock, although a merchant "of the approved Gresham and +Whittington pattern," appears, for some reason or other, to have judged +no small degree of secrecy expedient in regard to some of his ventures. +Thus, under date of October 22d, 1736, he writes to Captain John +Checkering, then absent on a voyage on his account:-- + +"I hope ere this, you Safe arrived at Surranam, & your Cargo to a Good +Market. I Press you make the best dispatch possible, & doe all you can +to serve the Interist of y'e concerned, & Closely observe when you come +on our Coasts not to Speak with any Vessells, _nor let any of your men +write up to their wives_, when you arrive at our light house." + +[7] "At length wearied with the altercation and persuaded of the +justness of their cause," (in refusing to settle a fixed salary on Gov. +Burnet,) "the House resolved to apply to his Majesty for redress, and +Mr. Francis-Wilkes, a New-England merchant, then resident in London, was +selected as their agent."--Barry's _History of the Provincial Period of +Massachusetts_, p. 126. + +[8] + "I'll do what Mead and _Cheselden_ advise, + To keep these limbs and to preserve these eyes." + + POPE,--_Epistle to Bolingbroke._ + +[9] Liverpool. + +[10] In the "Massachusetts Magazine," Vol. I., No. 7, for July, 1789, +there is "A Description of the Seat of His Excellency John Hancock +Esq'r. Boston [Illustrated by a _Plate_, giving a View of it from the +_Hay-Market_]." The print is very well executed for the time, by Samuel +Hill, No. 50, Cornhill,--and the account of the estate is very curious +and interesting. It describes the house as "situated upon an elevated +ground fronting the south, and commanding a most beautiful prospect. The +principal building is of hewn stone, finished not altogether in the +modern stile, nor yet in the ancient Gothic taste. It is raised about 12 +feet above the street, the ascent to which is through a neat flower +garden bordered with small trees; but these do not impede the view of an +elegant front, terminating in two lofty stories. The east wing forms a +noble and spacious Hall. The west wing is appropriated to domestic +purposes. On the west of that is the coach-house, and adjoining are the +stables with other offices; the whole embracing an extent of 220 feet. +Behind the mansion is a delightful garden, ascending gradually to a +charming hill in the rear. This spot is handsomely laid out, embellished +with glacis, and adorned with a variety of excellent fruit trees. From +the Summer House opens a capital prospect," etc. + +"The respected character who now enjoys this earthly paradise, inherited +it from his worthy uncle, the Hon. Thomas Hancock Esq: who selected the +spot and completed the building, evincing a superiority of judgment and +taste.... In a word, if purity of air, extensive prospects, elegance and +convenience united, are allowed to have charms, this seat is scarcely +surpassed by any in the Union. Here the severe blasts of winter are +checked," etc. + +[11] In this connection, the subjoined document--the original of which +we have now at hand--may not be uninteresting, as showing the conditions +on which the heirs of Governor John Hancock consented to sell so large a +piece of the estate:-- + +"We the Subscribers, being a Committee of the town of Boston for the +purpose of purchasing a piece of Land for the erection of public +buildings, certify to all whom it may concern, that the Governor's +pasture purchased by us, shall be conveyed to the Commonwealth for that +use only, and that no private building shall be erected upon any part of +said pasture. Witness our hands this 9th day of April, 1795. + + WM. TUDOR, + JOHN C. JONES, + JOS. RUSSELL, + WILLIAM EUSTIS, + H. G. OTIS, + THOS. DAWES, + WILLIAM LITTLE, + PEREZ MORTON." + +[12] "Inclosed you have the dimensions of two Bed Chambers for each of +which I want Wilton Carpets,--do let them be neat. The British Officers +who possess'd my house totally defac'd & Ruined all my Carpets, & I must +Submit."--_Extract from a Letter of John Hancock, dated Nov. 14, 1783, +to Captain Scott, at Liverpool,--contained in Gov. Hancock's +Letter-Book._ + + + + +WHY THOMAS WAS DISCHARGED. + + +Brant Beach is a long promontory of rock and sand, jutting out at an +acute angle from a barren portion of the coast. Its farthest extremity +is marked by a pile of many-colored, wave-washed boulders; its junction +with the main-land is the site of the Brant House, a watering-place of +excellent repute. + +The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all +along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The +fishing is fair; and in still weather, yachting is rather a favorite +amusement. Further than this, there is little to be said, save that the +hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally +select. + +But to the lover of Nature--and who has the courage to avow himself +aught else?--the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep +of ever-shifting waters,--the flying mist of foam breaking away into a +gray and ghostly distance down the beach,--the eternal drone of ocean, +mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in +the parlors by night,--all these are active sources of a passive +pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through +half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark-blue sky +wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the +sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some +fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or +older legends of love and romance,--tell me, my eater of the fashionable +lotos, is not this a diversion well worth your having? + +There is an air of easy sociality among the guests at the Brant House, a +disposition on the part of all to contribute to the general amusement, +that makes a summer sojourn on the beach far more agreeable than in +certain larger, more frequented watering-places, where one is always in +danger of discovering that the gentlemanly person with whom he has been +fraternizing is a faro-dealer, or that the lady who has half fascinated +him is Anonyma herself. Still, some consider the Brant rather slow, and +many good folk were a trifle surprised when Mr. Edwin Salisbury and Mr. +Charles Burnham arrived by the late stage from Wikahasset Station, with +trunks enough for two first-class belles, and a most unexceptionable +man-servant in gray livery, in charge of two beautiful setter-dogs. + +These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting +some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, "remote, +unfriended, melancholy, slow"; for they brought almost everything with +them that men of elegant leisure could require, as if the hotel were but +four walls and a roof, which they must furnish with their own chattels. +I am sure it took Thomas, the man-servant, a whole day to unpack the +awnings, the bootjacks, the game-bags, the cigar-boxes, the guns, the +camp-stools, the liquor-cases, the bathing-suits, and other +paraphernalia that these pleasure-seekers brought. It must be owned, +however, that their room, a large one in the Bachelor's Quarter, facing +the sea, wore a very comfortable, sportsmanlike look, when all was +arranged. + +Thus surrounded, the young men betook themselves to the deliberate +pursuit of idle pleasures. They arose at nine and went down the shore, +invariably returning at ten with one unfortunate snipe, which was +preserved on ice, with much ceremony, till wanted. At this rate, it took +them a week to shoot a breakfast; but to see them sally forth, splendid +in velveteen and corduroy, with top-boots and a complete harness of +green cord and patent-leather straps, you would have imagined that all +game-birds were about to become extinct in that region. Their dogs, +even, recognized this great-cry-and-little-wool condition of things, and +bounded off joyously at the start, but came home crestfallen, with an +air of canine humiliation that would have aroused Mr. Mayhew's tenderest +sympathies. + +After breakfasting, usually in their room, the friends enjoyed a long +and contemplative smoke upon the wide piazza in front of their windows, +listlessly regarding the ever-varied marine view that lay before them in +flashing breadth and beauty. Their next labor was to array themselves in +wonderful morning-costumes of very shaggy English cloth, shiny flasks +and field-glasses about their shoulders, and loiter down the beach, to +the point and back, making much unnecessary effort over the walk,--a +brief mile,--which they spoke of with importance, as their +"constitutional." This killed time till bathing-hour, and then came +another smoke on the piazza, and another toilet, for dinner. After +dinner, a siesta: in the room, when the weather was fresh; when +otherwise, in hammocks, hung from the rafters of the piazza. When they +had been domiciled a few days, they found it expedient to send home for +what they were pleased to term their "crabs" and "traps," and excited +the envy of less fortunate guests by driving up and down the beach at a +racing gait to dissipate the languor of the after-dinner sleep. + +This was their regular routine for the day,--varied, occasionally, when +the tide served, by a fishing-trip down the narrow bay inside the point. +For such emergencies, they provided themselves with a sail-boat and +skipper, hired for the whole season, and arrayed themselves in a highly +nautical rig. The results were, large quantities of sardines and pale +sherry consumed by the young men, and a reasonable number of sea-bass +and black-fish caught by their skipper. + +There were no regular "hops" at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet +way every evening, to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some +of the waiters. For a time, Burnham and Salisbury did not mingle much in +these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very +elegantly dressed and barbered, (Thomas was an unrivalled _coiffeur_,) +and apparently somewhat _ennuye_. + +That two well-made, full-grown, intelligent, and healthy young men +should lead such a life as this for an entire summer might surprise one +of a more active temperament. The aimlessness and vacancy of an +existence devoted to no earthly purpose save one's own comfort must soon +weary any man who knows what is the meaning of real, earnest life,--life +with a battle to be fought and a victory to be won. But these elegant +young gentlemen comprehended nothing of all that: they had been born +with golden spoons in their mouths, and educated only to swallow the +delicately insipid lotos-honey that flows inexhaustibly from such +shining spoons. Clothes, complexions, polish of manner, and the +avoidance of any sort of shock, were the simple objects of their +solicitude. + +I do not know that I have any serious quarrel with such fellows, after +all. They have some strong virtues. They are always clean; and your +rough diamond, though manly and courageous as Coeur-de-Lion, is not +apt to be scrupulously nice in his habits. Affability is another virtue. +The Salisbury and Burnham kind of man bears malice toward no one, and is +disagreeable only when assailed by some hammer-and-tongs utilitarian. +All he asks is to be permitted to idle away his pleasant life +unmolested. Lastly, he is extremely ornamental. We all like to see +pretty things; and I am sure that Charley Burnham, in his fresh white +duck suit, with his fine, thorough-bred face--gentle as a girl's--shaded +by a snowy Panama, his blonde moustache carefully pointed, his golden +hair clustering in the most picturesque possible waves, his little red +neck-ribbon--the only bit of color in his dress--tied in a studiously +careless knot, and his pure, untainted gloves of pearl-gray or lavender, +was, if I may be allowed the expression, just as pretty as a picture. +And Ned Salisbury was not less "a joy forever," according to the dictum +of the late Mr. Keats. He was darker than Burnham, with very black hair, +and a moustache worn in the manner the French call _triste_, which +became him, and increased the air of pensive melancholy that +distinguished his dark eyes, thoughtful attitudes, and slender figure. +Not that he was in the least degree pensive or melancholy, or that he +had cause to be; quite the contrary; but it was his style, and he did it +well. + +These two butterflies sat, one afternoon, upon the piazza, smoking very +large cigars, lost, apparently, in profoundest meditation. Burnham, with +his graceful head resting upon one delicate hand, his clear blue eyes +full of a pleasant light, and his face warmed by a calm unconscious +smile, might have been revolving some splendid scheme of universal +philanthropy. The only utterance, however, forced from him by the +sublime thoughts that permeated his soul, was the emission of a white +rolling volume of fragrant smoke, accompanied by two words: + +"Dooced hot!" + +Salisbury did not reply. He sat, leaning back, with his fingers +interlaced behind his head, and his shadowy eyes downcast, as in sad +remembrance of some long-lost love. So might a poet have looked, while +steeped in mournfully rapturous day-dreams of remembered passion and +severance. So might Tennyson's hero have mused, when he sang,-- + + "Oh, that 'twere possible, + After long grief and pain, + To find the arms of my true love + Round me once again!" + +But the poetic lips opened not to such numbers. Salisbury gazed, long +and earnestly, and finally gave vent to his emotions, indicating, with +the amber tip of his cigar-tube, the setter that slept in the sunshine +at his feet. + +"Shocking place, this, for dogs!"--I regret to say he pronounced it +"dawgs."--"Why, Carlo is as fat--as fat as--as a"---- + +His mind was unequal to a simile, even, and he terminated the sentence +in a murmur. + +More silence; more smoke; more profound meditation. Directly, Charley +Burnham looked around with some show of vitality. + +"There comes the stage," said he. + +The driver's bugle rang merrily among the drifted sand-hills that lay +warm and glowing in the orange light of the setting sun. The young men +leaned forward over the piazza-rail, and scrutinized the occupants of +the vehicle, as it appeared. + +"Old gentleman and lady, aw, and two children," said Ned Salisbury; "I +hoped there would be some nice girls." + +This, in a voice of ineffable tenderness and poetry, but with that odd, +tired little drawl, so epidemic in some of our universities. + +"Look there, by Jove!" cried Charley, with a real interest at last; "now +that's what I call the regular thing!" + +The "regular thing" was a low, four-wheeled pony-chaise of basket-work, +drawn by two jolly little fat ponies, black and shiny as vulcanite, +which jogged rapidly in, just far enough behind the stage to avoid its +dust. + +This vehicle was driven by a young lady of decided beauty, with a spice +of Amazonian spirit. She was rather slender and very straight, with a +jaunty little hat and feather perched coquettishly above her dark brown +hair, which was arranged in one heavy mass and confined in a silken net. +Her complexion was clear, without brilliancy; her eyes blue as the ocean +horizon, and spanned by sharp, characteristic brows; her mouth small and +decisive; and her whole cast of features indicative of quick talent and +independence. + +Upon the seat beside her sat another damsel, leaning indolently back in +the corner of the carriage. This one was a little fairer than the first, +having one of those beautiful English complexions of mingled rose and +snow, and a dash of gold-dust in her hair, where the sun touched it. Her +eyes, however, were dark hazel, and full of fire, shaded and +intensified by their long, sweeping lashes. Her mouth was a rosebud, and +her chin and throat faultless in the delicious curve of their lines. In +a word, she was somewhat of the Venus-di-Milo type: her companion was +more of a Diana. Both were neatly habited in plain travelling-dresses +and cloaks of black and white plaid, and both seemed utterly unconscious +of the battery of eyes and eye-glasses that enfiladed them from the +whole length of the piazza, as they passed. + +"Who are they?" asked Salisbury; "I don't know them." + +"Nor I," said Burnham; "but they look like people to know. They must be +somebody." + +Half an hour later, the hotel-office was besieged by a score of young +men, all anxious for a peep at the last names upon the register. It is +needless to say that our friends were not in the crowd. Ned Salisbury +was no more the man to exhibit curiosity than Charley Burnham was the +man to join in a scramble for anything under the sun. They had educated +their emotions clear down, out of sight, and piled upon them a mountain +of well-bred inertia. + +But, somehow or other, these fellows who take no trouble are always the +first to gain the end. A special Providence seems to aid the poor, +helpless creatures. So, while the crowd still pressed at the +office-desk, Jerry Swayne, the head clerk, happened to pass directly by +the piazza where the inert ones sat, and, raising a comical eye, saluted +them. + +"Heavy arrivals to-night. See the turn-out?" + +"Y-e-s," murmured Ned. + +"Old Chapman and family. His daughter drove the pony-phaeton, with her +friend, a Miss Thurston. Regular nobby ones. Chapman's the +steamship-man, you know. Worth thousands of millions! I'd like to be +connected with his family--by marriage, say!"--and Jerry went off, +rubbing his cropped head, and smiling all over, as was his wont. + +"I know who they are now," said Charley. "Met a cousin of theirs, Joe +Faulkner, abroad, two years ago. Dooced fine fellow. Army." + +The manly art of wagoning is not pursued very vigorously at Brant Beach. +The roads are too heavy back from the water, and the drive is confined +to a narrow strip of wet sand along the shore; so carriages are few, and +the pony-chaise became a distinguished element at once. Salisbury and +Burnham whirled past it in their light trotting-wagons at a furious +pace, and looked hard at the two young ladies in passing, but without +eliciting even the smallest glance from them in return. + +"Confounded _distingue_-looking girls, and all that," owned Ned; "but, +aw, fearfully unconscious of a fellow!" + +This condition of matters continued until the young men were actually +driven to acknowledge to each other that they should not mind knowing +the occupants of the pony-carriage. It was a great concession, and was +rewarded duly. A bright, handsome boy of seventeen, Miss Thurston's +brother, came to pass a few days at the seaside, and fraternized with +everybody, but was especially delighted with Ned Salisbury, who took him +out sailing and shooting, and, I am afraid, gave him cigars stealthily, +when out of range of Miss Thurston's fine eyes. The result was, that the +first time the lad walked on the beach with the two girls, and met the +young men, introductions of an enthusiastic nature were instantly sprung +upon them. An attempt at conversation followed. + +"How do you like Brant Beach?" asked Ned. + +"Oh, it is a pretty place," said Miss Chapman, "but not lively enough." + +"Well, Burnham and I find it pleasant; aw, we have lots of fun." + +"Indeed! Why, what do you do?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Everything." + +"Is the shooting good? I saw you with your guns, yesterday." + +"Well, there isn't a great deal of game. There is some fishing, but we +haven't caught much." + +"How do you kill time, then?" + +Salisbury looked puzzled. + +"Aw--it is a first-rate air, you know. The table is good, and you can +sleep like a top. And then, you see, I like to smoke around, and do +nothing, on the sea-shore. It is real jolly to lie on the sand, aw, with +all sorts of little bugs running over you, and listen to the water +swashing about!" + +"Let's try it!" cried vivacious Miss Chapman; and down she sat on the +sand. The others followed her example, and in five minutes they were +picking up pretty pebbles and chatting away as sociably as could be. The +rumble of the warning gong surprised them. + +At dinner, Burnham and Salisbury took seats opposite the ladies, and +were honored with an introduction to papa and mamma, a very dignified, +heavy, rosy, old-school couple, who ate a good deal, and said very +little. That evening, when flute and viol wooed the lotos-eaters to +agitate the light fantastic toe, these young gentlemen found themselves +in dancing humor, and revolved themselves into a grievous condition of +glow and wilt, in various mystic and intoxicating measures with their +new-made friends. + +On retiring, somewhat after midnight, Miss Thurston paused, while "doing +her hair," and addressed Miss Chapman. + +"Did you observe, Hattie, how very handsome those gentlemen are? Mr. +Burnham looks like a prince of the _sang azur_, and Mr. Salisbury like +his poet-laureate." + +"Yes, dear," responded Hattie; "I have been considering those flowers of +the field and lilies of the valley." + +"Ned," said Charley, at about the same time, "we won't find anything +nicer here, this season, I think." + +"They're pretty well worth while," replied Ned; "and I'm rather pleased +with them." + +"Which do you like best?" + +"Oh, bother! I haven't thought of _that_ yet." + +The next day the young men delayed their "constitutional" until the +ladies were ready to walk, and the four strolled off together, mamma and +the children following in the pony-chaise. At the rocks on the end of +the point, Ned got his feet very wet, fishing up specimens of sea-weed +for the damsels; and Charley exerted himself superhumanly in assisting +them to a ledge which they considered favorable for sketching-purposes. + +In the afternoon a sail was arranged, and they took dinner on board the +boat, with any amount of hilarity and a good deal of discomfort. In the +evening, more dancing, and vigorous attentions to both the young ladies, +but without a shadow of partiality being shown by either of the four. + +This was very nearly the history of many days. It does not take long to +get acquainted with people who are willing, especially at a +watering-place; and in the course of a few weeks, these young folks +were, to all intents and purposes, old friends,--calling each other by +their given names, and conducting themselves with an easy familiarity +quite charming to behold. Their amusements were mostly in common now. +The light wagons were made to hold two each, instead of one, and the +matinal snipe escaped death, and was happy over his early worm. + +One day, however, Laura Thurston had a headache, and Hattie Chapman +stayed at home to take care of her; so Burnham and Salisbury had to +amuse themselves alone. They took their boat, and idled about the water, +inside the point, dozing under an awning, smoking, gaping, and wishing +that headaches were out of fashion, while the taciturn and tarry skipper +instructed the dignified and urbane Thomas in the science of trolling +for blue-fish. + +At length Ned tossed his cigar-end overboard, and braced himself for an +effort. + +"I say, Charley," said he, "this sort of thing can't go on forever, you +know. I've been thinking, lately." + +"Phenomenon!" replied Charley; "and what have you been thinking about?" + +"Those girls. We've got to choose." + +"Why? Isn't it well enough as it is?" + +"Yes,--so far. But I think, aw, that we don't quite do them justice. +They're _grands partis_, you see. I hate to see clever girls wasting +themselves on society, waiting and waiting,--and we fellows swimming +about just like fish round a hook that isn't baited properly." + +Charley raised himself upon his elbow. + +"You don't mean to tell me, Ned, that you have matrimonial intentions?" + +"Oh, no! Still, why not? We've all got to come to it, some day, I +suppose." + +"Not yet, though. It is a sacrifice we can escape for some years yet." + +"Yes,--of course,--some years; but we may begin to look about us a bit. +I'm, aw, I'm six-and-twenty, you know." + +"And I'm very near that. I suppose a fellow can't put off the yoke too +long. After thirty chances aren't so good. I don't know, by Jove! but +what we ought to begin thinking of it." + +"But it _is_ a sacrifice. Society must lose a fellow, though, one time +or another. And I don't believe we will ever do better than we can now." + +"Hardly, I suspect." + +"And we're keeping other fellows away, maybe. It is a shame!" + +Thomas ran his line in rapidly, with nothing on the hook. + +"Capt'n Hull," he said, gravely, "I had the biggest kind of a fish then, +I'm sure; but d'rectly I went to pull him in, Sir, he took and let go." + +"Yaaes," muttered the taciturn skipper, "the biggest fish allers falls +back inter the warter." + +"I've been thinking a little about this matter, too," said Charley, +after a pause, "and I had about concluded we ought to pair off. But I'll +be confounded, if I know which I like best! They're both nice girls." + +"There isn't much choice," Ned replied. "If they were as different, now, +as you and me, I'd take the blonde, of course; aw, and you'd take the +brunette. But Hattie Chapman's eyes are blue, and her hair isn't black, +you know; so you can't call her dark, exactly." + +"No more than Laura is exactly light. Her hair is brown, more than +golden, and her eyes are hazel. Hasn't she a lovely complexion, though? +By Jove!" + +"Better than Hattie's. Yet I don't know but Hattie's features are a +little the best." + +"They are. Now, honest, Ned, which do you prefer? Say either; I'll take +the one you don't want. I haven't any choice." + +"Neither have I." + +"How will we settle?" + +"Aw--throw for it?" + +"Yes. Isn't there a backgammon board forward, in that locker, Thomas?" + +The board was found, and the dice produced. + +"The highest takes which?" + +"Say, Laura Thurston." + +"Very good; throw." + +"You first." + +"No. Go on." + +Charley threw, with about the same amount of excitement he might have +exhibited in a turkey-raffle. + +"Five-three," said he. "Now for your luck." + +"Six-four! Laura's mine. Satisfied?" + +"Perfectly,--if you are. If not, I don't mind exchanging." + +"Oh, no. I'm satisfied." + +Both reclined upon the deck once more, with a sigh of relief, and a long +silence followed. + +"I say," began Charley, after a time, "it is a comfort to have these +little matters arranged without any trouble, eh?" + +"Y-e-s." + +"Do you know, I think I'll marry mine?" + +"I will, if you will." + +"Done! it is a bargain." + +This "little matter" being arranged, a change gradually took place in +the relations of the four. Ned Salisbury began to invite Laura Thurston +out driving and in bathing somewhat oftener than before, and Hattie +Chapman somewhat less often; while Charley Burnham followed suit with +the last-named young lady. As the line of demarcation became fixed, the +damsels recognized it, and accepted with gracious readiness the +cavaliers that Fate, through the agency of a chance-falling pair of +dice, had allotted to them. + +The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and +passed whispers about, to the effect that the girls had at last +succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net. No suitors +could have been more devoted than our friends. It seemed as if each now +bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to +both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the +sands, they were the very picture of a _partie carree_ of lovers. + +Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the +reticence common to my sex, they spoke less freely and frequently on the +subject. Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salisbury +ventured a few words. + +"I say, we're a couple of lucky dogs! Who'd have thought, now, aw, that +our summer was going to turn out so well? I'm sure I didn't. How do you +get along, Charley, boy?" + +"Deliciously. Smooth sailing enough. Wasn't it a good idea, though, to +pair off? I'm just as happy as a bee in clover. You seem to prosper, +too, heh?" + +"Couldn't ask anything different. Nothing but devotion, and all that. +I'm delighted. I say, when are you going to pop?" + +"Oh, I don't know. It is only a matter of form. Sooner the better, I +suppose, and have it over." + +"I was thinking of next week. What do you say to a quiet picnic down on +the rocks, and a walk afterward? We can separate, you know, and do the +thing up systematically." + +"All right. I will, if you will." + +"That's another bargain. I notice there isn't much doubt about the +result, though." + +"Hardly!" + +A close observer might have seen that the gentlemen increased their +attentions a little from that time. The objects of their devotion +perceived it, and smiled more and more graciously upon them. + +The day set for the picnic arrived duly, and was radiant. It pains me to +confess that my heroes were a trifle nervous. Their apparel was more +gorgeous and wonderful than ever, and Thomas, who was anxious to be off, +courting Miss Chapman's lady's-maid, found his masters dreadfully +exacting in the matter of hair-dressing. At length, however, the toilet +was over, and "Solomon in all his glory" would have been vastly +astonished at finding himself "arrayed as one of these." + +The boat lay at the pier, receiving large quantities of supplies for the +trip, stowed by Thomas, under the supervision of the grim and tarry +skipper. When all was ready, the young men gingerly escorted their fair +companions aboard, the lines were cast off, and the boat glided gently +down the bay, leaving Thomas free to fly to the smart presence of Susan +Jane, and to draw glowing pictures for her of a neat little porter-house +in the city, wherein they should hold supreme sway, be happy with each +other, and let rooms up-stairs for single gentlemen. + +The brisk land-breeze, the swelling sail, the fluttering of the gay +little flag at the gaff, the musical rippling of water under the +counter, and the spirited motion of the boat, combined with the bland +air and pleasant sunshine to inspire the party with much vivacity. They +had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and +the girls' voices--Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto--rang +melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempts at bass +accompaniment from their gorgeous guardians. + +Before these vocal exercises wearied, the skipper hauled down his jib, +let go his anchor, and brought the craft to, just off the rocks; and +bringing the yawl alongside, unceremoniously plumped the girls down into +it, without giving their cavaliers a chance for the least display of +agile courtliness. Rowing ashore, this same tarry person left them +huddled upon the beach with their hopes, their hampers, their emotions, +and their baskets, and returned to the vessel to do a little private +fishing on his own account till wanted. + +The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among +the rocks, gathering shells and sea-weed for the construction of those +ephemeral little ornaments--fair, but frail--in which the sex delights, +singing, laughing, quoting poetry, attitudinizing upon the peaks and +ledges of the fine old boulders,--mossy and weedy and green with the +wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with +the multitudinous dyes of mineral oxidization,--and, in brief, behaved +themselves with all the charming _abandon_ that so well becomes young +girls, set free, by the _entourage_ of a holiday ramble, from the +buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette. + +Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a +sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing. + +Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a +splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appetites also. The +baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a +broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant-House picnickers, and +the party fell to. Laura's beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept +her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck. Her bright +eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was +something inexpressibly _naive_ in the freedom with which she ate, +taking a bird's wing in her little fingers, and boldly attacking it with +teeth as white and even as can be imagined. Notwithstanding all the +mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning +feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world +to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, +had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist +the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salisbury. Hattie +Chapman stormed a fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of +Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and +jellies. The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, +as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies principally to +admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters. + +When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned +glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should +walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were "some pretty +rocks and things, you know." She consented, and they marched off. Hattie +also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained +seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, +and looking sublimely unconscious. + +"Sha'n't we walk, too?" Hattie asked. + +"Oh, why, the fact is," said he, hesitantly, "I--I sprained my ankle, +getting out of that confounded boat; so I don't feel much like exercise +just now." + +The young girl's face expressed concern. + +"That is too bad! Why didn't you tell us of it before? Is it painful? +I'm so sorry!" + +"N-no,--it doesn't hurt much. I dare say it will be all right in a +minute. And then--I'd just as soon stay here--with you--as to walk +anywhere." + +This, very tenderly, with a little sigh. + +Hattie sat down again, and began to talk to this factitious cripple, in +the pleasant, purring way some damsels have, about the joys of the +sea-shore,--the happy summer that was, alas! drawing to a close,--her +own enjoyment of life,--and kindred topics,--till Charley saw an +excellent opportunity to interrupt with some aspirations of his own, +which, he averred, must be realized before his life could be considered +a satisfactory success. + +If you have ever been placed in analogous circumstances, you know, of +course, just about the sort of thing that was being said by the two +gentlemen at nearly the same moment: Ned, loitering slowly along the +sands with Laura on his arm,--and Charley, stretched in indolent +picturesqueness upon the rocks, with Hattie sitting beside him. If you +do not know from experience, ask any candid friend who has been through +the form and ceremony of an orthodox proposal. + +When the pedestrians returned, the two couples looked very hard at each +other. All were smiling and complacent, but devoid of any strange or +unusual expression. Indeed, the countenance is subject to such severe +education, in good society, that one almost always looks smiling and +complacent. Demonstration is not fashionable, and a man must preserve +the same demeanor over the loss of a wife or a glove-button, over the +gift of a heart's whole devotion or a bundle of cigars. Under all these +visitations, the complacent smile is in favor, as the neatest, most +serviceable, and convenient form of non-committalism. + +The sun was approaching the blue range of misty hills that bounded the +main-land swamps, by this time; so the skipper was signalled, the +dinner-paraphernalia gathered up, and the party were soon _en route_ for +home once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley +met in their room, and each caught the other looking at him, stealthily. +Both smiled. + +"Did I give you time, Charley?" asked Ned; "we came back rather soon." + +"Oh, yes,--plenty of time." + +"Did you--aw, did you pop?" + +"Y-yes. Did you?" + +"Well--yes." + +"And you were"-- + +"Rejected, by Jove!" + +"So was I!" + +The day following this disastrous picnic, the baggage of Mr. Edwin +Salisbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikahasset +Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a +request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its +hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole +beneath, and presented it. + +"Left for you, this morning, gentlemen." + +It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran +thus:-- + + "DEAR BOYS,--The next time you divert yourselves by throwing + dice for two young ladies, we pray you not to do so in the + presence of a valet who is upon terms of intimacy with the + maid of one of them. + + "With many sincere thanks for the amusement you have given + us,--often when you least suspected it,--we bid you a + lasting adieu, and remain, with the best wishes, + + "_Brant House,_ {HATTIE CHAPMAN, + + "_Wednesday._ {LAURA THURSTON." + + +"It is all the fault of that, aw, that confounded Thomas!" said Ned. + +So Thomas was discharged. + + + + +LIGHT AND DARK. + + + I. + + Straggling through the winter sky, + What is this that begs the eye? + More than pauper by its state, + Less than prince its bashful gait. + + 'Tis the soul in sun's disguise, + Child of Reason's enterprise; + Through earth's weather seeks its kin, + Begs the sun-like take it in. + + Thus from purpling heaven bid, + Open flies the double lid; + To the palace-steps repair + Souls awakened, foul or fair; + + Heavy with a maudlin sleep, + Blithesome from a vision deep, + Flying westward with the night, + Eastward to renew their plight. + + At this menace of the dawn + Dreams the helm of Thought put on; + All my heart its fresco high + Paints against the morning sky. + + + II. + + Is the firmament of brass + 'Gainst my thoughts that seek to pass? + Does the granite vault my brain, + That the soul cannot attain? + + Planets to my window roll; + From the eye which is their goal + Million miles are built of space, + Web that glittering we trace. + + Like a lens the winter sky + Hurls its planets through the eye; + But to thoughts a buckler dense, + Baffling love and reverence. + + Shivered lie the darts I throw, + Vassal stars can farther go; + Time and Space are drops of dew, + When 'tis Light would travel through. + + Shining finds its own expanse, + Rolling suns make room to dance: + Earth unfasten from my brain, + Rid me of my ball and chain. + + Through the window, through the world, + My untethered soul is hurled, + Finds an orbit nothing bars, + Sings its note with morning-stars. + + + III. + + Dearth of God, of Love a dearth, + Rolls my thought, a cloudy Earth, + Through the sullen noon that fears, + Yet expects the morning-spears. + + Ere they glisten, ere they threat, + All my heart lies cold and wet, + Prisoned fog between the hills, + Cheerless pulse of midnight rills. + + 'Tis the darkness that has crept + Where the purple life is kept; + All the veins to thought supply + Murk from out the jealous sky. + + Blood that makes the face a dawn, + Mother's breast to life, is gone: + Strikes my waste no hoof that's bright + Into sparkles of delight. + + Heavy freight of care and pain, + Want of friends, and God's disdain, + Loveless home, and meagre fate + In the midnight well may wait. + + Well may such an Earth forlorn + Shudder on the brink of morn; + But the great breath will not stay, + Strands me on the reefs of day. + + + IV. + + Bellying Earth no anchor throws + Stouter than the breath that blows, + Night and Sorrow cling in vain, + It must toss in day again. + + Hospital and battle-field, + Myriad spots where fate is sealed, + Brinks that crumble, sins that urge, + Plunge again into that surge. + + How the purple breakers throw + Round me their insatiate glow, + Sweep my deck of hideous freight, + Pour through fastening and grate! + + I awake from night's alarms + In the bliss of living arms; + Melted goes my leaden dream + Down the warmth of this Gulf-Stream. + + 'Tis the trade-wind of my soul, + Wafting life to make it whole: + All the night it joyward blew, + Though I neither hoped nor knew. + + Fresher blow me out to sea, + Morning-tost I fain would be, + Sweep my deck and pile it high + With the ingots of the sky. + + Give me freight to carry round + To a place with night that's drowned, + That the Gulf-Stream of the day + Glitter then my Milky-Way. + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +II. + +Snowing: the checkered fields below are traceable now only by the brown +lines of fences and the sparse trees that mark the hedge-rows. The white +of the houses and of the spires of the town is seen dimly through the +snow, and seems to waver and shift position like the sails and spars of +ships seen through fog. And straightway upon this image of ships and +swaying spars I go sailing back to the farm-land of the past, and +sharpen my pen for another day's work among _The Old Farm-Writers_. + +I suspect Virgil was never a serious farmer. I am confident he never had +one of those callosities upon the inner side of his right thumb which +come of the lower thole of a scythe-snath, after a week's mowing. But he +had that quick poet's eye which sees at a glance what other men see only +in a day. Not a shrub or a tree, not a bit of fallow ground or of +nodding lentils escaped his observation; not a bird or a bee; not even +the mosquitoes, which to this day hover pestiferously about the +low-lying sedge-lands of Mantua. His first pastoral, little known now, +and rarely printed with his works, is inscribed _Culex_.[13] + +Young Virgil appears to have been of a delicate constitution, and +probably left the fever-bearing regions of the Mincio for the higher +plain of Milan for sanitary reasons, as much as the other,--of studying, +as men of his parts did study, Greek and philosophy. There is a story, +indeed, that he studied and practised farriery, as his father had done +before him; and Jethro Tull, in his crude onslaught upon what he calls +the Virgilian husbandry, (chap. ix.,) intimates that a farrier could be +no way fit to lay down the rules for good farm-practice. But this story +of his having been a horse-doctor rests, so far as I can discover, only +on this flimsy tradition,--that the young poet, on his way to the South +of Italy, after leaving Milan and Mantua, fell in at Rome with the +master-of-horse to Octavianus, and gave such shrewd hints to that +official in regard to the points and failings of certain favorite horses +of the Roman Triumvir (for Octavianus had not as yet assumed the purple) +as to gain a presentation to the future Augustus, and rich marks of his +favor. + +It is certain that the poet journeyed to the South, and that +thenceforward the glorious sunshine of Baiae and of the Neapolitan shores +gave a color to his poems and to his life. + +Yet his agricultural method was derived almost wholly from his +observation in the North of Italy. He never forgot the marshy borders of +the Mincio nor the shores of beautiful Benacus (Lago di Garda); who +knows but he may some time have driven his flocks afield on the very +battle-ground of Solferino? + +But the ruralities of Virgil take a special interest from the period in +which they were written. He followed upon the heel of long and +desolating intestine wars,--a singing-bird in the wake of vultures. No +wonder the voice seemed strangely sweet. + +The eloquence of the Senate had long ago lost its traditionary power; +the sword was every way keener. Who should listen to the best of +speakers, when Pompey was in the forum, covered with the spoils of the +East? Who should care for Cicero's periods, when the magnificent +conqueror of Gaul is skirting the Umbrian Marshes, making straight for +the Rubicon and Rome? + +Then came Pharsalia, with its bloody trail, from which Caesar rises only +to be slaughtered in the Senate-Chamber. Next comes the long duel +between the Triumvirate and the palsied representatives of the +Republican party. Philippi closes that interlude; and there is a new +duel between Octavianus and Antony (Lepidus counting for nothing). The +gallant lover of Cleopatra is pitted against a gallant general who is a +nephew to the first Caesar. The fight comes off at Actium, and the lover +is the loser; the pretty Egyptian Jezebel, with her golden-prowed +galleys, goes sweeping down, under a full press of wind, to swell the +squadron of the conqueror. The winds will always carry the Jezebels to +the conquering side. + +Such, then, was the condition of Italy,--its families divided, its +grain-fields trampled down by the Volscian cavalry, its houses red with +fresh blood-stains, its homes beyond the Po parcelled out to lawless +returning soldiers, its public security poised on the point of the sword +of Augustus,--when Virgil's Bucolics appear: a pastoral thanksgiving for +the patrimony that had been spared him, through court-favor. + +There is a show of gross adulation that makes one blush for his manhood; +but withal he is a most lithesome poet, whose words are like honeyed +blossoms, and whose graceful measure is like a hedge of bloom that sways +with spring breezes, and spends perfume as it sways. + +The Georgics were said to have been written at the suggestion of +Maecenas, a cultivated friend of Augustus, who, like many another friend +of the party in power, had made a great fortune out of the wars that +desolated Italy. He made good use of it, however, in patronizing Virgil, +and in bestowing a snug farm in the Sabine country upon Horace; where I +had the pleasure of drinking goats' milk--"_dulci digne mero_"--in the +spring of 184-. + +There can be no doubt but Virgil had been an attentive reader of +Xenophon, of Hesiod, of Cato, and of Varro; otherwise he certainly would +have been unworthy of the task he had undertaken,--that of laying down +the rules of good husbandry in a way that should insure the reading of +them, and kindle a love for the pursuit. + +I suspect that Virgil was not only a reader of all that had been written +on the subject, but that he was also an insistant questioner of every +sagacious landholder and every sturdy farmer that he fell in with, +whether on the Campanian hills or at the house of Maecenas. How else does +a man accomplish himself for a didactic work relating to matters of +fact? I suspect, moreover, that Virgil, during those half-dozen years in +which he was engaged upon this task, lost no opportunity of inspecting +every bee-hive that fell in his way, of measuring the points and graces +of every pretty heifer he saw in the fields, and of noting with the eye +of an artist the color of every furrow that glided from the plough. It +is inconceivable that a man of his intellectual address should have +given so much of literary toil to a work that was not in every essential +fully up to the best practice of the day. Five years, it is said, were +given to the accomplishment of this short poem. What say our poetasters +to this? Fifteen hundred days, we will suppose, to less than twice as +many lines; blocking out four or five for his morning's task, and all +the evening--for he was a late worker--licking them into shape, as a +bear licks her cubs. + +But _cui bono_? what good is in it all? Simply as a work of art, it will +be cherished through all time,--an earlier Titian, whose color can never +fade. It was, besides, a most beguiling peace-note, following upon the +rude blasts of war. It gave a new charm to forsaken homesteads. Under +the Virgilian leadership, Monte Gennaro and the heights of Tusculum +beckon the Romans to the fields; the meadows by reedy Thrasymenus are +made golden with doubled crops. The Tarentine sheep multiply around +Benacus, and crop close those dark bits of herbage which have been fed +by the blood of Roman citizens. + +Thus much for the magic of the verse; but there is also sound farm-talk +in Virgil. I am aware that Seneca, living a few years after him, +invidiously objects that he was more careful of his language than of his +doctrine, and that Columella quotes him charily,--that the collector of +the "Geoponics" ignores him, and that Tull gives him clumsy raillery; +but I have yet to see in what respect his system falls short of +Columella, or how it differs materially, except in fulness, from the +teachings of Crescenzi, who wrote a thousand years and more later. There +is little in the poem, save its superstitions, from which a modern +farmer can dissent.[14] + +We are hardly launched upon the first Georgic before we find a pretty +suggestion of the theory of rotation,-- + + "Sic quoque mutatis requiescunt foetibus arva." + +Rolling and irrigation both glide into the verse a few lines later. He +insists upon the choice of the best seed, advises to keep the drains +clear, even upon holy-days, (268,) and urges, in common with a great +many shrewd New-England farmers, to cut light meadows while the dew is +on, (288-9,) even though it involve night-work. Some, too, he says, +whittle their torches by fire-light, of a winter's night; and the good +wife, meantime, lifting a song of cheer, plies the shuttle merrily. The +shuttle is certainly an archaism, whatever the good wife may be. + +His theory of weather-signs, taken principally from Aratus, agrees in +many respects with the late Marshal Bugeaud's observations, upon which +the Marshal planted his faith so firmly that he is said to have ordered +all his campaigns in Africa in accordance with them. + +In the opening of the second book, Virgil insists, very wisely, upon +proper adaptation of plantations of fruit-trees to different localities +and exposures,--a matter which is far too little considered by farmers +of our day. His views in regard to propagation, whether by cuttings, +layers, or seed, are in agreement with those of the best Scotch +nursery-men; and in the matter of grafting or inoculation, he errs (?) +only in declaring certain results possible, which even modern gardening +has not accomplished. Dryden shall help us to the pretty falsehood:-- + + "The thin-leaved arbute hazel-grafts receives, + And planes huge apples bear, that bore but leaves. + Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears, + And the wild ash is white with blooming pears, + And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed + With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred." + +It is curious how generally this belief in something like promiscuous +grafting was entertained by the old writers. Palladius repeats it with +great unction in his poem "De Insitione," two or three centuries +later;[15] and in the tenth book of the "Geoponics," a certain +Damogerontis (whoever he may have been) says, (cap. lxv.,) "Some rustic +writers allege that nut-trees and resinous trees ([Greek: ta rhetinen +echonta]) cannot be successfully grafted; but," he continues, "this is a +mistake; I have myself grafted the pistache nut into the terebenthine." + +Is it remotely possible that these old gentlemen understood the +physiology of plants better than we? + +As I return to Virgil, and slip along the dulcet lines, I come upon this +cracking laconism, in which is compacted as much wholesome advice as a +loose farm-writer would spread over a page:-- + + "Laudato ingentia rura, + Exiguum colito."[16] + +The wisdom of the advice for these days of steam-engines, reapers, and +high wages, is more than questionable; but it is in perfect agreement +with the notions of a great many old-fashioned farmers who live nearer +to the heathen past than they imagine. + +The cattle of Virgil are certainly no prize-animals. Any good committee +would vote them down incontinently:-- + + ----"Cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix," + +(iii. 52,) would not pass muster at any fair of the last century. + +The horses are better; there is the dash of high venture in them; they +have snuffed battle; their limbs are suppled to a bounding gallop,--as +where in the AEneid, + + "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum." + +The fourth book of the Georgics is full of the murmur of bees, showing +how the poet had listened, and had loved to listen. After describing +minutely how and where the homes of the honey-makers are to be placed, +he offers them this delicate attention:-- + + "Then o'er the running stream or standing lake + A passage for thy weary people make; + With osier floats the standing water strew; + Of massy stones make bridges, if it flow; + That basking in the sun thy bees may lie, + And, resting there, their flaggy pinions dry." + + DRYDEN. + +Who cannot see from this how tenderly the man had watched the buzzing +yellow-jackets, as they circled and stooped in broad noon about some +little pool in the rills that flow into the Lago di Garda? For +hereabout, of a surety, the poet once sauntered through the noontides, +while his flock cropped the "milk-giving cytisus," upon the hills. + +And charming hills they are, as my own eyes can witness: nay, my little +note-book of travel shall itself tell the story. (The third shelf, upon +the right, my boy.) + +No matter how many years ago,--I was going from Milan, (to which place I +had come by Piacenza and Lodi,) on my way to Verona by Brescia and +Peschiera. At Desenzano, or thereabout, the blue lake of Benaco first +appeared. A few of the higher mountains that bounded the view were +still capped with snow, though it was latter May. Through fragrant +locusts and mulberry-trees, and between irregular hedges, we dashed down +across the isthmus of Sermione, where the ruins of a Roman castle flout +the sky. + +Hedges and orchards and fragrant locusts still hem the way, as we touch +the lake, and, rounding its southern skirt, come in sight of the grim +bastions of Peschiera. A Hungarian sentinel, lithe and tall, I see +pacing the rampart, against the blue of the sky. Women and girls come +trooping into the narrow road,--for it is near sunset,--with their +aprons full of mulberry-leaves. A bugle sounds somewhere within the +fortress, and the mellow music swims the water, and beats with melodious +echo--boom on boom--against Sermione and the farther shores. + +The sun just dipping behind the western mountains, with a disk all +golden, pours down a flood of yellow light, tinting the +mulberry-orchards, the edges of the Roman castle, the edges of the waves +where the lake stirs, and spreading out in a bay of gold where the lake +lies still. + +Virgil never saw a prettier sight there; and I was thinking of him, and +of my old master beating off spondees and dactyls with a red ruler on +his threadbare knee, when the sun sunk utterly, and the purple shadows +dipped us all in twilight. + +"_E arrivato, Signore!_" said the _vetturino_. True enough, I was at the +door of the inn of Peschiera, and snuffed the stew of an Italian supper. + +Virgil closes the first book of the Georgics with a poetic forecast of +the time when ploughmen should touch upon rusted war-weapons in their +work, and turn out helmets empty, and bones of dead soldiers,--as indeed +they might, and did. But how unlike a poem it will sound, when the +schools are opened on the Rappahannock again, and the boy +scans,--choking down his sobs,-- + + "Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, + Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris," + +and the master veils his eyes! + +I fear that Virgil was harmed by the Georgican success, and became more +than ever an adulator of the ruling powers. I can fancy him at a palace +tea-drinking, where pretty court-lips give some witty turn to his "_Sic +Vos, non Vobis_," and pretty court-eyes glance tenderly at Master +Marius, who blushes, and asks some Sabina (not Poppaea) after Tibullus +and his Delia. But a great deal is to be forgiven to a man who can turn +compliments as Virgil turned them. What can be more exquisite than that +allusion to the dead boy Marcellus, in the Sixth Book of the AEneid? He +is reading it aloud before Augustus, at Rome. Maecenas is there from his +tall house upon the Esquiline; possibly Horace has driven over from the +Sabine country,--for, alone of poets, he was jolly enough to listen to +the reading of a poem not his own. Above all, the calm-faced Octavia, +Caesar's sister, and the rival of Cleopatra, is present. A sad match she +has made of it with Antony; and her boy Marcellus is just now +dead,--dying down at Baiae, notwithstanding the care of that famous +doctor, Antonius Musa, first of hydropaths. + +Virgil had read of the Sibyl,--of the entrance to Hades,--of the magic +metallic bough that made Charon submissive,--of the dog Cerberus, and +his sop,--of the Greeks who welcomed AEneas,--then of the father +Anchises, who told the son what brave fate should belong to him and +his,--warning him, meantime, with alliterative beauty, against the worst +of wars,-- + + "Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella; + Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires,"-- + +too late, alas! There were those about Augustus who could sigh over +this. + +Virgil reads on: Anchises is pointing out to AEneas that old Marcellus +who fought Hannibal; and beside him, full of beauty, strides a young +hero about whom the attendants throng. + +"And who is the young hero," demands AEneas, "over whose brow a dark fate +is brooding?" + +(The motherless Octavia is listening with a yearning heart.) + +And Anchises, the tears starting to his eyes, says,-- + +"Seek not, O son, to fathom the sorrows of thy kindred. The Fates, that +lend him, shall claim him; a jealous Heaven cannot spare such gifts to +Rome. Then, what outcry of manly grief shall shake the battlements of +the city! what a wealth of mourning shall Father Tiber see, as he sweeps +past his new-made grave! Never a Trojan who carried hopes so high, nor +ever the land of Romulus so gloried in a son." + +(Octavia is listening.) + +"Ah, piety! alas for the ancient faith! alas for the right hand so +stanch in battle! None, none could meet him, whether afoot or with +reeking charger he pressed the foe. Ah, unhappy youth! If by any means +thou canst break the harsh decrees of Fate, thou wilt be--Marcellus!" + +It is Octavia's lost boy; and she is carried out fainting. + +But Virgil receives a matter of ten thousand sesterces a line,--which, +allowing for difference in exchange and value of gold, may (or may not) +have been a matter of ten thousand dollars. With this bouncing bag of +sesterces, Virgil shall go upon the shelf for to-day. + + * * * * * + +I must name Horace for the reason of his "_Procul beatus_," etc., if I +had no other; but the truth is, that, though he rarely wrote +intentionally of country-matters, yet there was in him that fulness of +rural taste which bubbled over--in grape-clusters, in images of rivers, +in snowy Soracte, in shade of plane-trees; nay, he could not so much as +touch an _amphora_ but the purple juices of the hill-side stained his +verse as they stained his lip. See, too, what a garden pungency there is +in his garlic ode (III. 5); and the opening to Torquatus (Ode VII. Lib. +4) is the limning of one who has followed the changes of the bursting +spring with his whole heart in his eyes:-- + + Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis,"-- + +every school-boy knows it: but what every school-boy does not know, and +but few of the masters, is this charming, jingling rendering of it into +the Venetian dialect:-- + + "La neve xe andada, + Su i prai torna i fieri + De cento colori, + E a dosso de i albori + La fogia e tornada + A farli vestir. + + "Che gusto e dileto + Che da quela tera + Cambiada de ciera, + E i fiumi die placidi + Sbassai nel so' leto + Va zozo in te 'l mar!"[17] + +On my last wet-day, I spoke of the elder Pliny, and now the younger +Pliny shall tell us something of one or two of his country-places. Pliny +was a government-official, and was rich: whether these facts had any +bearing on each other I know no more than I should know if he had lived +in our times. + +I know that he had a charming place down by the sea, near to Ostium. Two +roads led thither; "both of them," he says, "in some parts sandy, which +makes it heavy and tedious, if you travel in a coach; but easy enough +for those who ride. My villa" (he is writing to his friend Gallus, +Epist. XX. Lib. 2) "is large enough for all convenience, and not +expensive." He describes the portico as affording a capital retreat in +bad weather, not only for the reason that it is protected by windows, +but because there is an extraordinary projection of the roof. "From the +middle of this portico you pass into a charming inner court, and thence +into a large hall which extends towards the sea,--so near, indeed, that +under a west wind the waves ripple on the steps. On the left of this +hall is a large lounging-room (_cubiculum_), and a lesser one beyond, +with windows to the east and west. The angle which this lounging-room +forms with the hall makes a pleasant lee, and a loitering-place for my +family in the winter. Near this again is a crescent-shaped apartment, +with windows which receive the sun all day, where I keep my favorite +authors. From this, one passes to a bed-chamber by a raised passage, +under which is a stove that communicates an agreeable warmth to the +whole apartment. The other rooms in this portion of the villa are for +the freedmen and slaves; but still are sufficiently well ordered (_tam +mundis_) for my guests." + +And he goes on to describe the bath-rooms, the cooling-rooms, the +sweating-rooms, the tennis-court, "which lies open to the warmth of the +afternoon sun." Adjoining this is a tower, with two apartments below and +two above,--besides a supper-room, which commands a wide look-out along +the sea, and over the villas that stud the shores. At the opposite end +of the tennis-court is another tower, with its apartments opening upon a +museum,--and below this the great dining-hall, whose windows look upon +gardens, where are box-tree hedges, and rosemary, and bowers of vines. +Figs and mulberries grow profusely in the garden; and walking under +them, one approaches still another banqueting-hall, remote from the sea, +and adjoining the kitchen-garden. Thence a grand portico +(_crypto-porticus_) extends with a range of windows on either side, and +before the portico is a terrace perfumed with violets. His favorite +apartment, however, is a detached building, which he has himself erected +in a retired part of the grounds. It has a warm winter-room, looking one +way on the terrace, and another on the ocean; through its folding-doors +may be seen an inner chamber, and within this again a sanctum, whose +windows command three views totally separate and distinct,--the sea, the +woods, or the villas along the shore. + +"Tell me," he says, "if all this is not very charming, and if I shall +not have the honor of your company, to enjoy it with me?" + +If Pliny regarded the seat at Ostium as only a convenient and +inexpensive place, we may form some notion of his Tuscan property, +which, as he says in his letter to his friend Apollinaris, (Lib. V. +Epist. 6,) he prefers to all his others, whether of Tivoli, Tusculum, or +Palestrina. There, at a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from Rome, +in the midst of the richest corn-bearing and olive-bearing regions of +Tuscany, he can enjoy country quietude. There is no need to be slipping +on his toga; ceremony is left behind. The air is healthful; the scene is +quiet. "_Studiis animum, venatu corpus exerceo._" I will not follow him +through the particularity of the description which he gives to his +friend Apollinaris. There are the wide-reaching views of fruitful +valleys and of empurpled hill-sides; there are the fresh winds sweeping +from the distant Apennines; there is the _gestatio_ with its clipped +boxes, the embowered walks, the colonnades, the marble banquet-rooms, +the baths, the Carystian columns, the soft, embracing air, and the +violet sky. I leave Pliny seated upon a bench in a marble alcove of his +Tuscan garden. From this bench, the water, gushing through several +little pipes, as if it were pressed out by the weight of the persons +reposing upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, whence it is +received into a polished marble basin, so artfully contrived that it is +always full, without ever overflowing. "When I sup here," he writes, +"this basin serves for a table,--the larger dishes being placed round +the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form of little +vessels and waterfowl." + +Such _al fresco_ suppers the country-gentlemen of Italy ate in the first +century of our era! + + * * * * * + +Palladius wrote somewhere about the middle of the fourth century. His +work is arranged in the form of a calendar for the months, and closes +with a poem which is as inferior to the poems of the time of Augustus +as the later emperors were inferior to the Caesars. There is in his +treatise no notable advance upon the teachings of Columella, whom he +frequently quotes,--as well as certain Greek authorities of the Lower +Empire. I find in his treatise a somewhat fuller list of vegetables, +fruits, and field-crops than belongs to the earlier writers. I find more +variety of treatment. I see a waning faith in the superstitions of the +past; Bacchus and the Lares are less jubilant than they were; but the +Christian civilization has not yet vivified the art of culture. The +magnificent gardens of Nero and the horticultural experiences of the +great Adrian at Tivoli have left no traces in the method or inspiration +of Palladius. + + * * * * * + +I will not pass wholly from the classic period, without allusion to the +recent book of Professor Daubeny on Roman husbandry. It is charming, and +yet disappointing,--not for failure, on his part, to trace the +traditions to their sources, not for lack of learning or skill, but for +lack of that _afflatus_ which should pour over and fill both subject and +talker, where the talker is lover as well as master. + +Daubeny's husbandry lacks the odor of fresh-turned ground,--lacks the +imprint of loving familiarity. He is clearly no farmer: every man who +has put his hand to the plough (_aratori crede_) sees it. Your blood +does not tingle at his story of Boreas, nor a dreamy languor creep over +you when he talks of sunny south-winds. + +Had he written exclusively of bees, or trees, or flowers, there would +have been a charming murmur, like the _susurrus_ of the poets,--and a +fragrance as of crushed heaps of lilies and jonquils. But Daubeny +approaches fanning as a good surgeon approaches a _cadaver_. He +disarticulates the joints superbly; but there is no tremulous intensity. +The bystanders do not feel the thrill with which they see a man bare his +arm for a capital operation upon a live and palpitating body. + + * * * * * + +From the time of Palladius to the time of Pietro Crescenzi is a period +of a thousand years, a period as dreary and impenetrable as the +snow-cloud through which I see faintly a few spires staggering: so along +the pages of Muratori's interminable annals gaunt figures come and go; +but they are not the figures of farmers. + +Goths, wars, famines, and plague succeed each other in ghastly +procession. Boethius lifts, indeed, a little rural plaint from out of +the gloom,-- + + "Felix nimium prior aetas, + Contenta fidelibus arvis,"[18]-- + +but the dungeon closes over him; and there are outstanding orders of +Charlemagne which look as if he had an eye to the crops of Italy, and to +a good vegetable stew with his Transalpine dinners,--but for the most +part the land is waste. I see some such monster as Eccelino reaping a +harvest of blood. I see Lombards pouring down from the mountain-gates, +with falcons on their thumbs, ready to pounce upon the purple _columbae_ +that trace back their lineage to the doves Virgil may have fed in the +streets of Mantua. I see torrents of people, the third of them women, +driven mad by some fanatical outcry, sweeping over the whole breadth of +Italy, and consuming all green things as a fire consumes stubble. Think +of what the fine villa of Pliny would have been, with its boxwood bowers +and floating dishes, under the press of such crusaders! It was a +precarious time for agricultural investments: I know nothing that could +match it, unless it may have been last summer's harvests in the valley +of the Shenandoah. + +Upon a parchment (_strumento_) of Ferrara, bearing date A. D. 1113, +(Annals of Muratori,) I find a memorandum or contract which looks like +reviving civilization. "_Terram autem illam quam roncabo, frui debeo per +annos tres; postea reddam serraticum._" The Latin is stiff, but the +sense is sound. "If I grub up wild land, I shall hold it three years for +pay." + + * * * * * + +I shall make no apology for introducing next to the reader the +"Geoponica Geoponicorum,"--a somewhat extraordinary collection of +agricultural opinions, usually attributed, in a loose way, to the +Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who held the Byzantine throne about +the middle of the tenth century. It was undoubtedly under the order of +Constantine that the collection took its present shape; but whether a +collection under the same name had not previously existed, and, if so, +to whom is to be credited the authorship, are questions which have been +discussed through a wilderness of Greek and Roman type, by the various +editors. + +The edition before me (that of Niclas, Leipsic) gives no less than a +hundred pages of prolegomena, prefaces, introductory observations, with +notes to each and all, interlacing the pages into a motley of patchwork; +the whole preceded by two, and followed by five stately dedications. The +weight of authority points to Cassianus Bassus, a Bithynian, as the real +compiler,--notwithstanding his name is attached to particular chapters +of the book, and notwithstanding he lived as early as the fifth century. +Other critics attribute the collection to Dionysius Uticensis, who is +cited by both Varro and Columella. The question is unsettled, and is not +worth the settling. + +My own opinion--in which, however, Niclas and Needham do not share--is, +that the Emperor Porphyrogenitus, in addition to his historical and +judicial labors,[19] wishing to mass together the best agricultural +opinions of the day, expressed that wish to some trusted Byzantine +official (we may say his Commissioner of Patents). Whereupon the +Byzantine official (commissioner) goes to some hungry agricultural +friend, of the Chersonesus, and lays before him the plan, with promise +of a round Byzantian stipend. The agricultural friend goes lovingly to +the work, and discovers some old compilation of Bassus or of Dionysius, +into which he whips a few modern phrases, attributes a few chapters to +the virtual compiler of the whole, makes one or two adroit allusions to +local scenes, and carries the result to the Byzantine official +(commissioner). The official (commissioner) has confidence in the +opinions and virtues of his agricultural friend, and indorses the book, +paying over the stipend, which it is found necessary to double, by +reason of the unexpected cost of execution. The official (commissioner) +presents the report to the Emperor, who receives it gratefully,--at the +same tune approving the bill of costs, which has grown into a quadruple +of the original estimates. + +This hypothesis will explain the paragraphs which so puzzle Niclas and +Needham; it explains the evident interpolations, and the local +allusions. The only extravagance in the hypothesis is its assumption +that the officials of Byzantium were as rapacious as our own. + +Thus far, I have imagined a certain analogy between the work in view and +the "Patent Office Agricultural Reports." The analogy stops here: the +"Geoponica" is a good book. It is in no sense to be regarded as a work +of the tenth century, or as one strictly Byzantine: nearly half the +authors named are of Western origin, and I find none dating later than +the fifth century,--while many, as Apuleius, Fiorentinus, Africanus, and +the poor brothers Quintilii, who died under the stab of Commodus, belong +to a period preceding that of Palladius. Aratus and Democritus (of +Abdera) again, who are cited, are veterans of the old Greek school, who +might have contributed as well to the agriculture of Thrace or Macedonia +in the days of Philip as in the days of the Porphyrogenitus. + +The first book, of meteorologic phenomena, is nearly identical in its +teachings with those of Aratus, Varro, and Virgil. + +The subject of field-culture is opened with the standard maxim, +repeated by all the old writers, that the master's eye is +invaluable.[20] The doctrine of rotation, or frequent change of crops, +is laid down with unmistakable precision. A steep for seed (hellebore) +is recommended, to guard against the depredations of birds or mice. + +In the second book, in certain chapters credited to Fiorentinus, I find, +among other valuable manures mentioned, sea-weed and tide-drift, +([Greek: Ta ek tes thalasses de ekbrassomena bryode],) which I do not +recall in any other of the old writers. He also recommends the refuse of +leather-dressers, and a mode of promoting putrefaction in the +compost-heap, which would almost seem to be stolen from "Bommer's +Method." He further urges the diversion of turbid rills, after rains, +over grass lands, and altogether makes a better compend of this branch +of the subject than can be found in the Roman writers proper. + +Grain should be cut before it is fully ripe, as the meal is the sweeter. +What correspondent of our agricultural papers, suggesting this as a +novelty, could believe that it stood in Greek type as early as ever +Greek types were set? + +A farm foreman should be apt to rise early, should win the respect of +his men, should fear to tell an untruth, regard religious observances, +and not drink too hard. + +Three or four books are devoted to a very full discussion of the vine, +and of wines,--not differing materially, however, from the Columellan +advice. In discussing the moral aspects of the matter, this Geoponic +author enumerates other things which will intoxicate as well as +wine,--even some waters; also the wine made from barley and wheat, which +barbarians drink. Old men, he says, are easily made drunk; women not +easily, by reason of temperament; but by drinking enough they may come +to it. + +Where the discourse turns upon pears, (Lib. X. Cap. xxiii.,) it is +urged, that, if you wish specially good fruit, you should bore a hole +through the trunk at the ground, and drive in a plug of either oak or +beech, and draw the earth over it. If it does not heal well, wash for a +fortnight with the lees of old wine: in any event, the wine-lees will +help the flavor of the fruit. Almost identical directions are to be +found in Palladius, (Tit. XXV.,) but the above is credited to Diophanes, +who lived in Asia Minor a full century before Christ. + +Book XI. opens with flowers and evergreens, introduced (by a Latin +translation) in a mellifluous roll of genitives:--"_plantationem +rosarum, et liliorum, et violarum, et reliquorum florum odoralorum_." +Thereafter is given the pretty tradition, that red roses came of nectar +spilled from heaven. Love, who bore the celestial vintage, tripped a +wing, and overset the vase; and the nectar, spilling on the valleys of +the earth, bubbled up in roses. Next we have this kindred story of the +lilies. Jupiter wished to make his boy Hercules (born of a mortal) one +of the gods; so he snatches him from the bosom of his earthly mother, +Alemena, and bears him to the bosom of the godlike Juno. The milk is +spilled from the full-mouthed boy, as he traverses the sky, (making the +Milky Way,) and what drops below stars and clouds, and touches earth, +stains the ground with--lilies. + +In the chapter upon pot-herbs are some of those allusions to the climate +of Constantinople which may have served to accredit the work in the +Byzantine court. I find no extraordinary methods of kitchen-garden +culture,--unless I except the treatment of musk-melon seeds to a steep +of milk and honey, in order to improve the flavor of the fruit. (Cap. +xx.) The remaining chapters relate to ordinary domestic animals, with +diversions to stags, camels, hare, poisons, scorpions, and serpents. I +can cheerfully commend the work to those who have a snowy day on their +hands, good eyesight, and a love for the subject. + + * * * * * + +And now, while the snow lasts, let us take one look at Messer Pietro +Crescenzi, a Bolognese of the fourteenth century. My copy of him is a +little, fat, unctuous, parchment-bound book of 1534, bought upon a +street stall under the walls of the University of Bologna. + +Through whose hands may it not have passed since its printing! Sometimes +I seem to snuff in it the taint of a dirty-handed friar, who loved his +pot-herbs better than his breviary, and plotted his yearly garden on +some shelf of the hills that look down on Castagnolo: other times I +scent only the mould and the damp of some monastery shelf, that guarded +it quietly and cleanly, while red-handed war raged around the walls. + +Crescenzi was a man of good family in Bologna, being nephew of Crescenzi +di Crescenzo, who died in 1268, an ambassador in Venice. Pietro was +educated to the law, and, wearying of the civil commotions in his native +town, accepted judicial positions in the independent cities of +Italy,--Pisa and Asti among others; and after thirty years of absence, +in which, as he says, he had read many authors,[21] and seen many sorts +of farming, he gives his book to the world. + +Its arrangement is very similar to that of Palladius, to which he makes +frequent reference. There is long and quaint talk of situations, +breezes, cellar-digging, and wells; but in the matter of irrigation and +pipe-laying he is clearly in advance of the Roman writers. He discourses +upon tiles, and gives a cement for making water-tight their +junction,--"_Calcina viva intrisa con olio_." (Lib. I. Cap. ix.) He adds +good rules for mortar-making, and advises that the timber for +house-building be cut in November or December in the old of the moon. + +In matters of physiology he shows a near approach to modern views: he +insists that food for plants must be in a liquid form.[22] + +He quotes Columella's rule for twenty-four loads (_carrette_) of manure +to hill-lands per acre, and eighteen to level land; and adds,--"Our +people put the double of this,"--"_I nostri mettano piu chel doppio._" + +But the book of our friend Crescenzi is interesting, not so much for its +maxims of agronomic wisdom as for its association with one of the most +eventful periods oL Italian history. The new language of the +Peninsula[23] was just now crystallizing into shape, and was presently +to receive the stamp of currency from the hands of Dante and Boccaccio. +A thriving commerce through the ports of Venice and Amalfi demanded all +the products of the hill-sides. Milan, then having a population of two +hundred thousand, had turned a great river into the fields,--which to +this day irrigates thousands of acres of rice-lands. Wheat was grown in +profusion, at that time, on fields which are now desolated by the +malaria, or by indolence. In the days of Crescenzi, gunpowder was burned +for the first time in battle; and for the first time crops of grain were +paid for in bills of exchange. All the Peninsula was vibrating with the +throbs of a new and more splendid life. The art that had cropped out of +the fashionable schools of Byzantium was fast putting them in eclipse; +and before Crescenzi died, if he loved art on canvas as he loved art in +gardens, he must have heard admiringly of Cimabue, and Giotto, and +Orcagna. + + * * * * * + +In 1360 a certain Paganino Bonafede composed a poem called "Il Tesoro +de' Rustici"; but I believe it was never published; and Tiraboschi calls +it "_poco felice_." If we could only bar publicity to all the _poco +felice_ verses! + +In the middle of the fifteenth century the Florentine Poggio says some +good things in a rural way; and still later, that whimsical, +disagreeable Politiano, who was a pet cub of Lorenzo de' Medici, +published his "Rusticus." Roscoe says, with his usual strained +hyperbole, that it is inferior in kind only to the Georgics. The fact +is, it compares with the Georgics as the vilest of the Medici compare +with the grandest of the Caesars. + +The young Michele Verini, of the same period, has given, in one of his +few remaining letters, an eloquent description of the Cajano farm of +Lorenzo de' Medici. It lay between Florence and Pistoia. The river +Ombrone skirted its fields. It was so successfully irrigated, that three +crops of grain grew in a year. Its barns had stone floors, walls with +moat, and towers like a castle. The cows he kept there (for ewes were +now superseded) were equal to the supply of the entire city of Florence. +Hogs were fed upon the whey; and peacocks and pheasant innumerable +roamed through the woods. + +Politiano also touches upon the same theme; but the prose of young +Verini is better, because more explicit, than the verse of Politiano. + + * * * * * + +While I write, wandering in fancy to that fair plain where Florence sits +a queen, with her girdle of shining rivers, and her garland of +olive-bearing hills,----the snow is passing. The spires have staggered +plainly and stiffly into sight. Again I can count them, one by one. I +have brought as many authors to the front as there are spires staring at +me from the snow. + +Let me marshal them once more:--Verini, the young Florentine; +Politiano,[24] who cannot live in peace with the wife of his patron; +Poggio, the Tuscan; Crescenzi, the magistrate and farmer joined; the +half-score of dead men who lie between the covers of the "Geoponica"; +the martyr Boethius, who, under the consolations of a serene, perhaps +Christian philosophy, cannot forget the charm of the fields; Palladius, +who is more full than original; Pliny the Consul, and the friend of +Tacitus; Horace, whose very laugh is brimming with the buxom cheer of +the country; and last,--Virgil. + +I hear no such sweet bugle-note as his along all the line! + +Hark!-- + + "Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt." + +Even so: _Claudite jam libros, parvuli!_--Shut up the books, my little +ones! Enough of this. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] "_Lusimus_: haec propter _Culicis_ sint carmina dicta." + +[14] Of course, I reckon the + + "Exceptantque leves auras; et saepe sine ullis," etc., + +(Lib. III. 274,) as among the superstitions. + +[15] The same writer, under Februarius, Tit. XVII., gives a very curious +method of grafting the willow, so that it may bear peaches. + +[16] Praise big farms; stick by little ones. + +[17] This, with other odes, is prettily turned by Sig. Pietro Bussolino, +and given as an appendix to the _Serie degli Scritti in Dialetto +Venez._, by Bart. Gamba. + +[18] _De Consol. Phil._ Lib. II. + +[19] See Gibbon,--opening of Chapter LIII. + +[20] As a curious illustration of the rhetoric of the different +agronomes, I give the various wordings of this universal maxim. + +The "Geoponica" has,--[Greek: "Pollo ton agron ameino poiei despotou +syneches parousia."] Lib. II. Cap. i. + +Columella says,--"Ne ista quidem praesidia tantum pollent, quantum vel +una praesentia domini." I. i. 18. + +Cato says,--"Frons occipitio prior est." Cap. iv. + +Palladius puts it,--"Praesentia domini provectus est agri." I. vi. + +And the elder Pliny writes,--"Majores ferthissimum in agro oculum domini +esse dixerunt." + +[21] "E molti libri d'antichi e de' novelli savi lessi e studiai, e +diverse e varie operazioni de' coltivalori delle terre vidi e conobbi." + +[22] "Il proprio cibo delle piante sara aleuno humido ben mischiato." +Cap. xiii. + +[23] Crescenzi'a book was written in Latin, but was very shortly after +(perhaps by himself) rendered into the street-tongue of Italy. + +[24] See Roscoe, _Life of Lorenzo de' Medici_, Chap. VIII. + + + + +THE MEMBER FROM FOXDEN. + + +The circumstances _were_ a little peculiar,--it is in vain to deny it. +No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and +stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I +was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the +General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel +Prowley's during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about +the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office +occupied by far the greater part of my time and attention. And really, +when you think of the "remarkable men" long identified with this ancient +river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable. + +Chosen a member of the "Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society" during my +first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the +meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of +political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing +was----But stop!--to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the +Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence. For, as the +reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to +slacken his epistolary attentions after the success of his little +scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife +turned out to possess the feminine facility of letter-writing, and was +good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous +productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted +to their perusal. + +It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope +from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following +communication:-- + + + "Rooms of the Young Men's + Gelasmiphilous Society. + + "SIR: You will herewith receive a copy of a resolution + nominating you as the Young Men's candidate for the next + Legislature. You are doubtless aware that it is the custom + for all new candidates to deliver a lyceum-lecture in Foxden + on the evening before the election. We have therefore + engaged the Town Hall in your behalf on the P. M. of + November fifth. Knowing something of the taste in lectures + of those disposed to support you, I venture to recommend the + selection of some light and humorous subject. + + "I am fraternally yrs., + + "THADDEUS WASPY, + + "Secretary Y. M. G. S. + + "P. S. Dr. Howke, who was run last year without success, is + upon the opposition ticket. As the old-fogy element of the + town will probably rally to his support, it is very + important that you bring out the entire strength of Young + Foxden. Thus you see the necessity of having your lecture + lively and full of fun. If you feel equal to it, I am sure + that a Comic Poem would be a great hit." + +As illustrating this extraordinary missive, there is subjoined an +extract from the accompanying epistle of my regular Foxden +correspondent. + + "I inclose what I am given to understand is a nomination to + the Honorable Legislature, a distinction which, I need not + say, gives the highest gratification to my sister and + myself. You will be opposed in this noble emulation by one + Howke, a physician of North Foxden, with whom our venerable + and influential Dr. Dastick has much osseous sympathy. Dr. + Howke (long leaning to the Root-and-Herb School of Medicine, + and having wrought many notable cures with such simples as + sage, savory, wormwood, sweet-marjoram, sassafras, + liverwort, pine-cones, rosemary, poppy-leaves, not to speak + of plasters of thyme, cowslips, rose-buds, fit to refresh + the tired wings of Ariel) has latterly declared his + conversion to the Indian system of physic. The celebrated + Wigwam Family Pills, to the manufacture of which he at + present devotes himself, are not unknown to city journals. + As I am informed that Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden + Regulator," has a large interest in the sale of these + alterative spherules, you will necessarily encounter the + hostility of our county journal. I advise you of the full + might of these adversaries, that you may come to fuller + justification of your supporters in the lecture to be read + before us on election-eve. Dr. Dastick, with some of the + elder of this town, has little liking for this laic + preaching of the lyceum, by reason of the slight and foolish + matter too often dispensed, when in the mean time there be + precious gems of knowledge, the very onyx or sapphire to + bedeck the mind, which the muck-rake of the lecturer never + collects. I add for your consideration a few wholesome + subjects:--Caleb Cheeschateaumuck, the Indian Bachelor of + Arts; A Monody on the Apostle Eliot; A Suggestion of Some + New Claimant for the Honors of Junius; Mather's Four + _Johannes in Eremo_, being Notable Facts in the Lives of + John Cotton, John Norton, John Wilson, and John Davenport; + The Great Obligations of Homer to the Illustrious Mr. Pope; + "New England's Jonas cast up in London," Some Account of + this Remarkable Work; Natootomakteackesuk, or the Day of + Asking Questions, whether this Ancient Festival might be + profitably Revived?--I should feel competent to give + assistance in the treatment of any of these subjects you + might select. If the Muse inspire you, why not try a + descriptive poem, modelled, let us say, upon William + Morrill's 'New England'? The silver ring of verse would be + joyfully heard among us, and work strong persuasions in your + behalf.... I must not forget to mention, that, on the day of + your lecture, you will meet at dinner at my house my + esteemed Western correspondent, Professor Owlsdarck, (his + grandmother was a Sodkin,) whose great work upon Mummies is + the admiration of the literary world. He has been invited to + deliver an address upon some speciality of erudition before + the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy, + and that upon the same evening you are to speak in Foxden. + As the distance is only ten miles, I shall send him over in + the carryall after an early tea. And now to share with you a + little secret. The office of Principal of the Academy is + vacant, and the well-known learning of Professor Owlsdarck + gives his friends great hope in recommending him for the + place. He formerly lived in Wrexford, where his early + 'Essays on Cenotaphs,' published in the local paper of that + town, were very popular. Indeed, I think the trustees have + only to hear the weighty homily he will provide for them to + decide by acclamation in his favor. Thus you see my double + interest in your visits next November; for, as I think, both + my guests will come upon brave opportunities for fame and + usefulness." + +"And what shall you do about it?" asked my wife, after we had thoroughly +read the documents which have been quoted. + +"Stand," I replied, with emphasis. "I don't think there's any chance of +an election; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political +campaign. If I could get a little of the stump-orator's brass into my +composition, it would be worth five years of office-practice for putting +me on in the profession." + +"But you have always had such unwillingness to address an audience," +faltered Kate. + +"The more reason why an effort should now be made to get over it," I +replied. "In short, I consider this nomination quite providential, for I +could never have descended to the vulgar wire-pulling by which such +distinctions are commonly gained; and I confess, it promises to be just +the discipline I want. Of course I have no expectation of being chosen." + +"But why should you not be chosen?" urged my wife. "You are tolerably +well-known in Foxden; Colonel Prowley, an influential citizen, is your +warm friend; and Mr. Waspy tells you how you may get the support of the +active generation." + +"Yes,--by playing literary Grimaldi an hour or so for their diversion! A +very good recipe, were it not probable that the elder portion of the +town would fail to see the humor of it." + +"But you may be certain that everybody likes to laugh at a +lyceum-lecture." + +"Everybody but a clique of pseudo-wiseacres in Foxden perhaps may," I +replied. "But our good friend, the Colonel, has so established his +antiquarian dictatorship over his contemporaries, that I believe +nothing adapted to the present century could possibly please them." + +"You may depend upon it," argued Kate, consolingly, "that all the lieges +of Foxden will be so taken up with this Professor Owlsdarck, who is +fortunately to be there at the same time, that they will give little +thought to your deficiencies. At all events, there is nothing to be done +but to try to please the Young Men who give you the nomination." + +Of course I agreed in this view of the case, and began to cast about for +some grotesque subject for my lecture. But regret at disappointing the +expectations of my old friend caused me to dismiss such light topics as +presented themselves, and after searching for half an hour, I declared +myself as much at a loss as ever. + +"I think I have it!" cried Kate, at length. "Both your correspondents +say that a poem would be particularly acceptable,--and a poem it must +be." + +"Modelled on William Morrill's 'New England'?" I said, dubiously. + +"Not at all; but a comic; poem, such as the secretary asks for. The dear +Colonel will be pleased at the pretension of verse, and your humorous +passages may be passed off as poetic license." + +"There is much in what you say," I replied; "and if I put something +about New England into the title, it will go far to reconcile all +difficulties." + +"Why not call it 'The Whims of New England'?" suggested Kate. + +"'The Whims of New England,'" I repeated. "Let me think how it would +look in print:--'We understand that the brilliant, sparkling, and highly +humorous poem, entitled "The Whims of New England," which convulsed the +_elite_ of Foxden on Friday evening last,' etc., etc. Yes, it sounds +well! 'The Whims of New England,' it shall be!" + +It was a great satisfaction to have decided upon the style and title; +and I sat down at once and began to jot off lines of ten syllables. +"What do you think of this for a beginning?" I presently asked:-- + + "Who shall subdue this headlong-dashing Time, + And lead it fettered through a dance of rhyme? + Where is the coming man who shall not shrink + To lay the Ocean Telegraph--in ink? + Who comes to give us in a form compact + Essence of horse-car, caucus, song, and tract?" + +"But why begin with all these questions?" inquired Kate. + +"It is the custom, my dear," I replied, decisively. "It is the +conventional 'Here we are' of the poetical clown." + +"Well, you must remember to be funny enough," said my wife, with +something like a sigh. "It is not the humorous side of her hero's +character that a woman likes to contemplate; so give me credit for +disinterestedness in the advice." + +"'Motley's the only wear'!" I exclaimed,--"at least before the Young Men +of the Gelasmiphilous Society. I have a stock of Yankee anecdotes that +can be worked off in rhyme to the greatest advantage. In short, I mean +to attempt one of those immensely popular productions that no +library--that is, no circulating library--should be without." + +Easier said than done. The evenings of several weeks were pretty +diligently devoted to my poem. I determined to begin with a few moral +reflections, and in these I think I succeeded in reaching the highest +standard of edification and dulness. Not that I didn't succeed in the +revel of comicalities I afterward permitted myself; but the selection +and polishing of these oddities cost me much more labor than I had +expected. I was really touched at the way in which my wife sacrificed +her feminine preference for the emotional and sentimental, and heard me +read over my piquant periods in order that all the graces of declamation +might give them full effect. And when my poem was at length finished, +when my stories had been carefully arranged with their points bristling +out in all directions, when every shade of emphasis had been studied, I +think it might have been called a popular performance,--perhaps _too_ +popular;--but that is a matter of opinion. + +I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my +first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters +from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers +about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment. + +"How shall I tell the old gentleman," I exclaimed, one day, after +reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles,--"how shall I tell him, that, +instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a +collection of trumpery rhymes?" + +"Why tell him anything about it?" said Kate. "The committee have not +asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend +to address them in prose or verse. Then say nothing; when you begin to +speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to +speak about, and whether they like it or not." + +"A capital plan!" I cried; "for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastick, and +the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it +is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared +verses, or something of the sort." + +So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to +say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, +unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be +carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful; but then I knew it +was the distrust of modesty and inexperience. + + +II. + +A fine, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important +fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the +railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven +o'clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm +of hospitality,--Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh +mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in +a maze of inquiries and information. + +I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to +announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. +Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of +discourse selected for the trustees; and, indeed, it had often been the +custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name +of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about +to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, +ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. +This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and +had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested +the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his +countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness +about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to +pieces and thoroughly oiled, he would be much better for it. + +"Let me have the pleasure of making two valued and dear friends of mine +acquainted with each other!" exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "Professor +Owlsdarck, permit me to"----and with flourishes of extravagant +compliment the introduction was accomplished. + +"Brother, brother, Captain Strype wants to see you a moment; he has gone +into the back-parlor," called the voice of Miss Prowley from a window +above. + +Our host seemed a little annoyed; muttered something about the necessity +of conciliating opposition editors; excused himself with elaborate +apologies; and hurried into the house, leaving his two guests to ripen +in acquaintance as they best might. + +"Fine day, Sir," I remarked, after a deferential pause, to allow my +companion to open the conversation, had he been so disposed. + +"Fine for funerals," was the dismal response of Professor Owlsdarck. + +"On the contrary," said I, "it seems to me one of those days when we are +least able to realize our mortality." + +"Then you think superficially," rejoined the Professor. "A warm day at +this time of year induces people to leave off their flannels; and that, +in our climate, is as good as a death-warrant." + +"I confess, I never looked at it in that light." + +"No, because you look at picturesqueness, while I look at statistics. +Are you interested in mummies?" + +I signified that in that direction my enthusiasm was limited. + +"So I supposed," said Professor Owlsdarck. "And yet how can a man be +said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race? +The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the +rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone +brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical +organization of ancient men? Remember, too, those natural and original +peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its +fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the +proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies." + +"But in these days," I pleaded, "education has become so varied, that, +if we began at the beginning to study down, no man's lifetime would +suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs." + +"Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has +become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone. +Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields +of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface +to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements!" + +"For my own part," I said, "I have generally striven to inform myself +upon topics connected with our own country." + +"And such subjects are most interesting," replied the Professor, "if +only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The _bones_," he +continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,--"the bones of the +Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet. +The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and +mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older, +I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of +research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio. +What better reward for a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest +glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded!" + +After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued +long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring +friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian +dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in +unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of +learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and +tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination +was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine +rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to +borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have +had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to +understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would +have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the +particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of +the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a +quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, +I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his +specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid +horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more +pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to +meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those of that +commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become. + +It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when +he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened. + +"Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife +has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes +your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator," +did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some +beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed +to get a sight of your manuscript." + +"I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the +Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman +told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give +the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he +promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five +minutes,--just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style +of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done." + +"I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection +with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it +can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more +to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my +performance." + +"It is of much more matter than you think," said Colonel Prowley, sadly. +"For the 'Regulator,' which appears to-morrow, goes to press this +afternoon. Strype don't like to have it known, as it lessens the +interest of the 'Latest Intelligence' column; but I happened to find it +out some time ago." + +"Then we are worsted indeed," I cried. "His eagerness is well explained; +for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises +this evening, would be useless for his purpose." + +"A _critique_ of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial +auditor, will be printed in a thousand 'Regulators' before you open your +lips in our Town Hall," said the Colonel, bitterly. + +I knew for the first time that stinging indignation felt by all decent +aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which +dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, open abuse, +my young republican, which you will find galling,--but the contemptible +meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an +instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had +an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery +case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for, +upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those +who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And--it is awkward to +acknowledge it--I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife +whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had +come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never +provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though he +carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement +I derived from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest +ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable +appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any +mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds. + +Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at the end of the +garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the +end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and +emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that +there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for +dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reentering the house, I +closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it--where I +could not fail to remember it--with my hat and gloves upon the +entry-table. + +You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o'clock dinner. +Full of the half-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more +individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the +clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level +of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding +which are worth noting. + +Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future +guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the +table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly +made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too +warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and +generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his +chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the +town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our +admission, listened with much profit while the political question +pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, +underwent discussion. + +"They say Howke's pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many +reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as +certifying the cure of some New-England ailment," observed our host. + +"So I see," said Mr. Clifton; "and I regret to think that a class of +men, unjustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they +assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by +testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. +Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, "_Orandum est ut +sit mens sana_," and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the +Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in +sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and +chastity,--leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those +who had made them their special study. + +"Yet in ancient times," remarked Professor Owlsdarck, "the offices of +priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost +children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were +the doctors of the body as well as the soul." + +"For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian +medicine, as Strype says he did," said the Colonel. + +We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion. + +"You can't have read the last 'Regulator,' then," said Prowley, in +explanation. "You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring +to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes +containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one +which seemed quite appropriate." + +"'Familiar in their mouths as household words,'" suggested Mr. Clifton. + +"Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. +So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous +ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to +the text might not meet the difficulty." + +"But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to +make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy," said I, +innocently. + +"Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible +change in a single letter,--aided, of course, by a little intelligent +commentary." + +As we all looked rather doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last +number of Strype's valuable publication, and read as follows:-- + +"IMPORTANT LITERARY DISCOVERY. We learn by the last steamer from England +that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has +already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the +circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied iron-plated +steamers and the potato-rot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon +fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its +universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that +exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet, +'Throw physic to the dogs!' The slightest consideration of the +circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth +was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family +physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He +would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs, +which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more +skilled in the potencies of medicine. The line, as it came from the pen +of Shakspeare, undoubtedly read, 'Throw Physicke to the Powwows'; in +other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able +to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of +accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless +copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the +'P,'--thus transforming the passage into, 'Throw Physicke to the +Bowwows.' The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile +expression for the canine race, changed the last word to 'dogs,' as it +has ever since stood." + +Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, "Even if the emendation and inference +could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he +studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that +he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have +had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by +spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly +effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own." + +"If you speak of modern spiritualism," said Professor Owlsdarck, "you +must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For +how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in +Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi +and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in +that State? The ancestors of some of these nervous media testify to +roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions +like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent +shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type +your reverend brother Bradley's memoir on this subject, whereof the sole +copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford." + +"Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science," said +the clergyman, "that those who have not had sufficient training to know +that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw +the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical +shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden; yet I am constantly +surprised to see how few, in relation to any circumstance out of the +daily routine of business-life, recognize the difference between +possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy +matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been +accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language." + +"If we may believe the Padre Clavigero," observed the Professor, "it +will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects, +and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican." + +This remark seemed hardly to the purpose; for whatever the excellences +of that tongue might have been, there were insuperable objections to its +adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his +parishioners. But the last-named gentleman, with generous tact, allowed +the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it +naturally tended. It did not take long to get to the Pharaohs, of whose +domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a +man who dined with them once a week. From these venerable potentates we +soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as +thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed, +this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded +himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks, +as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the +careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into +how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and +indefatigable research might have been directed. + +Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every +syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden +ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there were +extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious +metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that +conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear. + +Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly +assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to +anything later than B. C. 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library, +and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and +relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite +apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the +hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host, +looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring +the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the +bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the +summons. A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of +the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the +distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor +Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees, +parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy. + + +III. + +Tom and the carryall at length appeared, and Professor Owlsdarck, in a +new suit of black clothes, in which the lately folded creases were very +perceptible, came forth a sort of musty bridegroom out of his chamber, +and rejoiced as a strong statistician to run his appointed race. Kate +and I thought it best to diminish the final bustle of departure by +lingering on the piazza just before the open door, where we could easily +add our parting good-wishes, when he succeeded in getting out of the +house. For there seemed to be some trouble in putting the Professor, +with as little "tumbling" as possible, into his narrow overcoat, and +then in finding his lecture, which had dropped under the table during +the operation, and then in recovering his spectacles from the depths of +some obscure pocket. Although Colonel Prowley had wellnigh exhausted the +language of jubilant enthusiasm, I managed, while helping Professor +Owlsdarck into the carryall, to express a respectful interest in his +success. Yet, while the words were on my lips, I could not but remember +what Strype had said in the morning, and admit the great likelihood of +its truth. And although beginning to feel pretty nervous as the time +drew near for my own sacrifice, I congratulated myself upon a +preparation in accordance with the modern demands of a lyceum audience. +With a pleasant sense of superior sagacity to this far more learned +candidate for popular favor, I proposed, instead of returning to the +house, to take an hour's stroll by the river, and go thence to the Town +Hall at the appointed time. + +"The very thing I was going to suggest," said Kate, "for I don't feel +like talking. My mind is so full of excitement about your poem that +ordinary conversational proprieties are almost impossible." + +Our host, with true courtesy, permitted us to do as we pleased, merely +saying that he would reserve the seat next him for my wife, so that we +need not arrive till it was time to commence the performance. + +"But you are going to forget your manuscript!" he pleasantly added. +"See, it lies on the entry-table with your gloves and overcoat." + +Of course there was no danger of doing anything of the sort, for a +memorandum to take good care of _that_ had printed itself in the largest +capitals upon the tablets of memory. I did feel disagreeably, however, +when my old friend, in handing it to me, looked wistfully at the neat +case of polished leather in which it was securely tied. It was, indeed, +painful to disappoint both in subject and style of composition the kind +interest with which he waited my appearance before an audience of his +townsmen. The only antidote to such regrets was the reflection that I +had prepared what would be most likely to cause the ultimate +satisfaction of all parties; for his mortification at my general +unpopularity and consequent defeat would of course have been greater +than any personal satisfaction he might have experienced in the dry and +antique matter accordant with his peculiar taste. I essayed some +cheerful remark, as the shining packet slipped into my breast-pocket, +and I buttoned my coat securely across the chest, that I might be +continually conscious that the important contents had not dropped out. + +"Remember, I shall be on the second settee from the platform; for I +would not willingly lose the slightest word," was the farewell +exclamation of Colonel Prowley. + +"You are too good, Sir," I answered, as we turned from the house; "I may +always count upon your kind indulgence, and perhaps more of it will be +claimed this evening than your partiality leads you to suspect." + +"And now," said I to Kate, when we were fairly out of hearing, "let us +dismiss for the last hour this provoking poem, and forget that there are +lyceum-lectures, Indian doctors, and General Courts in this beautiful +world." + +Of course I never suspected that we could do anything of the kind, but I +thought an innocent hypocrisy to that effect might beguile the time yet +before us. Kate acquiesced; and we walked along a wooded path where +every stone and shrub was rich in associations with that first summer in +Foxden when our acquaintance began. And soon our petty anxiety was +merged in deeper feelings that flowed upon us, as the great event in our +mortal existence was seen in the retrospect from the same pleasant +places where it once loomed grandly before us. The sweet, fantastic +anticipations that pronounced the "All Hail, Hereafter," to the great +romance of life again started from familiar objects to breathe a freer +atmosphere. The coming fact, which all natural things once called upon +us to accept as the final resting-place of the soul, had passed by us, +and we could look onward still. We saw that marriage was not the +satisfaction of life, but a noble means whereby our selfish infirmities +might be purified by divine light. Well for us that this Masque and +Triumph of Nature should not always be seen as from the twentieth year! +It is too cheap a way to idealize and ennoble self in the noontide sun +of one marriage-day. Yet let the gauze and tinsel be removed when they +may; for all earnest souls there are realities behind them that shall +make the heavens and earth seem accidents. It once seems as if marriage +would discolor the world with roseate tint; but it does better: it +enlightens it. Thus, in imagination, did we sally backward and forward +as the twilight thickened about us. In delicious sympathy of silence we +watched quivering shadows in the water, and marked how the patient elms +gathered in their strength to endure the storms of winter. + +"It is not a lottery," I said, at last, unconsciously thinking aloud. + +"No," responded Kate; "it was so christened of old, because our shrewd +New-Englanders had not made possible a better simile. It is like one of +the great Gift Enterprises of these latter years, where everybody is +sure of his money's worth in book or trinket, and is surprised by a +present into the bargain. The majority, to be sure, get but their bit of +soap or their penny-whistle, while a fortunate few are provided with +gold watches and diamond breast-pins." + +I thought this a good comparison; but I did not say so, for I was in the +mood to rise for my analogy or allegory, instead of swooping to pick it +out of Mr. Perham's advertisements. + +"Nay, nay, my dear," I rejoined, at length; "let us, who have won +genuine jewelry, exalt our gains by some nobler image. A stagnant puddle +of water may reflect the blessed sun even better than this river that +eddies by our feet, yet it is not there that one likes to look for it." + +"Perhaps it is the farthest bound of reaction from transcendentalism, +that causes us, when we do think a free thought, to look about for +something grimly practical to fasten it upon," argued Kate, smilingly. +"Yet I do not quite agree with the reason of my Aunt Patience for +devoting herself to the roughest part of gardening. A taste for flowers, +she contends, is legitimate only when it has perfected itself out of a +taste for earth-worms. There are truly thoughts only to be symbolized by +sunset colors and the song of birds, that are better than if mortared +with logic and based as firmly as the Pyramids." + +The fatal word "Pyramids" sent us flying through the ages till we +reached the tombs of the Pharaohs, whence we came bounding back again +through Grecian civilization, mediaeval darkness, and modern +enlightenment, till we naturally stopped at Professor Owlsdarck and the +carryall, by this time nearing Wrexford. My own literary performance, so +associated with that of the Professor, next occupied our attention, and +we realized the fact that it was time to be moving slowly in the +direction of the Town Hall. + +"Don't let us get there till just the hour for commencing," said I, +endeavoring to restrain the quickened step of my companion. + +And I quoted the ghastly merriment of the gentleman going to be hung, to +the effect that there was sure to be no fun till he arrived. + +We said nothing else, but indulged in a very definite sort of wandering +by the river's bank,--I nervously looking at my watch, occasionally +devouring a troche, and patting my manuscript pocket, or, to make +assurance doubly sure, touching the polished surface of the case within. + +We timed it to a minute. At exactly half-past seven o'clock, I proceeded +up the broad aisle of the Town Hall, put my wife into the place reserved +with the Prowley party upon settee number two from the platform, and +mounted the steps of that awful elevation amid general applause. + +The President of the Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society, who occupied a +chair at the right of the desk, came forward to receive me, and we shook +hands with an affectation of the most perfect ease and naturalness. +Here, a noisy satisfaction, as of boys in the gallery, accompanied by a +much fainter enthusiasm among their elders below. + +"You are just in time," whispered the President. "I was afraid you would +be too late; we always like to begin punctually." + +"I am all ready," said I, faintly; "you may announce me immediately." + +I subsided into the orator's chair, and glanced, for the first time, at +my audience. The Young Men, somehow or other, did not appear so numerous +as I had hoped. On the other hand, Dr. Dastick, and a good many friends +of eminently scientific character, loomed up with fearful distinctness. +Even the malleable element of youth seemed to harden by the side of that +implacable fibre of scholastic maturity which was bound to resist my +most delicate manipulation. I withstood, with some effort, the +stage-fright that was trying to creep over me, and hastily snatched the +manuscript from my pocket. Yes, I must have been confused, indeed; for +here is the string round the case tied in a hard knot, and I could have +taken my oath that I fastened it in a very loose bow! I picked at it, +and pulled at it, and humored it in every possible way, but the plaguy +thing was as fast as ever. At last--just as the President was +approaching the conclusion of his remarks, and had got as far as, "_I +shall now have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who_," etc., +etc.--I bethought myself of a relief quite as near at hand as that key +which Faithful held in his bosom during his confinement in Doubting +Castle. My penknife was drawn to the rescue, and the string severed, +while the President, retiring to his chair, politely waved me to the +place he had occupied. Again great applause from the gallery, with +tempered applause from below. With as much unconcern as I could +conveniently assume, I advanced to the front, took a final survey of the +audience, laid my manuscript on the desk, turned back the cover, and +fixed my eyes upon the page before me. + +How describe the nightmare horror that then broke upon my senses? Upon +the first page, in large, writing-master's hand, I had inscribed my +title:--"THE WHIMS OF NEW ENGLAND: A POEM." In its place, in still +larger hand, in lank and grisly characters, stared this hideous +substitute:-- + + "THE OBSEQUIES OF CHEOPS: + A LECTURE." + +With that vivid rapidity with which varied and minute scenery is crowded +into a moment of despair, I perceived the fatal blunder. Owlsdarck and I +had changed manuscripts. Upon that entry-table where lay my poem, the +hurry and bustle of departure had for a moment thrown his lecture. The +cases being identical in appearance, he had taken up my unfortunate +production, which, doubtless, at that very moment, he was opening before +parents, trustees, and pupils connected with the Wrexford Academy. I +will not deny, that, in the midst of my own perplexity, a ghastly sense +of the ridiculous came over me, as I thought of the bewilderment of the +Professor. For an instant of time I actually knew a grim enjoyment in +the fact that circumstances had perpetrated a much better joke than any +in my poem. But my heart stopped beating as an impatient rumble of +applause testified that the desires of the audience were awaiting +gratification. + +I glared upon the expectant faces before me; but they seemed to melt and +fuse into one another, or to dance about quite independently of the +bodies with which they should have been connected. I strove to murmur an +apology; but the words stuck in my throat. + +More applause, in which a slight whistling flavor was apparent. A +kicking, as of cow-hide boots of juvenile proportions, audible from the +gallery. A suspicion of cat-calling in a monad state of development +about the door. Of course my prospects were ruined. My knees seemed +disposed to deposit their burden upon the floor. Hope was utterly +extinguished in my breast. There I stood, weak and contemptible, before +the wretched populace whose votes I had come to solicit. Then it was, +the resolution, or rather the _rage_, of despair inspired me. I +determined to take a terrible vengeance upon my abandoned constituents. +Quick as lightning the thought leaped to execution. I seized the +insufferable composition before me, and began to fulminate its sentences +at the democracy of Foxden. + +"Fulminate" is expressive; but words like "roar" and "bellow" must be +borrowed to give the reader an idea of the vocal power put into that +performance. For it is a habit of our infirm natures to counteract +embarrassment by some physical exaggeration, which, by absorbing our +chief attention, leaves little to be occupied with the cause of +distress. Persons of extreme diffidence are sometimes able to face +society by behaving as if they were vulgarly at their ease, and men +troubled with a morbid modesty often find relief in acting a character +of overweening pride. Thus it was only by absorbing attention in the +effort to produce a very sensational order of declamation that I could +perform the task undertaken. Owlsdarck's handwriting was luckily large +and legible; and I was able to storm and gesticulate without hinderance. + +I ploughed through the tough old homily, tossing up the biggest size of +words as if they were not worth thinking of. I went at the lamented +Cheops with a fearful enthusiasm. The air seemed heavy with a miasma of +information. It was not my fault, if every individual in the audience +did not feel personally sticky with the glutinous drugs I lavished upon +the embalmment. I was as profuse with my myrrh, cassia, and aloes, as if +those costly vegetable productions were as cheap as cabbages. I split up +a sycamore-tree to make an external shell, as if it were as familiar a +wood as birch or hemlock. At last, having got his case painted all over +with appropriate emblems, and Cheops himself done up in his final +wrapping, I struck a mighty blow upon the desk, which set the lamps +ringing and flaring in majestic emphasis. + +It was at this point that the presence of an audience was once more +recalled to me. Enthusiastic applause, peal after peal, responded to my +efforts. I ventured to look out into the hall before me. Dr. Dastick was +thumping with energy upon the neighboring settee. The elders of Foxden +were leading the approbation, and a wild tattoo was resonant from the +gallery. The face of Colonel Prowley was aglow with satisfaction, and +the dear old gentleman actually waved his handkerchief as he caught my +eye. But my frightened, pale-faced Kate,--my first shudder returned +again as I met her gaze. Again I felt the sinking, prickling sensation +of being in for it. There was no resource but to charge at the +Professor's manuscript as vigorously as ever. + +I now went to pyramid-making with the same zeal with which I had acted +as undertaker. Locks, parsley, and garlic, to the amount of one thousand +and sixty talents, were lavished upon the workmen. Stuffed cats and +sacred crocodiles were carried in procession to encourage them. Stones, +thirty feet long, were heaved out of quarries, and hieroglyphics chopped +into them with wonderful despatch. At last, after an hour and a half of +laborious vociferation, I managed to get the pyramid done and Cheops put +into it. A sort of dress-parade of authorities was finally called: +Herodotus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, and many +others, were fired in concluding volleys among the audience. I was +conscious of a salvo of clapping, pounding, and stamping that thundered +in reply. The last sentence had been uttered. Again the audience blurred +and danced before my eyes; I staggered back, and sank confused and +breathless into the orator's chair. + +"Good, good," whispered the President. "It was a capital idea; ha, ha, +very funny! To hear you hammering away at Egyptian antiquities as if +you'd never thought of anything else! The elocution and gestures, too, +were perfectly tall;--the Young Men of our Society were delighted;--I +could see they were." + +"Permit me to congratulate you, Sir," said Dr. Dastick, who had elbowed +his way to the platform. "I confess myself most agreeably disappointed +in your performance. There was in it a solidity of information and a +curiosity of important research for which I was totally unprepared. Let +me hope that such powers of oratory as we have heard this evening may +soon plead the cause of good learning in the legislature of our State." + +"A good subject, my dear young friend, and admirably developed," +exclaimed Colonel Prowley. "You have already won the palm of victory, if +I rightly read the faces of some who were too quick to endow you with +the common levity and indiscretion of youth." + +"You have had success with young and old," said the Reverend Mr. +Clifton, kindly holding out his hand. "We have rarely lecturers who +seem to give such universal satisfaction." + +After these congratulations, and others to the same purpose, the real +state of the case could no longer be hidden. Instead of the +mortification and defeat confidently expected, I had unwittingly made a +ten-strike upon that erratic set of pins, the Foxden public. The Young +Men, who knew me only as the [Greek: gelotopoios], or laughter-maker, of +their merry association, considered the sombre getting up and energetic +delivery of the Cheops lecture the very best joke I had ever +perpetrated. Some of the most influential citizens, as has been already +seen, were personally gratified in the general dustiness of the subject; +while others, perchance, were able to doze in the consciousness that the +opinions of Cheops upon such disturbing topics as Temperance, +Anti-Slavery, and Woman's Rights must necessarily be of a patriarchal +and comforting character. But the glory of the unlooked-for triumph +seemed strangely lessened by the reflection that I had no just claim to +the funereal plumage with which I had so happily decked myself. + +"Gentlemen," said I, "I ought to tell you that the address I have +delivered this evening is--in fact--is not original." + +"That's just why we like it," rejoined Dr. Dastick. "No young man should +be original; it is a great impertinence, if he tries to be." + +"I do not mean simply to acknowledge an indebtedness to the ancient +authorities quoted in the lecture; but--but, the truth is, that the +arrangement and composition cannot properly be called my own." + +"Not the least consequence," said Colonel Prowler. "You showed a +commendable modesty in seeking the aid of any discreet and learned +person. You know I offered to give you what assistance was in my power; +but you found--unexpectedly, at the last moment, perhaps--some wiser +friend." + +"Most unexpectedly,--at the very last moment," I murmured. + +"As for originality," said the clergyman, pleasantly, "when you have +come to my age, you will cease to trouble yourself much about it. No man +can accomplish anything important without a large indebtedness to those +who have lived, as well as to those who live. We know that the old +fathers not only dared to lack originality, but even to consider times +and peoples in their selection and treatment of topics. _Non quod +sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt_, may be said of them in no +disparagement. For, not to mention others, I might quote Cyprian, +Minutius, Lactantius, and Hilarius,"---- + +"Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be +in a sermon," interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the +drift of his pastor's remarks. "And I rejoice that the success of our +friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow +witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such +fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may +well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of +Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But +come, all of you, for an hour, to my house; for I am mistaken, if there +be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have +just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to +Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an +offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which +are just now at full maturity." + +Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the +Doctor's invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer +(having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) +should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxden for +the next hour or so. + +"But you forget Professor Owlsdarck," I ventured to whisper to the +Colonel. "I must see him the instant he returns. That is--I am very +impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive at your +house, if I am not there to meet him." + +My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then +informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass +Dastick's house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring +in the Professor. + +"No," I exclaimed, with energy; "promise that I may go out and receive +Owlsdarck alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick's." + +"I doubt if there would be any precedent for this," argued the Colonel, +gravely. + +"Then we must make one," I asserted. "For surely nothing is more +appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether +in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the +craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings." + +After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the +case; and we passed out of the hot lecture-room into the still, fresh +night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind +the crowd. + +"I am not mad yet," I said, "though when I began that extraordinary +lecture you must have thought me so." + +"For a few moments," replied my wife, "I was utterly bewildered; but +soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the +Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck's lecture." + +"And he appeared with my poem before the audience in Wrexford." + +"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Kate, "I never thought of that part of it!" + +"Yet that is _the_ part of it of which it behooves us to think just at +present," I replied. "To my utter amazement, there has been something, +either in the Professor's wisdom or in my rendering of it, that has +_taken_ with the audience. Not knowing what Owlsdarck has done, or may +wish to do, I have not explained the humiliating and ridiculous +blunder,--though I have stoutly denied myself any credit for the +information or composition of the lecture." + +"But the Professor couldn't have read your poem at Wrexford?" + +"Two hours ago I should have thought it so impossible, that only one +thing in the world would have seemed to me more so, and that was that I +should have read his lecture in Foxden. But, luckily, I have permission +to stop the carryall on its way back, and so meet Owlsdarck before he +comes into the house. Let us keep the secret for the present, and wait +further developments." + +As others of the party had begun to look back, and to linger for us to +come up, there was no opportunity for further conference. And so we made +an effort, and talked of everything but what we were thinking of, till +we reached Dr. Dastick's house. + +I was conscious of a sweet memory, while passing along the broad, +low-roofed piazza where I first met my wife. And I marvelled that fate +had so arranged matters, that, again in the moonlight, near that very +spot, I was to have an important interview with another person with whom +my destiny had become strangely entangled. + +One sense was painfully acute while the relics and pears were being +passed about during the remainder of the evening. At any period I could +have heard the creak of the venerable carryall above the swarm of +information which buzzed about the Doctor's parlor. I responded to the +waggish raillery of the young men, talked _bones_ with their seniors, +disclaimed all originality in my lecture, thanked people for what they +said about my spirited declamation, and--through it all--listened +intently for the solemn rumble upon the Wrexford road. Time really +seemed to stop and go backward, as if in compliment to the ancient +fragments of gums, wrappages, and scarabaei that were produced for our +inspection. The carryall, I thought, must have broken down; Wrexford +had, perchance, been suddenly destroyed, like the Cities of the Plain; +the Professor had been tarred and feathered by the enraged inhabitants, +or, perhaps, had been murdered upon the road;--there was no limit to the +doleful hypotheses which suggested themselves. + +And, in fact, it was now getting late to everybody. The last pear had +vanished, and people began to look at the clock. Colonel Frowley was +audibly wondering what could have detained the Professor, and Dr. +Dastick was expressing his regret at not having the pleasure of seeing +him, when,--no,--yes, a jerking trundle was heard in the distance,--it +was not the wind this time! I seized my hat, rushed from the house, and +paused not till I had stopped the carryall with the emphasis of a +highwayman. + +"I have come to ask you to get out, Professor Owlsdarck," I exclaimed. +"Tom can drive the horse home; we're all at Dr. Dastick's, and they've +sent me to beg you to come in." + +The occupant of the vehicle, upon hearing my voice, made haste to +alight. Tom gave an expressive "Hud up," and rolled away into the +moonlight. + +"My dear Sir," said I, "no apology,--no allusion to how it happened; we +have both suffered quite enough. Only tell me what you managed to do +with my poem, and what the people of Wrexford have done to you." + +"What did I do with your poem?" echoed the Professor,--there was an +undertone of humorous satisfaction in his words that I had never before +remarked,--"why, what could I do with it but read it to my audience? +They thought it was capital, and----Well, _I_ thought so, too. And if +you want to know what the trustees did to me, you will find it in print +in a day or two. The fact is, they called a meeting, after I finished, +and unanimously elected me Principal of their Academy." + +I managed to get a few more particulars before entering the house, and +these, with other circumstances afterwards ascertained, made the +Professor's adventure to unravel itself thus: Owlsdarck had discovered +the change of manuscript about five minutes before he was expected to +speak. The audience had assembled, and (in view of the respect which +should appertain to the office for which he was an aspirant) he saw the +humiliation of disappointing the academic flock by a confession of his +absurd position. He glanced at the first page of my verses, and, seeing +that they commenced in a grave and solemn strain, determined to run for +luck, and make the best of them. Accordingly he began by saying, that, +instead of the usual literary address, he should read a new American +poem, which he trusted would prove popular and to the purpose. It turned +out to be very much to the purpose. The dismal Professor Owlsdarck. +giving utterance to the Yankee quips and waggery which I had provided, +took his audience by storm with amazement and delight. For the truth +was, as Strype had intimated in the morning, a formidable opposition had +arrayed itself against the Professor, which (while acknowledging the +claims of his profound learning) contended that he lacked sympathy with +the merry hearts of youth, a fatal defect in the character of a teacher. +Of course the entertainment of the evening filled all such cavillers +with shame and confusion. There was nothing to do but to own their +mistake, and to support the many-sided Owlsdarck with all enthusiasm. +Hence his unanimous election, and hence my infinite relief upon +reentering the Doctor's house. + +We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our +unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor +Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in +Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, +and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick's parlor, conscious of a +plethoric satisfaction strange to experience. + +I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the +"Regulator" appeared the next morning with a bitter _critique_ of my +performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of +license allowed to opposition editors upon election-day. But to +ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as "a flimsy and buffooning +poem,"--there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of +impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, +to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no +parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of +its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing +party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to +conciliate. + +And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent +Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a +good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me +to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in +the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess +undoubted evidence. + +"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man. in school," exclaimed a chubby +little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from +Wrexford to pass the summer vacation,--"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff +man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear +him laugh and carry on with the boys!" + +A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon +"The Whims of New England," and made the tour of the river-towns, and +several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting +overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum-engagements +at home compelled him to decline. + +I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden +bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my +topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to +maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first attempt. I don't mind +mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the +people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my +readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring +Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open +to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive _Lecture: Subject, +The Obsequies of Cheops_. + + + + +MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN. + + +A chapter on mountains will not be an inappropriate introduction to that +part of the world's history on which we are now entering, when the great +inequalities of the earth's surface began to make their appearance; and +before giving any special account of the geological succession in +Europe, I will say something of the formation of mountains in general, +and of the men whose investigations first gave us the clue to the +intricacies of their structure. It has been the work of the nineteenth +century to decipher the history of the mountains, to smooth out these +wrinkles in the crust of the earth, to show that there was a time when +they did not exist, to decide at least comparatively upon their age, and +to detect the forces which have produced them. + +But while I speak of the reconstructive labors of the geologist with so +much confidence, because to my mind they reveal an intelligible +coherence in the whole physical history of the world, yet I am well +aware that there are many and wide gaps in our knowledge to be filled +up. All the attempts to represent the appearance of the earth in past +periods by means of geological maps are, of course, but approximations +of the truth, and will compare with those of future times, when the +phenomena are better understood, much as our present geographical maps, +the result of repeated surveys and of the most accurate measurements, +compare with those of the ancients. + +Homer's world was a flat expanse, surrounded by ocean, of which Greece +was the centre. Asia Minor, the AEgean Islands, Egypt, part of Italy and +Sicily, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea filled out and completed his +map. + +Hecataeus, the Greek historian and geographer, who lived more than five +hundred years before Christ, had not enlarged it much. He was, to be +sure, a voyager on the Mediterranean, and had an idea of the extent of +Italy. Acquaintance with Phoenician merchants also had enlarged his +knowledge of the world; Sardinia, Corsica, and Spain were known to him; +he was familiar with the Black and Red Seas; and though an indentation +on his map in the neighborhood of the Caspian would seem to indicate +that he was aware of the existence of this sea also, it is not otherwise +marked. + +Herodotus makes a considerable advance beyond his predecessors: the +Caspian Sea has a place on his map; Asia is sketched out, including the +Persian Gulf with the large rivers pouring into it; and the course of +the Ganges is traced, though he makes it flow east and empty into the +Pacific, instead of turning southward and emptying into the Indian +Ocean. + +Eratosthenes, two centuries before Christ, is the first geographer who +makes some attempt to determine the trend of the land and water, +presenting a suggestion that the earth is broader in one direction than +in the other. In his map, he adds also the geographical results derived +from the expeditions of Alexander the Great. + +Ptolemy, who flourished in Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian, is the +next geographer of eminence, and he shows us something of Africa; for, +in his time, the Phoenicians, in their commercial expeditions, had +sailed far to the south, had reached the termination of Africa, with +ocean lying all around it, and had seen the sun to the north of them. +This last assertion, however, Ptolemy does not credit, and he is as +skeptical of the open ocean surrounding the extremity of Africa as +modern geographers and explorers have been of the existence of Kane's +open Arctic Sea. He believes that what the Phoenician traders took to +be the broad ocean must be part of an inland sea, corresponding to the +Mediterranean, with which he was so familiar. His map includes also +England, Ireland, and Scotland; and his Ultima Thule is, no doubt, the +Hebrides of our days. + +Our present notions of the past periods of the world's history probably +bear about the same relation to the truth that these ancient +geographical maps bear to the modern ones. But this should not +discourage us, for, after all, those maps were in the main true as far +as they went; and as the ancient geographers were laying the foundation +for all our modern knowledge of the present conformation of the globe, +so are the geologists of the nineteenth century preparing the ground for +future investigators, whose work will be as far in advance of theirs as +are the delineations of Carl Ritter, the great master of physical +geography in our age, in advance of the map drawn by the old Alexandrian +geographer. We shall have our geological explorers and discoverers in +the lands and seas of past times, as we have had in the present,--our +Columbuses, our Captain Cooks, our Livingstones in geology, as we have +had in geography. There are undiscovered continents and rivers and +inland seas in the past world to exercise the ingenuity, courage, and +perseverance of men, after they shall have solved all the problems, +sounded all the depths, and scaled all the heights of the present +surface of the earth. + +What has been done thus far is chiefly to classify the inequalities of +the earth's surface, and to detect the different causes which have +produced them. Foldings of the earth's crust, low hills, extensive +plains, mountain-chains and narrow valleys, broad table-lands and wide +valleys, local chimneys or volcanoes, river-beds, lake-basins, inland +seas,--such are some of the phenomena which, disconnected as they seem +at first glance, have nevertheless been brought under certain +principles, and explained according to definite physical laws. + +Formerly, men looked upon the earth as a unit in time, as the result of +one creative act, with all its outlines established from the beginning. +It has been the work of modern science to show that its inequalities are +not contemporaneous or simultaneous, but successive, including a law of +growth,--that heat and cold, and the consequent expansion and +contraction of its crust, have produced wrinkles and folds upon the +surface, while constant oscillations, changes of level which are even +now going on, have modified its conformation, and moulded its general +outline through successive ages. + +In thinking of the formation of the globe, we must at once free +ourselves from the erroneous impression that the crust of the earth is a +solid, steadfast foundation. So far from being immovable, it has been +constantly heaving and falling; and if we are not impressed by its +oscillations, it is because they are not so regular or so evident to our +senses as the rise and fall of the sea. The disturbances of the ocean, +and the periodical advance and retreat of its tides, are known to our +daily experience; we have seen it tossed into great billows by storms, +or placid as a lake when undisturbed. But the crust of the earth also +has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as +nothing,--which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, +and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions +that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll up for +twenty thousand feet, and be petrified at its greatest height: the +mountains are but the gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land +by the geological tempests of past times. Besides these sudden storms of +the earth's surface, there have been its gradual upheavals and +depressions, going on now as steadily as ever, and which may be compared +to the regular action of the tides. These, also, have had their share in +determining the outlines of the continents, the height of the lands, and +the depth of the seas. + +Leaving aside the more general phenomena, let us look now at the +formation of mountains especially. I have stated in a previous article +that the relative position of the stratified and unstratified rocks +gives us the key to their comparative age. To explain this I must enter +into some details respecting the arrangement of stratified deposits on +mountain-slopes and in mountain-chains, taking merely theoretical cases, +however, to illustrate phenomena which we shall meet with repeatedly in +actual facts, when studying special geological formations. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +We have, for instance, in Figure 1, a central granite mountain, with a +succession of stratified beds sloping against its sides, while at its +base are deposited a number of horizontal beds which have evidently +never been disturbed from the position in which they were originally +accumulated. The reader will at once perceive the method by which the +geologist decides upon the age of such a mountain. He finds the strata +upon its slopes in regular superposition, the uppermost belonging, we +will suppose, to the Triassic period; at its base he finds undisturbed +horizontal deposits, also in regular superposition, belonging to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Therefore, he argues, this mountain +must have been uplifted after the Triassic and all preceding deposits +were formed, since it has broken its way through them, and forced them +out of their natural position; and it must have been previous to the +Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits, since they have been accumulated +peacefully at its base, and have undergone no such perturbations. + +The task of the geologist would be an easy one, if all the problems he +has to deal with were as simple as the case I have presented here; but +the most cursory glance at the intricacies of mountain-structure will +show us how difficult it is to trace the connection between the +phenomena. We must not form an idea of ancient mountain-upheavals from +existing active volcanoes, although the causes which produced them were, +in a modified and limited sense, the same. Our present volcanic +mountains are only chimneys, or narrow tunnels, as it were, pierced in +the thickness of the earth's surface, through which the molten lava +pours out, flowing over the edges and down the sides and hardening upon +the slopes, so as to form conical elevations. The mountain-ranges +upheaved by ancient eruptions, on the contrary, are folds of the earth's +surface, produced by the cooling of a comparatively thin crust upon a +hot mass. The first effect of this cooling process would be to cause +contractions; the next, to produce corresponding protrusions,--for, +wherever such a shrinking and subsidence of the crust occurred, the +consequent pressure upon the melted materials beneath must displace them +and force them upward. While the crust continued so thin that these +results could go on without very violent dislocations,--the materials +within easily finding an outlet, if displaced, or merely lifting the +surface without breaking through it,--the effect would be moderate +elevations divided by corresponding depressions. We have seen this kind +of action, during the earlier geological epochs, in the upheaval of the +low hills in the United States, leading to the formation of the +coal-basins. + +On our return to the study of the American continent, we shall find in +the Alleghany chain, occurring at a later period, between the +Carboniferous and Triassic epochs, a good illustration of the same kind +of phenomena, though the action of the Plutonic agents was then much +more powerful, owing to the greater thickness of the crust and the +consequent increase of resistance. The folds forced upward in this chain +by the subsidence of the surface are higher than any preceding +elevations; but they are nevertheless a succession of parallel folds +divided by corresponding depressions, nor does it seem that the +displacement of the materials within the crust was so violent as to +fracture it extensively. + +Even so late as the formation of the Jura mountains, between the +Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the character of the upheaval is the +same, though there are more cracks at right angles with the general +trend of the chain, and here and there the masses below have broken +through. But the chain, as a whole consists of a succession of parallel +folds, forming long domes or arches, divided by longitudinal valleys. +The valleys represent the subsidences of the crust; the domes are the +corresponding protrusions resulting from these subsidences. The lines of +gentle undulation in this chain, so striking in contrast to the rugged +and abrupt character of the Alps immediately opposite, are the result of +this mode of formation. + +After the crust of the earth had grown so thick, as it was, for +instance, in the later Tertiary periods, when the Alps were uplifted, +such an eruption could take place only by means of an immense force, and +the extent of the fracture would be in proportion to the resistance +opposed. It is hardly to be doubted, from the geological evidence +already collected, that the whole mountain-range from Western Europe +through the continent of Asia, including the Alps, the Caucasus, and the +Himalayas, was raised at the same time. A convulsion that thus made a +gigantic rent across two continents, giving egress to three such +mountain-ranges, must have been accompanied by a thousand fractures and +breaks in contrary directions. Such a pressure along so extensive a +tract could not be equal everywhere; the various thicknesses of the +crust, the greater or less flexibility of the deposits, the direction of +the pressure, would give rise to an infinite variety in the results; +accordingly, instead of the long, even arches, such as characterize the +earlier upheavals of the Alleghanies and the Jura, there are violent +dislocations of the surface, cracks, rents, and fissures in all +directions, transverse to the general trend of the upheaval, as well as +parallel with it. + +Leaving aside for the moment the more baffling and intricate problems of +the later mountain-formations, I will first endeavor to explain the +simpler phenomena of the earlier upheavals. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +Suppose that the melted materials within the earth are forced up against +a mass of stratified deposits, the direction of the pressure being +perfectly vertical, as represented in Figure 2. Such a pressure, if not +too violent, would simply lift the strata out of their horizontal +position into an arch or dome, (as in Figure 3,) and if continued or +repeated in immediate sequence, it would produce a number of such domes, +like long billows following each other, such as we have in the Jura. But +though this is the prevailing character of the range, there are many +instances even here where an unequal pressure has caused a rent at right +angles with the general direction of the upheaval; and one may trace the +action of this unequal pressure, from the unbroken arch, where it has +simply lifted the surface into a dome, to the granite crest, where the +melted rock has forced its way out and crystallized between the broken +beds that rest against its slopes. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +[Illustration: Fig. 5.] + +In other instances, the upper beds alone may have been cracked, while +the continuity of the lower ones remains unbroken. In this case we have +a longitudinal valley on the top of a mountain-range, lying between the +two sides of the broken arch (as in Figure 4). Suppose, now, that there +are also transverse cracks across such a longitudinal split, we have +then a longitudinal valley with transverse valleys opening into it. +There are many instances of this in the Alleghanies and in the Jura. +Sometimes such transverse valleys are cut straight across, so that their +openings face each other; but often the cracks have taken place at +different points on the opposite sides, so that, in travelling through +such a transverse valley, you turn to the right or left, as the case may +be, where it enters the longitudinal valley, and follow that till you +come to another transverse valley opening into it from the opposite +side, through which you make your way out, thus crossing the chain in a +zigzag course (as in Figure 5). Such valleys are often much narrower at +some points than at others. There are even places in the Jura where a +rent in the chain begins with a mere crack,--a slit but just wide enough +to admit the blade of a knife; follow it for a while, and you may find +it spreading gradually into a wider chasm, and finally expanding into a +valley perhaps half a mile wide, or even wider. + +By means of such cracks, rivers often pass through lofty +mountain-chains, and when we come to the investigation of the glacial +phenomena connected with the course of the Rhone, we shall find that +river following the longitudinal valley which separates the northern and +southern parts of the chain of the Alps till it comes to Martigny, where +it takes a sharp turn to the right through a transverse crack, flowing +northward between walls fourteen thousand feet high, till it enters the +Lake of Geneva, through which it passes, issuing at the other end, where +it takes a southern direction. For a long time mountains were supposed +to be the limitations of rivers, and old maps represent them always as +flowing along the valleys without ever passing through the +mountain-chains that divide them; but geology is fast correcting the +errors of geography, and a map which represents merely the external +features of a country, without reference to their structural relations, +is no longer of any scientific value. + +It is not, however, by rents in mountain-chains alone, or by depressions +between them, that valleys are produced; they are often due to the +unequal hardness of the beds raised, and to their greater or less +liability to be worn away and disintegrated by the action of the rains. +This inequality in the hardness of the rocks forming a mountain-range +not only adds very much to the picturesqueness of outline, but also +renders the landscape more varied through the greater or less fertility +of the soil. On the hard rocks, where little soil can gather, there are +only pines, or a low, dwarfed growth; but on the rocks of softer +materials, more easily acted upon by the rain, a richer soil gathers, +and there, in the midst of mountain-scenery, may be found the most +fertile growth, the richest pasturage, the brightest flowers. Where such +a patch of arable soil has a southern exposure on a mountain-side, we +may have a most fertile vegetation at a great height and surrounded by +the dark pine-forests. Many of the pastures on the Alps, to which from +height to height the shepherds ascend with their flocks in the +summer,--seeking the higher ones as the lower become dry and +exhausted,--are due to such alternations in the character of the rocks. + +In consequence of the influence of time, weather, atmospheric action of +all kinds, the apparent relation of beds has often become so completely +reversed that it is exceedingly difficult to trace their original +relation. Take, for instance, the following case. An eruption has +upheaved the strata over a given surface in such a manner as to lift +them into a mountain, cracking open the upper beds, but leaving the +lower ones unbroken. We have then a valley on a mountain-summit between +two crests resembling the one already shown in Figure 4. Such a narrow +passage between two crests may be changed in the course of time to a +wide expansive valley by the action of the rains, frosts, and other +disintegrating agents, and the relative position of the strata forming +its walls may seem to be entirely changed. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6.] + +Suppose, for example, that the two upper layers of the strata rent apart +by the upheaval of the mountain are limestone and sandstone, while the +third is clay and the fourth again limestone (as in Figure 6). Clay is +soft, and yields very readily to the action of rain. In such a valley +the edges of the strata forming its walls are of course exposed, and the +clay formation will be the first to give way under the action of +external influences. Gradually the rains wear away its substance till +it is completely hollowed out. By the disintegration of the bed beneath +them, the lime and sandstone layers above lose their support and crumble +down, and this process goes on, the clay constantly wearing away, and +the lime and sand above consequently falling in, till the upper beds +have receded to a great distance, the valley has opened to a wide +expanse instead of being inclosed between two walls, and the lowest +limestone bed now occupies the highest position on the mountain. Figure +7 represents one of the crests shown in Figure 6, after such a levelling +process has changed its outline. + +[Illustration: Fig. 7.] + +But the phenomena of eruptions in mountain-chains are far more difficult +to trace than the effects thus gradually produced. Plutonic action has, +indeed, played the most fantastic tricks with the crust of the earth, +which seems as plastic in the grasp of the fiery power hidden within it +as does clay in the hands of the sculptor. + +We have seen that an equal vertical pressure from below produces a +regular dome,--or that, if the dome be broken through, a granite crest +is formed, with stratified materials resting against its slopes. But the +pressure has often been oblique instead of vertical, and then the slope +of the mountain is uneven, with a gradual ascent on one side and an +abrupt wall on the other; or in some instances the pressure has been so +lateral that the mountain is overturned and lies upon its side, and +there are still other cases where one mountain has been tilted over and +has fallen upon an adjoining one. + +Sometimes, when beds have been torn asunder, one side of them has been +forced up above the other; and there are even instances where one side +of a mountain has been forced under the surface of the earth, while the +other has remained above. Stratified beds of rock are even found which +have been so completely capsized, that the layers, which were of course +deposited horizontally, now stand on end, side by side, in vertical +rows. I remember, after a lecture on some of these extravagances in +mountain-formations, a friend said to me, not inaptly,--"One can hardly +help thinking of these extraordinary contortions as a succession of +frantic frolics: the mountains seem like a troop of rollicking boys, +hunting one another in and out and up and down in a gigantic game of +hide-and-seek." + +The width of the arch of a mountain depends in a great degree on the +thickness and flexibility of the beds of which it is composed. There is +not only a great difference in the consistency of stratified material, +but every variety in the thickness of the layers, from an inch, and even +less, to those measuring from ten or twenty to one hundred feet and more +in depth, without marked separation of the successive beds. This is +accounted for by the frequent alternations of subsidence and upheaval; +the continents having tilted sometimes in one direction, sometimes in +another, so that in certain localities there has been much water and +large deposits, while elsewhere the water was shallow and the deposits +consequently less. Thin and flexible strata have been readily lifted +into a sharp, abrupt arch with narrow base, while the thick and rigid +beds have been forced up more slowly in a wider arch with broader base. + +Table-lands are only long unbroken folds of the earth's surface, raised +uniformly and in one direction. It is the same pressure from below, +which, when acting with more intense force in one direction, makes a +narrow and more abrupt fold, forming a mountain-ridge, but, when acting +over a wider surface with equal force, produces an extensive uniform +elevation. If the pressure be strong enough, it will cause cracks and +dislocations at the edges of such a gigantic fold, and then we have +table-lands between two mountain-chains, like the Gobi in Asia between +the Altai Mountains and the Himalayas, or the table-land inclosed +between the Rocky Mountains and the coast-range on the Pacific shore. + +We do not think of table-lands as mountainous elevations, because their +broad, flat surfaces remind us of the level tracts of the earth; but +some of the table-lands are nevertheless higher than many +mountain-chains, as, for instance, the Gobi, which is higher than the +Alleghanies, or the Jura, or the Scandinavian Alps. One of Humboldt's +masterly generalizations was his estimate of the average thickness of +the different continents, supposing their heights to be levelled and +their depressions filled up, and he found that upon such an estimate +Asia would be much higher than America, notwithstanding the great +mountain-chains of the latter. The extensive table-land of Asia, with +the mountains adjoining it, outweighed the Alleghanies, the Rocky +Mountains, the Coast-Chain, and the Andes. + + * * * * * + +When we compare the present state of our knowledge of geological +phenomena with that which prevailed fifty years ago, it seems difficult +to believe that so great and important a change can have been brought +about in so short a time. It was on German soil and by German students +that the foundation was laid for the modern science of systematic +geology. + +In the latter part of the eighteenth century, extensive mining +operations in Saxony gave rise to an elaborate investigation of the soil +for practical purposes. It was found that the rocks consisted of a +succession of materials following each other in regular sequence, some +of which were utterly worthless for industrial purposes, while others +were exceedingly valuable. The _Muschel-Kalk_ formation, so called from +its innumerable remains of shells, and a number of strata underlying it, +must be penetrated before the miners reached the rich veins of +_Kupferschiefer_ (copper slate), and below this came what was termed the +_Todtliegende_ (dead weight), so called because it contained no +serviceable materials for the useful arts, and had to be removed before +the valuable beds of coal lying beneath it, and making the base of the +series, could be reached. But while the workmen wrought at these +successive layers of rock to see what they would yield for practical +purposes, a man was watching their operations who considered the crust +of the earth from quite another point of view. + +Abraham Gottlob Werner was born more than a century ago in Upper +Lusatia. His very infancy seemed to shadow forth his future studies, for +his playthings were the minerals he found in his father's forge. At a +suitable age he was placed at the mining school of Freiberg in Saxony, +and having, when only twenty-four years of age, attracted attention in +the scientific world by the publication of an "Essay on the Characters +of Minerals," he was soon after appointed to the professorship of +mineralogy in Freiberg. His lot in life could not have fallen in a spot +more advantageous for his special studies, and the enthusiasm with which +he taught communicated itself to his pupils, many of whom became his +devoted disciples, disseminating his views in their turn with a zeal +which rivalled the master's ardor. + +Werner took advantage of the mining operations going on in his +neighborhood, the blasting, sinking of shafts, etc., to examine +critically the composition of the rocks thus laid open, and the result +of his analysis was the establishment of the Neptunic school of geology +alluded to in a previous article, and so influential in science at the +close of the eighteenth and the opening of the nineteenth century. From +the general character of these rocks, as well as the number of marine +shells contained in them, he convinced himself that the whole series, +including the Coal, the _Todtliegende_, the _Kupferschiefer_, the +_Zechstein_, the Red Sandstone, and the _Muschel-Kalk_, had been +deposited under the agency of water, and were the work of the ocean. + +Thus far he was right, with the exception that he did not include the +local action of fresh water in depositing materials, afterwards traced +by Cuvier and Brogniart in the Tertiary deposits about Paris. But from +these data he went a step too far, and assumed that all rocks, except +the modern lavas, must have been accumulated by the sea,--believing even +the granites, porphyries, and basalts to have been deposited in the +ocean and crystallized from the substances it contained in solution. + +But, in the mean time, James Hutton, a Scotch geologist, was looking at +phenomena of a like character from a very different point of view. In +the neighborhood of Edinburgh, where he lived, was an extensive region +of trap-rock,--that is, of igneous rock, which had forced itself through +the stratified deposits, sometimes spreading in a continuous sheet over +large tracts, or splitting them open and tilling all the interstices and +cracks so formed. Thus he saw igneous rocks not only covering or +underlying stratified deposits, but penetrating deep into their +structure, forming dikes at right angles with them, and presenting, in +short, all the phenomena belonging to volcanic rocks in contact with +stratified materials. He again pushed his theory too far, and, inferring +from the phenomena immediately about him that heat had been the chief +agent in the formation of the earth's crust, he was inclined to believe +that the stratified materials also were in part at least due to this +cause. I have alluded in a former number to the hot disputes and +long-contested battles of geologists upon this point. It was a pupil of +Werner's who at last set at rest this much vexed question. + +At the age of sixteen, in the year 1790, Leopold von Buch was placed +under Werner's care at the mining school of Freiberg. Werner found him a +pupil after his own heart. Warmly adopting his teacher's theory, he +pursued his geological studies with the greatest ardor, and continued +for some time under the immediate influence and guidance of the Freiberg +professor. His university-studies over, however, he began to pursue his +investigations independently, and his geological excursions led him into +Italy, where his confidence in the truth of Werner's theory began to be +shaken. A subsequent visit to the region of extinct volcanoes in +Auvergne, in the South of France, convinced him that the aqueous theory +was at least partially wrong, and that fire had been an active agent in +the rock-formations of past times. This result did not change the +convictions of his master, Werner, who was too old or too prejudiced to +accept the later views, which were nevertheless the result of the +stimulus he himself had given to geological investigations. + +But Von Buch was indefatigable. For years he lived the life of an +itinerant geologist. With a shirt and a pair of stockings in his pocket +and a geological hammer in his hand he travelled all over Europe on +foot. The results of his foot-journey to Scandinavia were among his most +important contributions to geology. He went also to the Canary Islands; +and it is in his extensive work on the geological formations of these +islands that he showed conclusively not only the Plutonic character of +all unstratified rocks, but also that to their action upon the +stratified deposits the inequalities of the earth's surface are chiefly +due. He first demonstrated that the melted masses within the earth had +upheaved the materials deposited in layers upon its surface, and had +thus formed the mountains. + +No geologist has ever collected a larger amount of facts than Von Buch, +and to him we owe a great reform not only in geological principles, but +in methods of study also. An amusing anecdote is told of him, as +illustrating his untiring devotion to his scientific pursuits. In +studying the rocks, he had become engaged also in the investigation of +the fossils contained in them. He was at one time especially interested +in the _Terebratulae_ (fossil shells), and one evening in Berlin, where +he was engaged in the study of these remains, he came across a notice +in a Swedish work of a particular species of that family which he could +not readily identify without seeing the original specimens. The next +morning Von Buch was missing, and as he had invited guests to dine with +him, some anxiety was felt on account of his non-appearance. On inquiry, +it was found that he was already far on his way to Sweden: he had +started by daylight on a pilgrimage after the new, or rather the old, +_Terebratula_. I tell the story as I heard it from one of the +disappointed guests. + +All great natural phenomena impressed him deeply. On one occasion it was +my good fortune to make one of a party from the "Helvetic Association +for the Advancement of Science" on an excursion to the eastern extremity +of the Lake of Geneva. I well remember the expressive gesture of Von +Buch, as he faced the deep gorge through which the Rhone issues from the +interior of the Alps. While others were chatting and laughing about him, +he stood for a moment absorbed in silent contemplation of the grandeur +of the scene, then lifted his hat and bowed reverently before the +mountains. + +Next to Von Buch, no man has done more for modern geology than Elie de +Beaumont, the great French geologist. Perhaps the most important of his +generalizations is that by which he has given us the clue to the +limitation of the different epochs in past times by connecting them with +the great revolutions in the world's history. He has shown us that the +great changes in the aspect of the globe, as well as in its successive +sets of animals, coincide with the mountain-upheavals. + +I might add a long list of names, American as well as European, which +will be forever honored in the history of science for their +contributions to geology in the last half-century. But I have intended +only to close this chapter on mountains with a few words respecting the +men who first investigated their intimate structural organization, and +established methods of study in reference to them now generally adopted +throughout the scientific world. In my next article I shall proceed to +give some account of special geological formations in Europe, and the +gradual growth of that continent. + + + + +CAMILLA'S CONCERT. + +I, who labor under the suspicion of not knowing the difference between +"Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker,"--I, whose every attempt at music, +though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my +earliest childhood, been regarded as a premonitory symptom of epilepsy, +or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the +bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,--_I_, who can +but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the +olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in +the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, +pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso,--_I_ was bidden to +Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to the slaughter, I went. + +He bears a great loss and sorrow who has "no ear for music." Into one +great garden of delights he may not go. There needs no flaming sword to +bar the way, since for him there is no gate called Beautiful which he +should seek to enter. Blunted and stolid he stumps through life for whom +its harp-strings vainly quiver. Yet, on the other hand, what does he not +gain? He loses the concord of sweet sounds, but he is spared the discord +of harsh noises. For the surges of bewildering harmony and the depths +of dissonant disgust, he stands on the levels of perpetual peace. You +are distressed, because in yonder well-trained orchestra a single voice +is pitched one-sixteenth of a note too high. For me, I lean out of my +window on summer nights enraptured over the organ-man who turns poor +lost Lilian Dale round and round with his inexorable crank. It does not +disturb me that his organ wheezes and sputters and grunts. Indeed, there +is for me absolutely no wheeze, no sputter, no grunt. I only see dark +eyes of Italy, her olive face, and her gemmed and lustrous hair. You +mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauling. I hear no +caterwauling, but the river-god of Arno ripples sort songs in the +summer-tide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the +cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,--the cantatrice +with the laurel yet green on her brow, gliding over the molten moonlit +water-ways of Venice, and dreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with +the plash of the oars of the gondolier. It is the chant of the +flower-girl with large eyes shining under the palm-branches in the +market-place of Milan; and with the distant echoing notes come the sweet +breath of her violets and the unquenchable odors of her crushed +geraniums borne on many a white sail from the glorified Adriatic. +Bronzed cheek and swart brow under my window, I shall by-and-by-throw +you a paltry nickel cent for your tropical dreams; meanwhile tell me, +did the sun of Dante's Florence give your blood its fierce flow and the +tawny hue to your bared and brawny breast? Is it the rage of Tasso's +madness that burns in your uplifted eyes? Do you take shelter from the +fervid noon under the cypresses of Monte Mario? Will you meet queenly +Marguerite with myrtle wreath and myrtle fragrance, as she wanders +through the chestnut vales? Will you sleep to-night between the +colonnades under the golden moon of Napoli? Go back, O child of the +Midland Sea! Go out from this cold shore, that yields but crabbed +harvests for your threefold vintages of Italy. Go, suck the sunshine +from Seville oranges under the elms of Posilippo. Go, watch the shadows +of the vines swaying in the mulberry-trees from Epomeo's gales. Bind the +ivy in a triple crown above Bianca's comely hair, and pipe not so +wailingly to the Vikings of this frigid Norseland. + +But Italy, remember, my frigid Norseland has a heart of fire in her +bosom beneath its overlying snows, before which yours dies like the +white sick hearth-flame before the noonday sun. Passion, but not +compassion, is here "cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth." We +lure our choristers with honeyed words and gentle ways: you lay your +sweetest songsters on the gridiron. Our orchards ring with the +full-throated happiness of a thousand birds: your pomegranate groves are +silent, and your miserable cannibal kitchens would tell the reason why, +if outraged spits could speak. Go away, therefore, from my window, +Giuseppe; the air is growing damp and chilly, and I do not sleep in the +shadows of broken temples. + +Yet I love music: not as you love it, my friend, with intelligence, +discrimination, and delicacy, but in a dull, woodeny way, as the "gouty +oaks" loved it, when they felt in their fibrous frames the stir of +Amphion's lyre, and "floundered into hornpipes"; as the gray, stupid +rocks loved it, when they came rolling heavily to his feet to listen; in +a great, coarse, clumsy, ichthyosaurian way, as the rivers loved sad +Orpheus's wailing tones, stopping in their mighty courses, and the +thick-hided hippopotamus dragged himself up from the unheeded pause of +the waves, dimly thrilled with a vague ecstasy. The confession is sad, +yet only in such beastly fashion come sweetest voices to me,--not in the +fulness of all their vibrations, but sounding dimly through many an +earthy layer. Music I do not so much hear as feel. All the exquisite +nerves that bear to your soul these tidings of heaven in me lie torpid +or dead. No beatitude travels to my heart over that road. But as +sometimes an invalid, unable through mortal sickness to swallow his +needed nutriment, is yet kept alive many days by being immersed in a +bath of wine and milk, which somehow, through unwonted courses, +penetrates to the sources of vitality,--so I, though the natural avenues +of sweet sounds have been hermetically sealed, do yet receive the fine +flow of the musical ether. I feel the flood of harmony pouring around +me. An inward, palpable, measured tremulousness of the subtile, secret +essence of life attests the presence of some sweet disturbing cause, +and, borne on unseen wings, I mount to loftier heights and diviner airs. + +So I was comforted for my waxed ears and Camilla's concert. + +There is one other advantage in being possessed with a deaf-and-dumb +devil, which, now that I am on the subject of compensation, I may as +well mention. You are left out of the arena of fierce discussion and +debate. You do not enter upon the lists wherefrom you would be sure to +come off discomfited. Of all reputations, a musical reputation seems to +me the most shifting and uncertain; and of all rivalries, musical +rivalries are the most prolific of heart-burnings and discomfort. Now, +if I should sing or play, I should wish to sing and play well. But what +is well? Nancie in the village "singing-seats" stands head and shoulders +above the rest, and wears her honors tranquilly, an authority at all +rehearsals and serenades. But Anabella comes up from the town to spend +Thanksgiving, and, without the least mitigation or remorse of voice, +absolutely drowns out poor Nancie, who goes under, giving many signs. +Yet she dies not unavenged, for Harriette sweeps down from the city, and +immediately suspends the victorious Anabella from her aduncate nose, and +carries all before her. Mysterious is the arrangement of the world. The +last round of the ladder is not yet reached. To Madame Morlot, Harriette +is a savage, _une bete_, without cultivation. "Oh, the dismal little +fright! a thousand years of study would be useless; go, scour the +floors; she has positively no voice." No voice, Madame Morlot? +Harriette, no voice,--who burst every ear-drum in the room last night +with her howling and hooting, and made the stoutest heart tremble with +fearful forebodings of what might come next? But Madame Morlot is not +infallible, for Herr Driesbach sits shivering at the dreadful noises +which Madame Morlot extorts from his sensitive and suffering piano, and +at the necessity which lies upon him to go and congratulate her upon her +performance. Ah! if his tortured conscience might but congratulate her +and himself upon its close! And so the scale ascends. Hills on hills and +Alps on Alps arise, and who shall mount the ultimate peak till all the +world shall say, "Here reigns the Excellence"? I listen with pleasure to +untutored Nancie till Anabella takes all the wind from her sails. I +think the force of music can no farther go than Madame Morlot, and, +behold, Herr Driesbach has knocked out her underpinning. I am +bewildered, and I say, helplessly, "What shall I admire and be _a la +mode_?" But if it is so disheartening to me, who am only a passive +listener, what must be the agonies of the _dramatis personae_? "Hang it!" +says Charles Lamb, "how I like to be liked, and what I do to be liked!" +And do Nancie, Harriette, and Herr Driesbach like it any less? What +shall avenge them for their _spretae injuria formae_? What can repay the +hapless performer, who has performed her very best, for learning by +terrible, indisputable indirections that her cherished and boasted +Cremona is but a very second fiddle? + +So, standing on the high ground of certain immunity from criticism and +hostile judgment, I do not so much console myself as I do not stand in +need of consolation. I rather give thanks for my mute and necessarily +unoffending lips, and I shall go in great good-humor to Camilla's +concert. + +There are many different ways of going to a concert. You can be one of +a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, +an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they +condemn, they criticise with perfect _au-faitism_. (No one need say +there is no such word. I know there was not yesterday, and perhaps will +not be to-morrow; but that there is such a one to-day, you have but to +open your eyes and see.) Into such company as this, even I, whose poor +old head is always fretting itself wedged in where it has no business to +be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into +the Irishman's echo, which always returned for his "How d' ye do?" a +"Pretty well, thank you." I cling to the skirts of that member of the +party who is agreed to have the best taste and echo his responses an +octave higher. If he sighs at the end of a song, I bring out my +pocket-handkerchief. If he says "charming," I murmur "delicious." If he +thinks it "exquisite," I pronounce it "enchanting." Where he is rapt in +admiration, I go into a trance, and so shamble through the performances, +miserable impostor that I am, and ten to one nobody finds out that I am +a dunce, fit for treason, stratagem, and spoils. It is a great strain +upon the mental powers, but it is wonderful to see how much may be +accomplished and what skill may be attained by long practice. + +It is not ingenuous? I am afraid not quite. The guilt rest with those +who make me incur it! You cannot even read a book with any degree of +pleasure, if you know an opinion is expected of you at the finis. You +leave the popular novel till people have forgotten to ask, "How do you +like it?" How can you enjoy anything, if you are not at liberty to give +yourself wholly to it, but must be all the while making up a speech to +deliver when it is over? Nothing is better than to be a passive +listener, but nothing is worse than to be obliged to turn yourself into +a sounding-board: and must I have both the suffering and the guilt? + +Also one may go to a concert as a conductor with a single musical +friend. By conductor I do not mean escort, but a magnetic conductor, +rapture conductor, a fit medium through which to convey away his +delight, so that he shall not become surcharged and explode. He does not +take you for your pleasure, nor for his own, but for use. He desires +some one to whom he can from time to time express his opinions and his +enthusiasms, sure of an attentive listener,--since nothing is so +pleasant as to see one's views welcomed. Now you cannot pretend that in +such a case your listening is thoroughly honest. You are receptive of +theories, criticisms, and reminiscences; but you would not like to be +obliged to pass an examination on them afterwards. You do, it must be +confessed, sometimes, in the midst of eloquent dissertations, strike out +into little flowery by-paths of your own, quite foreign to the grand +paved-ways along which your friend supposes he is so kind as to be +leading you. But however digressive your mind may be, do not suffer your +eyes to digress. Whatever may be the intensity of your _ennui_, endeavor +to preserve an animated expression, and your success is complete. This +is all that is necessary. You will never be called upon for notes or +comments. Your little escapades will never be detected. It is not your +opinions that were sought, nor your education that was to be furthered. +You were only an escape-pipe, and your mission ceased when the soul of +song fled and the gas was turned off. This, too, is all that can justly +be demanded. Minister, lecturer, singer, no one has any right to ask of +his audience anything more than opportunity,--the externals of +attention. All the rest is his own look-out. If you prepossess your mind +with a theme, you do not give him an even chance. You must offer him in +the beginning a _tabula rasa_,--a fair field,--and then it is his +business to go in and win your attention; and if he cannot, let him pay +the costs, for the fault is his own. + +This also is torture, but its name is Zoar, a little one. + +There is yet another way. You may go with one or many who believe and +practise the doctrine of _laissez-faireity_. Do not now proceed to dash +your brains out against that word. I have just done it myself, and one +such head as mine is ample sacrifice for any verbal crime. They go to +the concert for love of music,--negatively for its rest and refreshment, +positively for its embodied delights. They take you for your enjoyment, +which they permit you to compass after your own fashion. They force from +you no comment. They demand no criticism. They do not require censure as +your certificate of taste. They do not trouble themselves with your +demeanor. If you choose to talk in the pauses, they are receptive and +cordial. If you choose to be silent, it is just as well. If you go to +sleep, they will not mind,--unless, under the spell of the genius of the +place, your sleep becomes vocal, and you involuntarily join the concert +in the undesirable _role_ of De Trop. If you go into raptures, it is all +the same; you are not watched and made a note of. They leave you at the +top of your bent. Whether you shall be amused, delighted, or disgusted, +they respect your decisions and allow you to remain free. + +How did I go to my concert? Can I tell for the eyes that made "a +sunshine in the shady place"? Was I not veiled with the beautiful hair, +and blinded with the lily's white splendor? So went I with the Fairy +Queen in her golden coach drawn by six white mice, and, behold, I was in +Camilla's concert-room. + +It is to be a fiddle affair. Now I am free to say, if there is anything +I hate, it is a fiddle. Hide it away under as many Italian coatings as +you choose,--viol, violin, viola, violone, violoncello, +violoncellettissimo, at bottom it is all one, a fiddle; in its best +estate, a diddle, diddle, frivolous, rattling, Yankee-Doodle, +country-tavern-ball whirligig, without dignity, sentiment, or power; and +at worst a rubbing, rasping, squeaking, woolleny, noisy nuisance, that +it sets my teeth on edge to think of. I shudder at the mere memory of +the reluctant bow dragging its slow length across the whining strings. +And here I am, in my sober senses, come to hear a fiddle! + +But it is Camilla's. Do you remember--I don't, but I should, if I had +known it--a little girl who, a few years ago, became famous for her +wonderful performance on the violin? At six years of age she went to a +great concert, and of all the fine instruments there, the unseen spirit +within her made choice, "Papa, I should like to learn the violin." So +she learned it and loved it, and when ten years old delighted foreign +and American audiences with her marvellous genius. It was the little +Camilla who now, after ten years of silence, tuned her beloved +instrument once more. + +As she walks softly and quietly in, I am conscious of a disappointment. +I had unwittingly framed for her an aesthetic violin, with the essential +strings and bridge and bow indeed, but submerged and forgot in such +Orient splendors as befit her glorious genius. Barbaric pearl and gold, +finest carved work, flashing gems from Indian water-courses, the +delicatest pink sea-shell, a bubble-prism caught and crystallized,--of +all rare and curious substances wrought with dainty device, fantastic as +a dream, and resplendent as the light, should her instrument be +fashioned. Only in "something rich and strange" should the mystic soul +lie sleeping for whom her lips shall break the spell of slumber, and her +young fingers unbar the sacred gates. And, oh, me! it is, after all, the +very same old red fiddle! Dee, dee! + +But she neither glides nor trips nor treads, as heroines invariably do, +but walks in like a good Christian woman. She steps upon the stage and +faces the audience that gives her hearty greeting and waits the prelude. +There is time for cool survey. I am angry still about the red fiddle, +and I look scrutinizingly at her dress and think how ugly are hoops. The +skirt is white silk,--a brocade, I believe,--at any rate, stiff, and, +though probably full to overflowing in the hands of the seamstress, who +must compress it within prescribed limits about the waist, looks scanty +and straight, because, like all other skirts in the world at this +present writing, it is stretched over a barrel. Why could she not, she +who comes before us to-night, not as a fashion, but an inspiration,--why +could she not discard the mode, and assume that immortal classic drapery +whose graceful falls and folds the sculptor vainly tries to imitate, the +painter vainly seeks to limn? When Corinne tuned her lyre at the +Capitol, when she knelt to be crowned with her laurel crown at the hands +of a Roman senator, is it possible to conceive her swollen out with +crinoline? And yet I remember, that, though _sa robe etait blanche, et +son costume etait tres pittoresque_, it was _sans s'ecarter cependant +assez des usages recus pour que l'on put y trouver de l'affectation_; +and I suppose, if one should now suddenly collapse from conventional +rotundity to antique statuesqueness, the great "_on_" would very readily +"_y trouver de l'affectation_." Nevertheless, though one must dress in +Rome as Romans do, and though the Roman way of dressing is, taking all +things into the account, as good as any, and, if not more graceful, a +thousand times more convenient, wholesome, comfortable, and manageable +than Helen's, still it does seem, that, when one steps out of the +ordinary area of Roman life and assumes an abnormal position, one might, +without violence, assume temporarily an abnormal dress, and refresh our +dilated eyes once more with flowing, wavy outlines. Music is one of the +eternities: why should not its accessories be? Why should a discord +disturb the eye, when only concords delight the ear? + +But I lift my eyes from Camilla's unpliant drapery to the red red rose +in her hair, and thence, naturally, to her silent face, and in that +instant ugly dress and red red rose fade out of my sight. What is it +that I see, with tearful tenderness and a nameless pain at the heart? A +young face deepened and drawn with suffering; dark, large eyes, whose +natural laughing light has been quenched in tears, yet shining still +with a distant gleam caught from the eternal fires. O still, pathetic +face! A sterner form than Time has passed and left his vestige there. +Happy little girl, playing among the flickering shadows of the +Rhine-land, who could not foresee the darker shadows that should settle +and never lift nor flicker from her heavy heart! Large, lambent eyes, +that might have been sweet, but now are only steadfast,--that may yet be +sweet, when they look to-night into a baby's cradle, but gazing now upon +a waiting audience, are only steadfast. Ah! so it is. Life has such hard +conditions, that every dear and precious gift, every rare virtue, every +pleasant facility, every genial endowment, love, hope, joy, wit, +sprightliness, benevolence, must sometimes be cast into the crucible to +distil the one elixir, patience. Large, lambent eyes, in which days and +nights of tears are petrified, steadfast eyes that are neither mournful +nor hopeful nor anxious, but with such unvoiced sadness in their depths +that the hot tears well up in my heart, what do you see in the waiting +audience? Not censure, nor pity, nor forgiveness, for you do not need +them,--but surely a warm human sympathy, since heart can speak to heart, +though the thin, fixed lips have sealed their secret well. Sad mother, +whose rose of life was crushed before it had budded, tender young lips +that had drunk the cup of sorrow to the dregs, while their cup of bliss +should hardly yet be brimmed for life's sweet spring-time, your +crumbling fanes and broken arches and prostrate columns lie not among +the ruins of Time. Be comforted of that. They bear witness of a more +pitiless Destroyer, and by this token I know there shall dawn a brighter +day. The God of the fatherless and the widow, of the worse than widowed +and fatherless, the Avenger of the Slaughter of the Innocents, be with +you, and shield and shelter and bless! + +But the overture wavers to its close, and her soul hears far off the +voice of the coming Spirit. A deeper light shines in the strangely +introverted eyes,--the look as of one listening intently to a distant +melody which no one else can hear,--the look of one to whom the room and +the people and the presence are but a dream, and past and future centre +on the far-off song. Slowly she raises her instrument. I almost shudder +to see the tawny wood touching her white shoulder; yet that cannot be +common or unclean which she so loves and carries with almost a caress. +Still intent, she raises the bow with a slow sweep, as if it were a wand +of divination. Nearer and nearer comes the heavenly voice, pouring +around her a flood of mystic melody. And now at last it breaks upon our +ears,--softly at first, only a sweet faint echo from that other sphere, +but deepening, strengthening, conquering,--now rising on the swells of a +controlling passion, now sinking into the depths with its low wail of +pain; exultant, scornful, furious, in the glad outburst of opening joy +and the fierce onslaught of strength; crowned, sceptred, glorious in +garland and singing-robes, throned in the high realms of its +inheritance, a kingdom of boundless scope and ever new delights: then +sweeping down through the lower world with diminishing rapture, rapture +lessening into astonishment, astonishment dying into despair, it gathers +up the passion and the pain, the blight and woe and agony; all garnered +joys are scattered. Evil supplants the good. Hope dies, love pales, and +faith is faint and wan. But every death has its moaning ghost, pale +spectre of vanished loves. Oh, fearful revenge of the outraged soul! The +mysterious, uncomprehended, incomprehensible soul! The irrepressible, +unquenchable, immortal soul, whose every mark is everlasting! Every +secret sin committed against it cries out from the housetops. Cunning +may strive to conceal, will may determine to smother, love may fondly +whisper, "It does not hurt"; but the soul will not _be_ outraged. +Somewhere, somehow, when and where you least expect, unconscious, +perhaps, to its owner, unrecognized by the many, visible only to the +clear vision, somewhere, somehow, the soul bursts asunder its bonds. It +is but a little song, a tripping of the fingers over the keys, a drawing +of the bow across the strings,--only that? Only that! It is the protest +of the wronged and ignored soul. It is the outburst of the pent and +prisoned soul. All the ache and agony, all the secret wrong and silent +endurance, all the rejected love and wounded trust and slighted truth, +all the riches wasted, all the youth poisoned, all the hope trampled, +all the light darkened,--all meet and mingle in a mad whirl of waters. +They surge and lash and rage, a wild storm of harmony. Barriers are +broken. Circumstance is not. The soul! the soul! the soul! the wronged +and fettered soul! the freed and royal soul! It alone is king. Lift up +your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the +King of Glory shall come in! Tremble, O Tyrant, in your +mountain-fastness! Tremble, Deceiver, in your cavern under the sea! Your +victim is your accuser. Your sin has found you out. Your crime cries to +Heaven. You have condemned and killed the just. You have murdered the +innocent in secret places, and in the noonday sun the voice of their +blood crieth unto God from the ground. There is no speech nor language. +There is no will nor design. The seal of silence is unbroken. But +unconscious, entranced, inspired, the god has lashed his Sibyl on. The +vital instinct of the soul, its heaven-born, up-springing life, flings +back the silver veil, and reveals the hidden things to him who hath eyes +to see. + +The storm sobs and soothes itself to silence. There is a hush, and then +an enthusiasm of delight. The small head slightly bows, the still face +scarcely smiles, the slight form disappears,--and after all, it was only +a fiddle. + +"When Music, heavenly maid, was young," begins the ode; but Music, +heavenly maid, seems to me still so young, so very young, as scarcely to +have made her power felt. Her language is as yet unlearned. When a baby +of a month is hungry or in pain, he contrives to make the fact +understood. If he is at peace with himself and his surroundings, he +leaves no doubt on the subject. To precisely this degree of +intelligibility has the Heavenly Maid attained among us. When Beethoven +sat down to the composition of one of his grand harmonies, there was +undoubtedly in his mind as distinct a conception of that which he wished +to express, of that within him which clamored for expression, as ever +rises before a painter's eye or sings in a poet's brain. Thought, +emotion, passion, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, each had its life and law. +The painter paints you this. This the poet sings you. You stand before a +picture, and to your loving, searching gaze its truths unfold. You read +the poem with the understanding, and catch its concealed meanings. But +what do you know of what was in Beethoven's soul? Who grasps his +conception? Who faithfully renders, who even thoroughly knows his idea? +Here and there to some patient night-watcher the lofty gates are +unbarred, "on golden hinges turning." But, for the greater part, the +musician who would tell so much speaks to unheeding ears. We comprehend +him but infinitesimally. It is the Battle of Prague. Adrianus sits down +to the piano, and Dion stands by his side, music-sheet in hand, acting +as showman. "The Cannon," says Dion, at the proper place, and you +imagine you recognize reverberation. "Charge," continues Dion, and with +a violent effort you fancy the ground trembles. "Groans of the wounded," +and you are partly horror-struck and partly incredulous. But what lame +representation is this! As if one should tie a paper around the ankle of +the Belvedere Apollo, with the inscription, "This is the ankle." A +collar declares, "This is the neck." A bandeau locates his "forehead." A +bracelet indicates the "arm." Is the sculpture thus significant? Hardly +more does our music yet signify to us. You hear an unfamiliar air. You +like it or dislike it, or are indifferent. You can tell that it is slow +and plaintive, or brisk and lively, or perhaps even that it is defiant +or stirring; but how insensible you are to the delicate shades of its +meaning! How hidden is the song in the heart of the composer till he +gives you the key! You hear as though you heard not. You hear the +thunder, and the cataract, and the crash of the avalanche; but the song +of the nightingale, the chirp of the katydid, the murmur of the +waterfall never reach you. This cannot be the ultimatum. Music must hold +in its own bosom its own interpretation, and man must have in his its +corresponding susceptibilities. Music is language, and language implies +a people who employ and understand it. But music, even by its professor, +is as yet faintly understood. Its meanings go on crutches. They must be +helped out by words. What does this piece say to you? Interpret it. You +cannot. You must be taught much before you can know all. It must be +translated from music into speech before you can entirely assimilate it. +Musicians do not trust alone to notes for moods. Their light shines only +through a glass darkly. But in some other sphere, in some happier time, +in a world where gross wants shall have disappeared, and therefore the +grossness of words shall be no longer necessary, where hunger and thirst +and cold and care and passion have no more admittance, and only love and +faith and hope and admiration and aspiration shall crave utterance, in +that blessed unseen world, shall not music be the every-day speech, +conveying meaning not only with a sweetness, but with an accuracy, +delicacy, and distinctness, of which we have now but a faint conception? +Here words are not only rough, but ambiguous. There harmonies shall be +minutely intelligible. Speak with what directness we can, be as +explanatory, repetitious, illustrative as we may, there are mistakes, +misunderstandings, many and grievous, and consequent missteps, +calamities, and catastrophes. But in that other world language shall be +exactly coexistent with life; music shall be precisely adequate +to meaning. There shall be no hidden corners, no bungling +incompatibilities, but the searching sound penetrates into the secret +sources of the soul, all-pervading. Not a nook, not a crevice, no maze +so intricate, but the sound floats in to gather up the fragrant aroma, +to bear it yonder to another waiting soul, and deposit it as deftly by +unerring magnetisms in the corresponding clefts. + +Toot away, then, fifer-fellow! Turn your slow crank, inexorable Italian! +Thrum your thrums, Miss Laura, for Signor Bernadotti! You are a long way +off, but your foot-prints point the right way. With many a yawn and sigh +subjective, with, I greatly fear me, many a malediction objective, you +are "learning the language of another world." To us, huddled together in +our little ant-hill, one is "_une bete_," and one is "_mon ange_"; but +from that fixed star we are all so far as to have no parallax. + +But I come down from the golden stars, for the white-robed one has +raised her wand again, and we float away through the glowing gates of +the sunrise, over the purple waves, over the vine-lands of sunny France, +in among the shadows of the storied Pyrenees. Sorrow and sighing have +fled away. Tragedy no longer "in sceptred pall comes sweeping by"; but +young lambs leap in wild frolic, silken-fleeced sheep lie on the slopes +of the hills, and shepherd calls to shepherd from his mountain-peak. +Peaceful hamlets lie far down the valley, and every gentle height blooms +with a happy home. Dark-eyed Basque girls dance through the fruitful +orchards. I see the gleam of their scarlet scarfs wound in with their +bold black hair. I hear their rich voices trilling the lays of their +land, and ringing with happy laughter. But I mount higher and yet +higher, till gleam and voice are lost. Here the freshening air sweeps +down, and the low gurgle of living water purling out from cool, dark +chasms mingles with the shepherd's flute. Here the young shepherd +himself climbs, leaping from rock to rock, lithe, supple, strong, brave, +and free as the soul of his race,--the same iron in his sinews, and the +same fire in his blood that dealt the "dolorous rout" to Charlemagne a +thousand years ago. Sweetly across the path of Roncesvalles blow the +evening gales, wafting tender messages to the listening girls below. +Green grows the grass and gay the flowers that spring from the blood of +princely paladins, the flower of chivalry. No bugle-blast can bring old +Roland back, though it wind long and loud through the echoing woods. +Lads and lasses, worthy scions of valiant stems, may sit on happy +evenings in the shadow of the vines, or group themselves on the +greensward in the pauses of the dance, and sing their songs of battle +and victory,--the olden legends of their heroic sires; but the strain +that floats down from the darkening slopes into their heart of hearts, +the song that reddens in their glowing cheeks, and throbs in their +throbbing breasts, and shines in their dewy eyes, is not the shock of +deadly onset, glorious though it be. It is the sweet old song,--old, yet +ever new,--whose burden is, + + "Come live with me and be my love,"-- + +old, yet always new,--sweet and tender, and not to be gainsaid, whether +it be piped to a shepherdess in Arcadia, or whether a princess hears it +from princely lips in her palace on the sea. + +But the mountain shadows stretch down the valleys and wrap the meadows +in twilight. Farther and farther the notes recede as the flutesman +gathers his quiet flock along the winding paths. Smooth and far in the +tranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silvery +sweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening-air, lessening and +lowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain just cleaves, +a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the +dewy twilight, and--you hear only your own heart-beats. It is not dead, +but risen. It never ceased. It knew no pause. It has gone up the heights +to mingle with the songs of the angels. You rouse yourself with a start, +and gaze at your neighbor half bewildered. What is it? Where are we? +Oh, my remorseful heart! There is no shepherd, no mountain, no girl with +scarlet ribbon and black braids bound on her beautiful temples. It was +only a fiddle on a platform! + +Now you need not tell me that. I know better. I have lived among fiddles +all my life,--embryotic, Silurian fiddles, splintered from cornstalks, +that blessed me in the golden afternoons of green summers waving in the +sunshine of long ago,--sympathetic fiddles that did me yeomen's service +once, when I fell off a bag of corn up garret and broke my head, and the +frightened fiddles, not knowing what else to do, came and fiddled to me +lying on the settee, with such boundless, extravagant flourish that +nobody heard the doctor's gig rolling by, and so _sinciput_ and +_occiput_ were left overnight to compose their own quarrels, whereby I +was naturally all right before the doctor had a chance at me, suffering +only the slight disadvantage of going broken-headed through life. What I +might have been with a whole skull, I don't know; but I will say, that, +even in fragments, my head is the best part of me. + +Yes, I think I may dare affirm that whatever there is to know about a +fiddle I know, and I can give my affidavit that it is no fiddle that +takes you up on its broad wings, outstripping the "wondrous horse of +brass," which required + + "the space of a day natural, + This is to sayn, four and twenty houres, + Wher so you list, in drought or elles showres, + To beren your body into every place + To which your herte willeth for to pace, + Withouten wemme of you, thurgh foule or faire,"-- + +since it bears you, "withouten" even so much as your "herte's" will, in +a moment's time, over the seas and above the stars. + +A fiddle, is it? Do not for one moment believe it.--A poet walked +through Southern woods, and the Dryads opened their hearts to him. They +unfolded the secrets that dwell in the depths of forests. They sang to +him under the starlight the songs of their green, rustling land. They +whispered the loves of the trees sentient to poets:-- + + "The sayling pine; the cedar, proud and tall; + The vine-propt elme; the poplar, never dry; + The builder oake, sole king of forrests all; + The aspine, good for staves; the cypresse funerall; + The lawrell, meed of mightie conquerours + And poets sage; the firre, that weepeth stille; + The willow, worne of forlorne paramours; + The eugh, obedient to the benders will; + The birch, for shaftes; the sallow, for the mill; + The mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wounde; + The warlike beech; the ash, for nothing ill; + The fruitful olive; and the platane round; + The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound." + +They sang to him with their lutes. They danced before him with sunny, +subtile grace, wreathing him with strange loveliness. They brought him +honey and wine in the white cups of lilies, till his brain was drunk +with delight; and they kept watch by his moss pillow, while he slept. + +In the dew of the morning, he arose and felled the kindly tree that had +sheltered him, not knowing it was the home of Arborine, fairest of the +wood-nymphs. But he did it not for cruelty, but tenderness, to carve a +memorial of his most memorable night, and so pulled down no thunders on +his head. For Arborine loved him, and, like her sister Undine in the +North, found her soul in loving him. Unseen, the beautiful nymph guided +his hand as he fashioned the sounding viol, not knowing he was +fashioning a palace for a soul new-born. He wrought skilfully, strung +the intense chords, and smote them with the sympathetic bow. What burst +of music flooded the still air! What new song trembled among the +mermaiden tresses of the oaks! What new presence quivered in every +listening harebell and every fearful wind-flower? The forest felt a +change, for tricksy nymph had proved a mortal love, and put off her +fairy phantasms for the deep consciousness of humanity. The wood heard, +bewildered. A shudder as of sorrow thrilled through it. A breeze that +was almost sad swept down the shady aisles as the Poet passed out into +the sunshine and the world. + +But Nature knows no pain, though Arborines appear never more. A balm +springs up in every wound. Over the hills, and far away beyond their +utmost purple rim, and deep into the dying day the happy love-born one +followed her love, happy to exchange her sylvan immortality for the +spasm of mortal life,--happy, in her human self-abnegation, to lie close +on his heart and whisper close in his ear, though he knew only the +loving voice and never the loving lips. Through the world they passed, +the Poet and his mystic viol. It gathered to itself the melodies that +fluttered over sea and land,--songs of the mountains, and songs of the +valleys,--murmurs of love, and the trumpet-tones of war,--bugle-blast of +huntsman on the track of the chamois, and mother's lullaby to the baby +at her breast. All that earth had of sweetness the nymph drew into her +viol-home, and poured it forth anew in strains of more than mortal +harmony. The fire and fervor of human hearts, the quiet ripple of inland +waters, the anthem of the stormy sea, the voices of the flowers and the +birds lent their melody to the song of her who knew them all. + +The Poet died. Died, too, sweet Arborine, swooning away in the fierce +grasp of this stranger Sorrow, to enter by the black gate of death into +the full presence and recognition of him by loving whom she had learned +to be. + +The viol passed into strange hands and wandered down the centuries, but +its olden echoes linger still. Fragrance of Southern woods, coolness of +shaded waters, inspiration of mountain-breezes, all the secret forces of +Nature that the wood-nymph knew, and the joy, the passion, and the pain +that throb only in a woman's heart, lie still, silent under the silent +strings, but wakening into life at the touch of a royal hand. + +Do you not believe my story? But I have seen the viol and the royal +hand! + + + + +SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. + + + The poplar drops beside the way + Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray; + The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impatient for the laggard May. + + The honeysuckles lace the wall; + The hyacinths grow fair and tall; + And mellow sun and pleasant wind and odorous bees are over all. + + Down-looking in this snow-white bud, + How distant seems the war's red flood! + How far remote the streaming wounds, the sickening scent of human blood! + + For Nature does not recognize + This strife that rends the earth and skies; + No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes. + + She holds her even way the same, + Though navies sink or cities flame; + A snow-drop is a snow-drop still, despite the nation's joy or shame. + + When blood her grassy altar wets, + She sends the pitying violets + To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it with soft regrets. + + O crocuses with rain-wet eyes, + O tender-lipped anemones, + What do ye know of agony and death and blood-won victories? + + No shudder breaks your sunshine-trance, + Though near you rolls, with slow advance, + Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the anguish-laden ambulance. + + Yonder a white encampment hums; + The clash of martial music comes; + And now your startled stems are all a-tremble with the jar of drums. + + Whether it lessen or increase, + Or whether trumpets shout or cease, + Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy bees are murmuring, "Peace!" + + O flowers! the soul that faints or grieves + New comfort from your lips receives; + Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in your healing leaves. + + Help us to trust, still on and on, + That this dark night will soon be gone, + And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red trouble of the dawn,-- + + Dawn of a broader, whiter day + Than ever blessed us with its ray,-- + A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and wrong shall fade away. + + Then shall our nation break its bands, + And, silencing the envious lands, + Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spotless robe, and clean, white + hands. + + + + +THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.[25] + +[Concluding Chapter.] + + +The subject which I hoped to present intelligibly in three or four +articles has continually threatened to step out of the columns of a +magazine and the patience of its readers. The material which is at hand +for the service of the great points of the story, such as the Commercial +Difficulty, the Mulatto Question, the State of Colonial Parties, the +Effect of the French Revolution, the Imbroglio of Races, the Character +of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Present Condition of Hayti, and a +Bibliography of the whole subject, is now detached for perhaps a more +deliberate publication; and two or three points of immediate interest, +such as the French Cruelties, Emancipation and the Slave Insurrection, +and the Negroes as Soldiers, are grouped together for the purpose of +this closing article. + + +PLANTATION CRUELTIES. + +The social condition of the slaves cannot be fully understood without +some reference to the revolting facts connected with plantation +management. It is well to know what base and ingenious cruelties could +be tolerated by public opinion, and endured by the slaves without +exciting continual insurrections. Wonder at this sustained patience of +the blacks passes into rage and indignation long before the student of +this epoch reaches the eventual outbreaks of 1791: it seems as if a just +instinct of manhood should have more promptly doomed these houses of +iniquity, and handed them over to a midnight vengeance. And there +results a kind of disappointment from the discovery, that, when the +blacks finally began to burn and slaughter, they were not impelled by +the desire of liberty or the recollection of great crimes, but were +blind agents of a complicated situation. It is only in the remote +historical sense that Slavery provoked Insurrection. The first great +night of horror in San Domingo rose from circumstances that were not +explicitly chargeable to the absence of freedom or to the outrages of +the slaveholder. But if these things had not fuelled the lighted torches +and whetted the blades when grasped, it would have been strange and +monstrous indeed. Stranger still would it have been, if the flames of +that first night had not kindled in the nobler breasts among that +unchained multitude a determination never to endure plantation ferocity +again. The legitimate cause for rebelling then took the helm and guided +the rest of the story into dignity. + +The frequency of enfranchisement might mislead us into expecting that +the colonial system of slavery was tempered with humanity. It was rather +like that monarchy which the wit described as being "tempered by +assassination." The mulatto was by no means a proof that mercy and +justice regulated the plantation life. His enfranchisement reacted +cruelly upon the negro. It seemed as if the recognition of one domestic +sentiment hurt the master's feelings; the damage to his organization +broke out against the lower race in anger. The connections between black +and white offered no protection to the former, nor amelioration of her +lot. Indeed, the overseer, who desired always to be on good terms with +the agent or the proprietor of a plantation, was more severe towards the +unhappy object of his passion than to the other women, for fear of +incurring reproach or suspicion. When he became the owner of slaves, his +emancipating humor was no guaranty that they would receive a salutary +and benignant treatment. + +When a Frenchman undertakes to be cruel, he acts with great _esprit_. +There is spectacular ingenuity in the atrocities which he invents, and +even his ungovernable bursts of rage instinctively aim a _coup de +theatre_ at his victim. The negro is sometimes bloodthirsty, and when he +is excited he will quaff at the opened vein; but he never saves up a man +for deliberate enjoyment of his sufferings. When the wild orgy becomes +sated, and the cause of it has been once liquidated, there is no further +danger from this disposition. But a French colonist, whether smiling or +sombre, was always disposed to be tormenting. The ownership of slaves +unmasked this tendency of a race which at home, in the streets of Paris +and the court-yard of the Abbaye and La Force, proved its ferocity and +simple thirst for blood. The story of the Princess Lamballe's death and +disfiguration shows the broad Gallic fancy which the sight of blood can +pique into action. But the every-day life of many plantations surpassed, +in minuteness and striking refinement of tormenting, all that the +_sans-culotte_ ever dared or the savage ever dreamed. + +Let a few cases be found sufficient to enlighten the reader upon this +point. They are specimens from a list of horrors which eye-witnesses, +inhabitants of the island, have preserved; and many of them, being found +in more than one authority, French as well as colored, are to be +regarded as current and unquestionable facts. + +The ordinary brutalities of slaveholding were rendered more acute by +this Creole temper. Whippings were carried to the point of death, for +the slave-vessel was always at the wharf to furnish short lives upon +long credit; starving was a common cure for obstinacy, brine and +red-pepper were liberally sprinkled upon quivering backs. Economy was +never a virtue of this profuse island. Lives were _sauce piquante_ to +luxury. + +The incarceration of slaves who had marooned, stolen vegetables, or +refused to work, had some features novel to the Bastille and the +Inquisition. A man would be let down into a stone case or cylinder just +large enough to receive his body: potted in this way, he remained till +the overseer considered that he had improved. Sometimes he was left too +long, and was found spoiled; for this mode of punishment soon ended a +man, because he could not move a limb or change his attitude. Dungeons +were constructed with iron rings so disposed along the wall that a man +was held in a sitting posture with nothing to sit upon but sharpened +stick: he was soon obliged to try it, and so oscillated between the two +tortures. Other cells were furnished with cases, of the size of a man, +that could be hermetically sealed: these were for suffocation. The +floors of some were kept submerged with a foot or two of water: the +negroes who came out of them were frequently crippled for life by the +dampness and cold. Iron cages, collars, and iron masks, clogs, fetters, +and thumb-screws were found upon numerous plantations, among the ruins +of the dungeons. + +The _quatre piquet_ was a favorite style of flogging. Each limb of the +victim was stretched to the stake of a frame which was capable of more +or less distention; around the middle went an iron circle which +prevented every motion. In this position he received his modicum of +lashes, every muscle swollen and distended, till the blood dripped from +the machine. After he was untied, the overseer dressed the wounds, +according to fancy, with pickled pimento, pepper, hot coals, boiling oil +or lard, sealing-wax, or gunpowder. Sometimes hot irons stanched the +flow of blood. + +M. Frossard[26] is authority for the story of a planter who administered +a hundred lashes to a negro who had broken a hoe-handle, then strewing +gunpowder in the furrows of the flesh, amused himself with setting the +trains on fire. + +M. de Crevecoeur put a negro who had killed an inhuman overseer into +an iron cage, so confined that the birds could have free access to him. +They fed daily upon the unfortunate man; his eyes were carried off, his +jaws laid bare, his arms torn to pieces, clouds of insects covered the +lacerated body and regaled upon his blood. + +Another planter, attests M. Frossard, after having lived several years +with a negress, deserted her for another, and wished to force her to +become the slave of her rival. Not being able to endure this +humiliation, she besought him to sell her. But the irritated Frenchman, +after inflicting various preparatory punishments, buried her alive, with +her head above ground, which he kept wet with _eau sucree_ till the +insects had destroyed her. + +How piteous is the reflection that the slaves made a point of honor of +preserving their backs free from scars,--so that the lash inflicted a +double wound at every stroke! + +There was a planter who kept an iron box pierced with holes, into which +the slaves were put for trivial offences, and moved towards a hot fire, +till the torment threatened to destroy life. He considered this +punishment preferable to whipping, because it did not suspend the +slave's labors for so long a time. + +"What rascally sugar!" said Caradeux to his foreman; "the next time you +turn out the like, I will have you buried alive;--you know me." The +occasion came soon after, and the black was thrown into a dungeon. +Caradeux, says Malenfant, did not really wish to lose his black, yet +wished to preserve his character for severity. He invited a dozen ladies +to dinner, and during the repast informed them that he meant to execute +his foreman, and they should see the thing done. This was not an unusual +sight for ladies to witness: the Roman women never were more eager for +the agonies of the Coliseum. But on this occasion they demurred, and +asked pardon for the black. "Very well," said Caradeux; "remain at +table, and when you see me take out my handkerchief; run and solicit his +life." After the dessert, Caradeux repaired to the court, where the +negro had been obliged to dig his own grave and to get into it, which he +did with singing. The earth was thrown around him till the head only +appeared. Caradeux pulls out his handkerchief; the ladies run, throw +themselves at his feet; after much feigned reluctance, he exclaims,-- + +"I pardon you at the solicitation of these ladies." + +The negro answered,-- + +"You will not be Caradeux, if you pardon me." + +"What do you say?" cried the master, in a rage. + +"If you do not kill me, I swear by my god-mother that I will kill you." + +At this, Caradeux seized a huge stone, and hurled it at his head, and +the other blacks hastened to put an end to his suffering. + +Burning the negro alive was an occasional occurrence. Burying him alive +was more frequent. A favorite pastime was to bury him up to his neck, +and let the boys bowl at his head. Sometimes the head was covered with +molasses, and left to the insects. Pitying comrades were found to stone +the sufferer to death. One or two instances were known of planters who +rolled the bodies of slaves, raw and bloody from a whipping, among the +ant-hills. If a cattle-tender let a mule or ox come to harm, the animal +was sometimes killed and the man sewed up in the carcass. This was done +a few times in cases where the mule died of some epizooetic malady. + +Hamstringing negroes had always been practised against marooning, theft, +and other petty offences: an overseer seldom failed to bring down his +negro with a well-aimed hatchet. _Coupe-jarret_ was a phrase applied +during the revolutionary intrigues to those who were hampering a +movement which appeared to advance. + +Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who +lived at Grande-Riviere, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the +ears, then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed +the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was +one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his +pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor +struck him. + +Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are +upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with +the _bagasse_ or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' +heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them +slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an +occasional pastime. + +If a woman was fortunate enough to lose her babe, she was often thrown +into a cell till she chose to have another. Madame Bailly had a wooden +child made, which she fastened around the necks of her negresses, if +their children died, until they chose to replace them. These punishments +were devised to check infanticide, which was the natural relief of the +slave-mother. + +Venault de Charmilly, a planter of distinction, afterwards the +accomplished agent of the emigrant-interest at the court of St. James, +used to carry pincers in his pocket, to tear the ears or tongues of his +unfortunate slaves, if they did not hear him call, or if their replies +were unsatisfactory. He pulled teeth with the same instrument. This man +threw his postilion to the horses, literally tying him in their stall +till he was beaten by their hoofs to shreds. He was an able advocate of +slavery, and did much to poison the English mind, and to create a party +with the object of annexing San Domingo and restoring the colonial +system. + +Cocherel, a planter of Gonaives, had a slave who played upon the violin. +After terrible floggings, he would compel this man to play, as a +punishment for having danced without music. He found it piquant to watch +the contest of pain and sorrow with the native love of melody. The cases +where French planters watched curiously the characteristics of their +various expedients for torture are so common that they furnish us with a +trait of French Creolism. A poor cook, for instance, was one day thrown +into an oven with a crackling heap of _bagasse_, because some article of +food reached the table underdone. As the lips curled and shrivelled away +from the teeth, his master, who was observing the effects of heat, +exclaimed,--"The rascal laughs!" + +But the most symbolical action, expressive of the colony's whole life, +was performed by one Corbierre, who punished his slaves by +blood-letting, and gave a humorous refinement to the sugar which he +manufactured by using this blood to assist in clarifying it. + +Let these instances suffice. The pen will not penetrate into the sorrows +which befell the slave concubine and mother. The form of woman was never +so mutilated and dishonored, the decencies of fetichism and savageism +were never so outraged, as by these slaveholding idolaters of the Virgin +and the Mother of God. + +The special cruelties, together with the names of the perpetrators, +which have been remembered and recorded, would form an appalling +catalogue for the largest slaveholding community in the world. But this +recorded cruelty, justly representative of similar acts which never came +to the ears of men, was committed by only forty thousand whites of both +sexes and all ages upon an area little larger than the State of Maine. +There was agony enough racking the bosoms of that half-million of slaves +to sate a hemisphere of slaveholding tyrants. But the public opinion of +the little coterie of villains was never startled. It is literally true +that not a single person was ever condemned to the penalties of the +_Code Noir_ for the commission of one of the crimes above mentioned. One +would think that the close recurrence, in time and space, of these acts +of crime would have beaten through even this Creole temperament into +some soft spot that belonged to the mother-country of God, if not of +France. Occasionally a tender heart went back to Paris to record its +sense of the necessity of some amelioration of these colonial +ferocities; but the words of humanity were still spoken in the interest +of slavery. It was for the sake of economy, and to secure a natural +local increase of the slave population, that these vague reports of +cruelty were suggested to the government. The planting interest procured +the suppression of one of the mildest and most judicious of the books +thus written, and had the author cast into prison. When the crack of the +planter's lash sounded in the purlieus of the Tuileries itself, humanity +had to wait till the Revolution had cleared out the Palace, the Church, +and the Courts, before its clear protest could reverberate against the +system of the colony. Then Gregoire, Lameth, Condorcet, Brissot, +Lafayette, and others, assailed the planting interest, and uttered the +bold generalization that either the colonies or the crimes must be +abandoned; for the restraining provisions of the _Code Noir_ were too +feeble for the sugar exigency, and had long ago become obsolete. There +was no police except for slaves, no inspectors of cultivation above the +agents and the overseers. He was considered a _bon blanc_, and a person +of benignity, whose slaves were seldom whipped to death. There could be +neither opinion nor economy to check these things, when "_La cote +d'Afrique est une bonne mere_" was the planter's daily consolation at +the loss of an expensive negro. + +Such slavery could not be improved; it might be abolished by law or +drowned in blood. There is a crowd of pamphlets that have come down to +us shrieking with the ineptitude of this period. It was popular to +accuse the society of the _Amis des Noirs_ of having ruined the colony +by inspiring among the slaves a vague restlessness which blossomed into +a desire for vengeance and liberty. But it is a sad fact that neither of +those great impulses was stirring in those black forms, monoliths of +scars and slave-brands. Not till their eyes had grown red at the sight +of blood shed at other suggestions, and their ears had devoured the +crackling of the canes and country-seats of their masters, did the +guiding spirit of Liberty emerge from the havoc, and respond with +Toussaint to the call of French humanity, by fighting for the Republic +and the Rights of Man. Suicide was the only insurrection that ever +seemed to the slave to promise liberty; for during the space of a +hundred years nothing more formidable than the two risings of Padre Jean +and Makandal had thrilled the consciences of the planters. If the latter +had preserved the unity of sentiment that belonged to the atrocious +unity of their interest, and had waived their pride for their safety, +they might have proclaimed decrees of emancipation with every morning's +peal of the plantation-bell, and the negroes would have replied every +morning, "_Vous maitre_." + +There is but one other folly to match the accusation that the sentiment +of French Abolitionism excited the slaves to rise: that is, the +sentiment that a slave ought not to be excited to rise against such +"Horrors of San Domingo" as we have just recorded. The men who are +guilty of that sentimentality, while they smugly enjoy personal immunity +and the dear delights of home, deserve to be sold to a Caradeux or a +Legree. Let them be stretched upon the _quatre-piquet_ of a great people +in a war-humor, whose fathers once rose against the enemies that would +have bled only their purses, and hamstrung only their material growth. + +In the two decades between 1840 and 1860 the American Union was seldom +saved by a Northern statesman without the help of San Domingo. People in +cities, with a balance at the bank, stocks floating in the market, +little children going to primary schools, a well-filled wood-shed, and a +house that is not fire-proof, shudder when they hear that a great moral +principle has devastated properties and sent peaceful homes up in the +smoke of arson. Certainly the Union shall be preserved; at all events, +the wood-shed must be. Nothing shall be the midnight assassin of the +country until slavery itself is ready for the job. So the Northern +merchant kept his gold at par through dread of anti-slavery, and saved +the Union just long enough to pay seventy-five per cent, for the luxury +of the "Horrors." Did it ever once occur to him that his eminent +Northern statesman was pretending something that the South itself knew +to be false and never hypocritically urged against the anti-slavery men? +Southern men of intelligence had the best of reasons for understanding +the phenomena of San Domingo, and while the "Friends of the Black" were +dripping with innocent French blood in Northern speeches, the embryo +Secessionists at Nashville and Savannah strengthened their convictions +with the proper rendering of the same history. Take, as a specimen of +their tranquil frame of mind, the following view, which was intended to +correct a vague popular dread that in all probability was inspired by +Northern statesmen. It is from a wonderfully calm and judicious speech +delivered before the Nashville Convention, a dozen years ago, by General +Felix Huston of Mississippi. + + "This insurrection [of San Domingo] having occurred so near + to us, and being within the recollection of many persons + living, who heard the exaggerated accounts of the day, has + fastened itself on the public imagination, until it has + become a subject of frequent reference, and even Southern + twaddlers declaim about the Southern States being reduced to + the condition of St. Domingo, and Abolitionists triumphantly + point to it as a case where the negro race have asserted and + maintained their freedom. + + "Properly speaking, this was not a slave insurrection, + although it assumed that form after the island was thrown + into a revolutionary state. + + "The island of St. Domingo, in 1791, contained about seven + hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, about fifty thousand + of whom were whites, more than double that number of + mulattoes and of mixed blood, and the balance were negroes. + + "The French and Spanish planters had introduced a general + system of concubinage, and the consequence was a numerous + progeny of mulattoes, many of whom associated with the + whites nearly on terms of equality, were educated at home or + sent to Europe to be educated, and many of them were + wealthy, having been freed by their parents and their + property left to them. These things had lowered, the + character of the white proprietors, gradually bringing them + down to the level of the mulattoes, and lessening the + distance between them and the blacks; and in addition to + this, there were a number of the white population who were + poor and enervated, and rendered vicious by the low state of + social morals and influence of the climate. + + "In this state of affairs, when the French Revolution broke + out, the wild spirit of liberty caught to the island and + infected the mulattoes and the lower class of white + population, and they sought to equalize themselves with the + large proprietors. The foundations of society were broken up + by this intermediate class, and in the course of the + struggle they called in the blacks, and the two united, + exceeding the whites in the proportion of twelve to one, + expelled them from the island. Since that time a continual + struggle has been going on between the mulattoes and the + negroes, the latter having numbers and brute force, and the + former sustaining themselves by superior intelligence. + + "There never has been a formidable slave insurrection, + considered purely as such; and a comparison of our situation + with slavery as it has existed elsewhere ought to relieve + the minds of the most timid from any apprehension of danger + from our negroes, under any circumstances, in peace or war." + +This generally truthful statement, which needs but little modification, +shows that San Domingo was helping to destroy the Union at the South +while it was trying to save it at the North. The words of the +Secessionist were prophetic, and Slavery will continue to be the great +unimpaired war power of Southern institutions, till some color-bearer, +white or black, in the name of law and order, shakes the stars of +America over her inland fields. + + +AUGUST 22, 1791. + +When the French vessels, bringing news of the developing Revolution, +touched the wharves of Cap Francais, a spark seemed to leap forth into +the colony, to run through all ranks and classes of men, setting the +Creole hearts afire, till it fell dead against the _gros peau_ and the +_peau fin_[27] of the black man. Three colonial parties vibrated with +expectations that were radically discordant when the cannon of the +people thundered against the Bastille. First in rank and assumption were +the old planters and proprietors, two-thirds of whom were at the time +absentees in France. They were, excepting a small minority, devoted +royalists, but desired colonial independence in order to enjoy a perfect +slaveholding authority. They were embittered by commercial restrictions, +and longed to be set free from the mother-country, that San Domingo +might be erected into a feudal kingdom with a court and gradation of +nobility, whose parchments, indeed, would have been black and engrossed +all over with despotism. They wanted the freedom of the seas and all the +ports of the world, not from a generous motive, nor from a policy that +looked beyond the single object of nourishing slavery at the cheapest +rates, to carry its products to the best markets in exchange for flour, +cloths, salted provisions, and all the necessaries of a plantation. The +revolutionary spirit of Prance was hailed by them, because it seemed to +give an opportunity to establish a government without a custom of Paris, +to check enfranchisements and crush out the dangerous familiarity of the +mulatto, to block with sugar-hogsheads the formidable movements in +France and England against the slave-trade. These men sometimes spoke as +republicans from their desire to act as despots; they succeeded in +getting their delegates admitted to seats in the National Assembly to +mix their intrigues with the current of events. Their "_Club Massiac_" +in Paris, so named from the proprietor at whose residence its meetings +were held, was composed of wealthy, adroit, and unscrupulous men, who +often showed what a subtle style of diplomacy a single interest will +create. It must be hard for bugs of a cosmopolitan mind to circumvent +the _formica leo_, whose sole object in lying still at the bottom of its +slippery tunnel is to catch its daily meal. + +If this great party of slave-owners had preserved unity upon all the +questions which the Revolution excited, their descendants might to-day +be the most troublesome enemies of our blockade. But history will not +admit an If. The unity which is natural to the slaveholding American was +impossible in San Domingo, owing to the existence of the mulattoes and +the little whites. + +A few intelligent proprietors had foreseen, many years previous to the +Revolution, that the continuance of their privileges depended upon the +good-will of the mulattoes and the restriction of enfranchisement. The +class of mixed blood was becoming large and formidable: of mulattoes and +free negroes there were nearly forty thousand. They were nominally free, +and had all the rights of property. A number of them were wealthy owners +of slaves. But they still bore upon their brows the shadow cast by +servitude, from which many of the mixed blood had not yet emerged. The +whites of all classes despised these men who reminded them of the color +and condition of their mothers. If a mulatto struck or insulted a white +man, he was subjected to severe penalties; no offices were open to him, +no doors of society, no career except that of trade or agriculture. This +was not well endured by a class which had inherited the fire and vanity +of their French fathers, with intellectual qualities that caught +passion and mobility from the drops of negro blood. Great numbers of +them had been carefully educated in France, whither they sent their own +children, if they could afford it, to catch the port and habits of free +citizens. They were very proud, high-strung, and restless, sombre in the +presence of contempt, lowering with some expectation. Frequent attempts +had been made by them to extend the area of their rights, but they met +with nothing but arrogant repulse. The guilty problem of the island was +not destined to be relieved or modified by common sense. The planters +should have lifted this social and political ostracism from the mulatto, +who loved to make money and to own slaves, and whose passion for livid +mistresses was as great as any Frenchman's. They were the natural allies +of the proprietors, and should have been erected into an intermediate +class, bound to the whites by intelligence and selfish interest, and +drawn upon the mother's side to soften the condition of the slave. This +policy was often pressed by French writers, and discussed with every +essential detail; but the descendants of the buccaneers were bent upon +playing out the island's tragedy. + +The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery +disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a +splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause, +one of their number, Vincent Oge, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's, +and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in +emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the +miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it +occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it +constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in +consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These +distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in +their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly, +to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate +amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition +in fifteen years."[28] + +There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations, +but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe +of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar +of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims +were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of +the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of +these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the +subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to +become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among +them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of +color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Oge exclaimed, "If +we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that +thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our +former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there +was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of +their grievances could subdue,--and that, if the planters should +persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire +would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be +extinguished."--This was the position of the Mulatto party. + +The third class, of Little Whites, comprised the mechanics and artisans +of every description, but also included all whites whose number of +slaves did not exceed twenty-four. This party likewise hailed the +Revolution, because it hated the pride and privileges of the great +proprietors. But it also hated the mulattoes so much that the obvious +policy of making common cause with them never seemed to be suggested to +it. Among the Little Whites were a goodly number of debtors, who hoped +by separation from the mother-country to cancel the burdens incurred for +slaves and plantation-necessaries; but the majority did not favor +colonial independence. Thus the name of Liberty was invoked by hostile +cliques for selfish objects, and the whole colony trembled with the +passion of its own elements. Beneath it all lay stretched the huge +Enceladus, unconscious of the power which by a single movement might +have forestalled eruption by ruin. But he gave no sign. + +Several mulattoes had been already hung for various acts of sympathy +with their class, when Oge appeared upon the scene at the head of a +handful of armed slaves and mulattoes, and attacked the National Guard +of Cap Francais. He was routed, after bravely fighting with partial +success, fled into the Spanish quarter, whence he was reclaimed in the +name of the king, and surrendered by the governor. Thirteen of his +followers were condemned to the galleys, twenty-two were hung, and Oge +with his friend Chavannes was broken upon the wheel. A distinction of +color was made at the moment of their death: the scaffold upon which +they suffered was not allowed to be erected upon the same spot devoted +to the execution of whites. + +Now the National Guard in all the chief towns was divided into adherents +of the mother-country and sympathizers with colonial independence. In a +bloody street-fight which took place at Port-au-Prince, the latter were +defeated. Then both factions sought to gain a momentary preponderance by +allying themselves with the mulattoes: the latter joined the +metropolitan party, which in this moment of extremity still thought of +color, and served out to the volunteers _yellow pom-pons_, instead of +the white ones which distinguished themselves. The mulattoes instantly +broke up their ranks, and preserved neutrality. + +It would be tedious to relate the disturbances, popular executions, and +ferocious acts which took place in every quarter of the island. Murder +was inaugurated by the colonists themselves: the provincial faction +avenged their previous defeat, and were temporarily masters of the +colony. On the 15th of May, 1791, the National Assembly had passed a +decree, admitting, by a precise designation, all enfranchised of all +colors who were born of free parents to the right of suffrage. When this +reached the island, the whites were violently agitated, and many +outrages were committed against the people of color. The decree was +formally rejected, the mulattoes again flew to arms, and began to put +themselves into a condition to demand the rights which had been solemnly +conceded to them. In that decree not a word is said of the slaves: the +_Amis des Noirs_, and the debates of the National Assembly, stretched +out no hand towards that inarticulate and suffering mass. The colonists +themselves had been for months shaking a scarlet rag, as if they +deliberately meant to excite the first blind plunge of the brute from +its harness. + +The mulattoes now brought their slaves into headquarters at +Croix-des-Bouquets, and armed them. The whites followed this example, +and began to drill a body of slaves in Port-au-Prince. Amid this +passionate preoccupation of all minds, the ordinary discipline of the +plantations was relaxed, the labor languished, the negroes were ill-fed +and began to escape to the _mornes_, the subtle earth-currents carried +vague disquiet into the most solitary quarters. Then the negroes began +to assemble at midnight to subject themselves to the frenzy of their +priestesses, and to conduct the serpent-orgies. But it is not likely +that the extensive revolt in the Plaine du Cap would have taken place, +if an English negro, called Buckman, had not appeared upon the scene, to +give a direction to all these restless hearts, and to pour his own clear +indignation into them. No one can satisfactorily explain where he came +from. One writer will prove to you that he was an emissary of the +planting interest in Jamaica, which was willing to set the fatal example +of insurrection for the sake of destroying a rival colony. Another pen +is equally fertile with assurances that he was bought with the gold of +Pitt to be a political instrument of perfidious Albion. It is shown to +be more probable that he was the agent of the Spanish governor, whose +object was to effect a diversion in the interest of royalism. According +to another statement, he belonged to the Cudjoe band of Jamaica maroons, +which had forced a declaration of its independence from the governor of +that island. Buckman was acquainted with Creole French, and was in full +sympathy with the superstitious rites of his countrymen in San Domingo. +Putting aside the conjectures of the times, one thing is certain beyond +a doubt, that he was born of the moment, and sprang from the festering +history which white neglect and criminality had spread, as naturally as +the poisoned sting flutters from the swamps of summer. And he filled the +night of vengeance, which was accorded to him by laws that cannot be +repealed without making the whole life of the planet one sustained +expression of the wrath of God. + +A furious storm raged during the night of August 22: the blackness was +rent by the lightning that is known only to the hurricane-regions of the +earth. The negroes gathered upon the Morne Rouge, sacrificed a black +heifer with frantic dances which the elements seemed to electrify, +thunder emphasized the declaration of the priestess that the entrails +were satisfactory, and the quarters were thrown into a huge brazier to +be burned. At that moment a bird fell from the overhanging branch of a +tree directly into the cooking spell, and terrible shouts of +encouragement hailed the omen. Is it an old Pelasgic or a Thracian +forest grown maenadic over some forgotten vengeance of the early days? It +is the unalterable human nature, masked in the deeper colors of more +fervid skies, gathering a mighty breath into its lacerated bosom for a +rending of outrage and a lion's leap in the dark against its foe. + +"Listen!" cried Buckman. "The good God conceals himself in a cloud, He +mutters in the tempest. By the whites He commands crime, by us He +commands benefits. But God, who is good, ordains for us vengeance. Tear +down the figure of the white man's God which brings the tears to your +eyes. Hear! It is Liberty! It speaks to the hearts of us all." + +The morning broke clear, but the tempest had dropped from the skies to +earth. The costly habitations, whose cornerstones were dungeons, in +whose courts the gay guests of the planter used to season their dessert +with the punishments he had saved up for them, were carried off by +exulting flames. The great fields of cane, which pumped the earth's sap +and the negro's blood up for the slaveholder's caldron, went crackling +away with the houses which they furnished. Rich garments, dainty +upholstery, and the last fashions of Paris went parading on the negroes' +backs, and hid the marks of the floggings which earned them. The dead +women and children lay in the thickets where they had vainly implored +mercy. There are long careers of guiltiness whose devilish nature +becomes apparent only when innocence suffers with it. Then the cry of a +babe upon a negro's pike is the voice of God's judgment against a +century. + +Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from +the roofs of Cap Francais broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and +murdered all they could find,--the paralytic old man in his bed, the +daughters in the same room, the men in the street,--murdered and +ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion +and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action +of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of +caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety +sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the +weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through +which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive +which heart was black and which was white. + +If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a +lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people, let them find +it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to +the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God +perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or +not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools +and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the +text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us +to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white +man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if +God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and +waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His +choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the +black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God. +In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the +story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream. + + +NEGRO SOLDIERS.[29] + +The native tribes of Africa differ as much in combative propensity and +ability for warlike enterprises as in their other traits. The people of +Wadai are distinguished for bravery above all their neighbors. The men +of Ashantee are great fighters, and have such a contempt for death that +they will continue their attacks upon a European intrenchment in spite +of appalling losses. A band that is overpowered will fight to the last +man; for it is the custom of the kingdom to punish cowardice with death. +They are almost the only negroes who will deliver battle in the open +field, in regular bodies with closed ranks. In Dahomey war is a passion +of the ruler and the people, and the year is divided between fighting +and feasting. The king's body-guard of five thousand unmarried women +preserves the tradition of bravery, as European regiments preserve their +flags. The mild Mandingos become obstinate in fight; they have minstrels +who accompany armies to war, and recite the deeds of former heroes; but +they are not capable of discipline. On the contrary, the negroes of +Fernando Po march and exercise with a great regard to order. In Ashantee +and upon the Gold Coast the negroes make use of horn signals in war to +transmit orders to a distance; and on the White Nile and in Kaffa +drummers are stationed in trees to telegraph commands. Great +circumspection is not universal; but the Veis maintain posts, and when +they are threatened, a watch is kept night and day. The negroes of Akkra +know the value of a ditched intrenchment. + +The English praise the negro soldiers whom they have in Sierra Leone for +good behavior, temperance, and discipline; and their Jolofs at the +Gambia execute complicated manoeuvres in a striking way. West-Indian +troops have performed many distinguished services, and English officers +say that they are as brave as Europeans; but in the heat of a fight they +are apt to grow intractable and to behave wildly. The troops which +Napoleon used in Calabria, drawn from the French Colonies, emulated the +French soldiers, and arrived at great distinction. + +D'Escayrac says that the native negro has eminent qualities for the +making of a good soldier,--dependence upon a superior, unquestioning +confidence in his sagacity, an enthusiastic courage which mounts to +great audacity, passiveness, and capacity for waiting. + +From this the Congos must be excepted. Large numbers of them deserted +General Dessalines in San Domingo, and fled to the mountains, frightened +at the daring of the French. Here, if brave, they might have been armed +and officered by Spaniards to effect dangerous movements in his rear. +But he knew their timidity, and gave himself no trouble about them. +There is a genealogy which derives Toussaint from a Congo grandfather, a +native prince of renown; but it was probably manufactured for him at the +suggestion of his own achievements. The sullen-looking Congo is really +gay, rollicking, disposed to idleness, careless and sensual, fatigued by +the smallest act of reflection; Toussaint was grave, reticent, +forecasting, tenacious, secretive, full of endurance and concentration, +rapid and brave in war.[30] What a confident and noble aspect he had, +when he left his guard and walked alone to the head of a column of old +troops of his who had deserted to Desfourneaux, and were about to +deliver their fire! "My children, will you fire upon your father?"--and +down went four regiments upon their knees. The white officers tried to +bring them under the fire of cannon, but it was too late. Here was a +greater risk than Napoleon ran, after landing at Frejus, on his march +upon Paris. + +Contempt for death is a universal trait of the native African.[31] The +slaveholder says it is in consequence of his affinity to the brute, +which does not know how to estimate a danger, and whose nervous +organization is too dull to be thrilled and daunted in its presence. It +is really in consequence of his single-mindedness: the big necks lift +the blood, which is two degrees warmer than a white man's, and drench +the brain with an ecstasy of daring. If he can clearly see the probable +manner of his death, the blood is up and not down at the sight.[32] The +negro's nerves are very susceptible; in cool blood he is easily alarmed +at anything unexpected or threatening. His fancy is peopled with odd +fears; he shrinks at the prospect of a punishment more grotesque or +refined than usual. And when he becomes a Creole negro, his fancy is +always shooting timid glances beneath the yoke of Slavery. The negroes +and mulattoes at San Domingo looked impassively at hanging, breaking +upon the wheel, and quartering; but when the first guillotine was +imported and set in action, they and the Creole whites shrank appalled +to see the head disappear in the basket. It was too deft and sudden for +their taste, and this mode of execution was abandoned for the more +hearty and lacerating methods. + +When a negro has a motive, his nerves grow firm, his imagination escapes +before the rising passion, his contempt for death is not stolidity, but +inspiration. In the smouldering surface lies an ember capable of white +heat. That makes the negro soldier difficult to hold in hand or to call +off. He has no fancy for grim sitting, like the Indian, to die by +inches, though he can endure torture with tranquillity. He is too +tropical for that; and after the exultation of a fight, in which he has +been as savage as he can be, the process of torturing his foes seems +tame, and he seldom does it, except by way of close reprisals to prevent +the practice in his enemy. The French were invariably more cruel than +the negroes. + +Southern gentlemen think that the negro is incurably afraid of +fire-arms, and too clumsy to use them with effect. It is a great +mistake. White men who never touched a gun are equally clumsy and +nervous. When the slavers began to furnish the native tribes with +condemned muskets in exchange for slaves, many ludicrous scenes +occurred. The Senegambians considered that the object was to get as much +noise as possible out of the weapon. The people of Akkra planted the +stock against their hips, shut both eyes and fired; they would not take +aim, because it was their opinion that it brought certain death to see a +falling enemy. Other tribes thought a musket was possessed, and at the +moment of firing threw it violently away from them. When we consider the +quality of the weapons furnished, this action will appear laudable. But +as these superstitions disappeared, especially upon the Gold Coast and +in Ashantee, negroes have learned to use the musket properly. Among the +Gold-Coast negroes are good smiths, who have sometimes even made guns. +In the West Indies, the Creole negro has become a sharp-shooter, very +formidable on the skirts of woods and in the defiles of the _mornes_. He +learned to deliver volleys with precision, and to use the bayonet with +great valor. The old soldiers of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, veterans of +the Rhine and Italy, were never known to presume upon negro incapacity +to use a musket. The number of their dead and wounded taught them what +men who are determined to be free can do with the white man's weapons. + +Rainsford, who was an English captain of a West-Indian regiment, +describes a review of fifty thousand soldiers of Toussaint on the Plaine +du Cap. "Of the grandeur of the scene I had not the smallest conception. +Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual +exercise with a degree of expertness seldom witnessed, and performed +equally well several manoeuvres applicable to their method of +fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, +then, separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their +backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire the whole of the time, till +they were recalled; they then formed again, in an instant, into their +wonted regularity. This single manoeuvre was executed with such +facility and precision as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them +in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such +promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have +astonished any European soldier." + +These were the men whose previous lives had been spent at the +hoe-handle, and in feeding canes to the cylinders of the sugar-mill. + +Rainsford gives this general view of the operations of Toussaint's +forces:--"Though formed into regular divisions, the soldiers of the one +were trained to the duties of the other, and all understood the +management of artillery with the greatest accuracy. Their chief +dexterity, however, was in the use of the bayonet. With that dreadful +weapon fixed on muskets of extraordinary length in their hands, neither +cavalry nor artillery could subdue infantry, although of unequal +proportion; but when they were attacked in their defiles, no power could +overcome them. Infinitely more skillful than the Maroons of Jamaica in +their cock-pits, though not more favored by Nature, they found means to +place whole lines in ambush, continuing sometimes from one post to +another, and sometimes stretching from their camps in the form of a +horse-shoe. With these lines artillery was not used, to prevent their +being burdened or the chance of loss; but the surrounding heights of +every camp were well fortified, according to the experience and judgment +of different European engineers, with ordnance of the best kind, in +proper directions. The protection afforded by these outworks encouraged +the blacks to every exertion of skill or courage; while the alertness +constantly displayed embarrassed the enemy; who, frequently irritated, +or worn out with fatigue, flew in disorder to the attack, or retreated +with difficulty. Sometimes a regular battle or skirmish ensued, to +seduce the enemy to a confidence in their own superiority, when in a +moment reinforcements arose from an ambush in the vicinity, and turned +the fortune of the day. If black troops in the pay of the enemy were +despatched to reconnoitre when an ambush was probable, and were +discovered, not a man returned, from the hatred which their perfidy had +inspired; nor could an officer venture beyond the lines with impunity." + +The temporary successes enjoyed by the French General Le Clerc, which +led to the surrender of Toussaint and his subsequent deportation to +France, were owing to the defection of several black officers in command +of important posts, who delivered up all their troops and munitions to +the enemy. The whole of Toussaint's first line, protecting the +Artibonite and the mountains, was thus unexpectedly forced by the +French, who plied the blacks with suave proclamations, depreciating the +idea of a return to slavery. Money and promises of personal promotion +were also freely used. The negro is vain and very fond of pomp. This is +his weakest point. The Creole negro loved to make great expenditures, +and to imitate the lavish style of the slaveholders. So did many of the +mulattoes. Toussaint's officers were not all black, and the men of color +proved accessible to French cajolery. + +Take a single case to show how this change of sentiment was produced +without bribery. When the French expedition under Le Clere arrived, the +mulatto General Maurepas commanded at Port-de-Paix. He had not yet +learned whether Toussaint intended to rely upon the proclamation of +Bonaparte and to deliver up the military posts. General Humbert was sent +against him with a strong column, and demanded the surrender of the +fort. Said Maurapas,--"I am under the orders of Toussaint, who is my +chief; I cannot deliver the forts to you without his orders. Wait till I +receive his instructions; it will be only a matter of four-and-twenty +hours." Humbert, who knew that Toussaint was in full revolt, +replied,--"I have orders to attack." + +"Very well. I cannot surrender without an order from General Toussaint. +If you attack me, I shall be obliged to defend myself." + +"I also have my orders; I am forced to obey them." + +Maurepas retired, and took his station alone upon a rampart of the +works. Humbert's troops, numbering four thousand, opened fire. Maurepas +remains awhile in the storm of bullets to reconnoitre, then coolly +descends and opens his own fire. He had but seven hundred blacks and +sixty whites. The French attacked four times and were four times +repulsed, with the loss of fifteen hundred men. Humbert was obliged to +retreat, before the reinforcement which had been despatched under +General Debelle could reach him. Maurepas's orders were not to attack, +but to defend. So he instantly hastened to another post, which +intercepted the route by which General Debelle was coming, met him, and +fought him there, repulsed him, and took seven cannon. + +This was not an encouraging commencement for these children of the +French Revolution, who had beaten Suwarrow in Switzerland and blasted +the Mameluke cavalry with rolling fire, who had debouched from the St. +Bernard upon the plains of Piedmont in time to gather Austrian flags at +Marengo, and who added the name of Hohenlinden to the glory of Moreau. +Humbert himself, at the head of four thousand grenadiers, had restored +the day which preceded the surrender of the Russians at Zuerich. + +Le Clerc was obliged to say that the First Consul never had the +intention of restoring slavery. Humbert himself carried this +proclamation to Maurepas, and with it gained admittance to the +intrenchments which he could not storm. This single defection placed +four thousand admirable troops, and the harbor of Port-de-Paix, in the +hands of the French, and exposed Toussaint's flank at Gonaives; and its +moral effect was so great upon the blacks as to encourage Le Clerc to +persist in his enterprise. + +In the brief period of pacification which preceded this attempt of +Bonaparte to reconquer the island, Toussaint was mainly occupied with +the organization of agriculture. His army then consisted of only fifteen +demi-brigades, numbering in all 22,500, a guard of honor of one thousand +infantry, a regiment of cavalry, and an artillery corps. But the +military department was in perfect order. There was an Etat-Major, +consisting of a general of division with two aides-de-camp, a company of +guides, one of dragoons, and two secretaries,--ten brigadier-generals +with ten secretaries, ten aides-de-camp, and an escort,--and a board of +health, composed of one chief inspector, six physicians, and six +surgeons-general. The commissary and engineering departments were also +thoroughly organized. The pay of the 22,500 men amounted to 7,838,400 +francs; rations, 6,366,195; musicians, 239,112; uniforming, 1,887,682; +officers' uniforms, 208,837. The pay of a non-commissioned officer and +private was 55 centimes per day. + +In this army there were one thousand mulattoes, and five or six hundred +whites, recruited from the various artillery regiments which had been in +the colony during the last ten years. Every cultivator was a member of +the great reserve of this army, its spy and outpost and partisan. + +The chief interest of the campaign against Le Clerc turns upon the +obstinate defence of Crete-a-Pierrot. Here the best qualities of black +troops were manifested. This was a simple oblong redoubt, thrown up by +the English during their brief occupation of the western coast, and +strengthened by the negroes. The Artibonite, which is the most important +river of the colony, threading its way from the mountains of the +interior through the _mornes_, which are not many miles from the sea, +passed under this redoubt, which was placed to command the principal +defile into the inaccessible region beyond. The rich central plains, the +river, and the mountains belonged to whoever held this post. The +Mirbalais quarter could raise potatoes enough to nourish sixty thousand +men accustomed to that kind of food. + +When Toussaint's plan was spoiled by defection and defeat, he +transferred immense munitions to the mountains, and decided to +concentrate, for the double purpose of holding the place, if possible, +and of getting the French away from their supplies. It was a simple +breastwork of Campeachy-wood faced with earth, and had a ditch fifteen +feet deep. At a little distance was a small redoubt upon an eminence +which overlooked the larger work. To the east the great scarped rocks +forbade an approach, and dense spinous undergrowth filled the +surrounding forest. The defence of this place was given to Dessalines, a +most audacious and able fighter. Toussaint intended to harass the +investing columns from the north, and Charles Belair was posted to the +south, beyond and near the Artibonite. Toussaint would then be between +the fortress and the French corps of observation which was left in the +north,--a position which he turned to brilliant advantage. Four French +columns, of more than twelve thousand men, commenced, from as many +different directions, a slow and difficult movement upon this work. The +first column which came within sight of it found a body of negroes drawn +up, as if ready to give battle on the outside. It was the surplus of one +or two thousand troops which the intrenchment would not hold. The +French, expecting to rout them and enter the redoubt with them, charged +with the bayonet; the blacks fled, and the French reached the glacis. +Suddenly the blacks threw themselves into the ditch, thus exposing the +French troops to a terrible fire, which was opened from the redoubt. +General Debelle was severely wounded, and three or four hundred men were +stretched upon the field. + +The advance in another quarter was checked by a small redoubt that +opened an unexpected fire. It was necessary to take it, and cannon had +to be employed. When the balls began to reach them, the blacks danced +and sang, and soon, issuing suddenly, with, cries, "_En avant! Canons a +nous_," attempted to take the pieces with the bayonet. But the +supporting fire was too strong, they were thrown into disorder, and the +redoubt was entered by the French. + +Early one morning the camp of the blacks was surprised by one of the +columns, which had surmounted all the difficulties in its way. +Notwithstanding the previous experience, the French thought this time to +enter, and advanced precipitately. Many blacks entered the redoubt, the +rest jumped into the ditch, and the same terrible fire vomited forth. +Another column advanced to support the attack; but the first one was +already crushed and in full retreat. The blacks swarmed to the parapets, +threw planks across the ditch, and attacked both columns with drums +beating the charge. The French turned, and met just resistance enough to +bring them again within range, the same fire broke forth, and the +columns gave way, with a loss to the first of four hundred and eighty +men, and two or three hundred to the latter. + +Upon this retreat, the cultivators of the neighborhood exchanged shots +with the flanking parties, and displayed great boldness. + +It was plain to the French that this open redoubt would have to be +invested; but before this was done, Dessalines had left the place with +all the troops which could not be fed there, and cut his way across a +column with the loss of a hundred men. The defence was committed to a +quarteroon named Lamartiniere. + +While the French were completing the investment, the morning music of +the black band floated the old strains of the Marseillaise within their +lines. La Croix declares that it produced a painful sensation. The +soldiers looked at each other, and recalled the great marches which +carried victory to that music against the tyrants of Europe. "What!" +they said, "are our barbarous enemies in the right? Are we no longer the +soldiers of the Republic? Have we become the servile instruments of _la +politique_?" No doubt of that; these children of the Marseillaise and +adorers of Moreau had become _de trop_ in the Old World, and had been +sent to leave their bones in the defiles of _Pensez-y-bien_.[33] + +The investment of Crete-a-Pierrot was regularly made, by Bacheiu, an +engineer who had distinguished himself in Egypt. Batteries were +established before the head of each division, a single mortar was got +into position, and a battery of seven pieces played upon the little +redoubt above. This is getting to be vastly more troublesome than the +fort of Bard, which held in check these very officers and men upon +their road to Marengo. + +Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, +and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten +feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the +Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three +hundred men, and gained nothing. + +"Thus the Crete-a-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there +were hardly twelve hundred men,[34] had already cost us more than +fifteen hundred in sheer loss. So we fell back upon the method which we +should have tried in the beginning, a vigorous blockade and a sustained +cannonade." + +The fire was kept up night and day for three days without cessation. +Descourtilz, a French naturalist, who had been forced to act as surgeon, +was in the redoubt, and he describes the scenes of the interior. The +enfilading fire shattered the timber-work, and the bombs set fire to the +tents made of macaw-tree foliage, which the negroes threw flaming into +the ditch. A cannoneer sees a bomb falls close to a sick friend of his +who is asleep; considering that sleep is very needful for him, he seizes +the bomb, and cuts off the fuse with a knife. In a corner nods a +grenadier overcome with fatigue; a bomb falls at his side; he wakes +simultaneously with the explosion, to be blown to sleep again. The +soldiers stand and watch the bright parabola, in dead silence; then +comes the cry, "_Gare a la bombe!_" Hungry and thirsty men chew leaden +balls for relief. Five hundred men have fallen. Some of the officers +come for the surgeon's opium. They will not be taken alive. But the +excitement of the scene is so great that opium fails of its wonted +effect, and they complain of the tardiness of the dose. Other officers +make their wills with _sang froid_, as if expecting a tranquil +administration of their estates. + +During the last night the little garrison evacuates the upper redoubt, +and is seen coming towards the work. Down goes the drawbridge, the +blacks issue to meet them, taking them for a storming party of the +French. There is a mutual mistake, both parties of blacks deliver their +fire, the sortie party retreats, and the garrison enters the redoubt +with them. Here they discover the mistake, but their rage is so great +that they exhaust their cartridges upon each other at four paces. +Descourtilz takes advantage of the confusion to throw himself into the +ditch, and escapes under a volley. + +The place is no longer tenable, and must be evacuated. A scout apprises +Toussaint of the necessity, and it is arranged that he shall attack from +the north, while Lamartiniere issues from the redoubt. During +Toussaint's feint, the black garrison cut their way through the left of +Rochambeau's division. + +General Le Clerc cannot withhold his admiration. "The retreat which the +commandant of Crete-a-Pierrot dared to conceive and execute is a +remarkable feat of arms. We surrounded his post to the number of more +than twelve thousand men; he saved himself, did not lose half his +garrison, and left us only his dead and wounded. We found the baggage of +Dessalines, a few white cannoneers, the music of the guard of honor, a +magazine of powder, a number of muskets, and fifteen cannon of great +calibre." + +Toussaint turned immediately towards the north, raised the cultivators, +attacked the corps of observation, drove it into Cap Francais, ravaged +the plain, turned and defeated Hardy's division, which attempted to keep +open the communications with Le Clerc, and would have taken the city, if +fresh reinforcements from France had not at the same time arrived in the +harbor. + +After the arrest of Toussaint, Dessalines reorganized the resistance of +the blacks, and attacked Rochambeau in the open field, driving him into +the city, where Le Clerc had just died: in that infected atmosphere he +kept the best troops of France besieged. "_Ah! ce gaillard_," the +French called the epidemic which came to complete the work of the +blacks. Twenty thousand men reinforced Rochambeau, but he capitulated, +after a terrible assault which Dessalines made with twenty-seven +thousand men, on the 28th November, 1803. + +One more touch of negro soldiery must suffice. There was an +intrenchment, called Verdiere, occupied by the French, upon a hill +overlooking the city. Dessalines sent a negro general, Capoix, with +three demi-brigades to take it. "They recoiled," says Schoelcher, +"horribly mutilated by the fire from the intrenchment. He rallied them: +the grape tore them in pieces, and hurled them again to the bottom of +the hill. Boiling with rage, Capoix goes to seek fresh troops, mounts a +fiery horse, and rushes forward for the third time; but the thousand +deaths which the fort delivers repulse his soldiers. He foams with +anger, exhorts them, pricks them on, and leads them up a fourth time. A +ball kills his horse, and he rolls over, but, soon extricating himself, +he runs to the head of the troops. '_En avant! En avant!_' he repeats, +with enthusiasm; at the same instant his plumed chapeau is swept from +his head by a grape-shot, but he still throws himself forward to the +assault. '_En avant! En avant!_' + +"Then great shouts went up along the ramparts of the city: '_Bravo! +bravo! vivat! vivat!_' cried Rochambeau and his staff, who were watching +the assault. A drum-roll is heard, the fire of Verdiere pauses, an +officer issues from the city, gallops to the very front of the surprised +blacks, and saluting, says,--'The Captain-General Rochambeau and the +French army send their admiration to the general officer who has just +covered himself with glory.' This magnificent message delivered, he +turned his horse, reentered the city, and the assault is renewed. +Imagine if Capoix and his soldiers did new prodigies of valor. But the +besieged were also electrified, would not be overcome, and Dessalines +sent the order to retire. The next day a groom led a richly caparisoned +horse to the quarter-general of the blacks, which Rochambeau offered as +a mark of his admiration, and to replace that which he regretted had +been killed." + +The valor and fighting qualities of the blacks in San Domingo were +nourished by the wars which sprang from their own necessities. They were +the native growths of the soil which had been long enriched by their +innocent blood; more blood must be invested in it, if they would own it. +Learning to fight was equivalent to learning to live. Their cause was +neither represented nor championed by a single power on earth, and +nothing but the hope of making enormous profits out of their despair led +Anglo-American schooners to run English and French blockades, to land +arms and powder in the little coves of the island. Will the negro fight +as well, if the motive and the exigency are inferior? + +We make a present to the Southern negro of an excellent chance for +fighting, with our compliments. Some of us do it with our curses. The +war does not spring for them out of enthusiasm and despair which seize +their hearts at once, as they view a degradation from which they flee +and a liberty to which they are all hurrying. They are asked to fight +for us as well as for themselves, and this asking is, like emancipation, +a military necessity. The motive lacks the perfect form and +incandescence, like that of a star leaping from a molten sun, which +lighted battle-ardors in the poor slaves of San Domingo. And we even +hedge about this invitation to bleed for us with conditions which are +evidently dictated by a suspicion that the motive is not great enough to +make the negro depend upon himself. If the war does not entirely sweep +away these poor beginnings and thrust white and black together into the +arms of thrilling danger, we need not expect great fighting from him. He +may not disgrace himself, but he will not ennoble the republic till his +heart's core is the war's core, and the colors of two races run into +one. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[25] See Numbers LVI., LVIII., LIX., and LXV. of this magazine. + +[26] _La Cause des Esclaves Negres et des Habitans de la Guinee, portee +au Tribunal de la Justice, de la Religion, de la Politique_: I. 335; II. +66. + +[27] _Gros peau_, thick skin, was the French equivalent to _Bozal_: +_peau fin_ was the Creole negro. + +[28] Clarkson's _History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade_, Vol. II. +p. 134. + +[29] _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, von Dr. Theodor Waitz. Zweiter +Theil: die Negervoelker und ihre Verwandten. Leipzig, 1860. Very full, +minute, and humane in tone, though telling all the facts about the +manners and habits of native Africans. + +_Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de la Revolution de Saint Dominique._ +Par le Lieutenant-General Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 2 Tom. Generally +very fair to the negro soldier: himself a distinguished soldier. + +_Le Systeme Colonial devoile._ Par le Baron de Vastey, mulatto. Terrible +account of the plantation cruelties. + +_Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire d'Hayti._ Par l'Adjutant-General +Boisrond-Tonnerre. Written to explain the defection of Dessalines from +Toussaint, and the military movements of the former. The author was a +mulatto. + +_Des Colonies, et particulierement de celle de Saint-Domingue; Memoire +Historique et Politique._ Par le Colonel Malenfant, Chevalier de la +Legion d'Honneur, etc. A pretty impartial book, by a pro-slavery man. + +_L. F. Sonthonax a Bourdon de l'Oise._ Pamphlet. The vindication of +Sonthonax for declaring emancipation. + +_Colonies Etrangeres et Haiti._ Par Victor Schoelcher. 2 Tom. Valuable, +but leaning too much towards the negro against the mulatto. + +_Histoire des Desastres de Saint-Domingue._ Paris, 1795. Journalistic, +with the coloring of the day. + +_Campagnes des Francais a Saint-Domingue, et Refutation des Reproches +faits au Capitaine-General Rochambeau._ Par Ph. Albert de Lattre, +Proprietaire, etc., 1805. Shows that Rochambeau could not help himself. + +_Voyages d'un Naturaliste._ 3 Tom. Par Descourtilz. Pro-slavery, but +filled with curious information. + +_Expedition a St. Domingue._ Par A. Metral. Useful. + +_The Empire of Hayti._ By Marcus Rainsford, Captain in West-Indian +Regiment. Occasionally valuable. + +[30] The independent Congos in the interior are more active and +courageous, expert and quarrelsome than those upon the coast, who have +been subjected by the Portuguese. + +[31] When the insurgents evacuated a fort near Port-au-Prince, upon the +advance of the English, a negro was left in the powder-magazine with a +lighted match, to wait till the place was occupied. Here he remained all +night; but when the English came later than was expected, his match had +burned out. Was that insensibility to all ideas, or devotion to one? + +[32] Praloto was a distinguished Italian in the French artillery +service. His battery of twenty field-pieces at Port-au-Prince held the +whole neighborhood in check, till at length a young negro named +Hyacinthe roused the slaves to attack it. In the next fight, they rushed +upon this battery, insensible to its fire, embraced the guns and were +bayoneted, still returned to them, stuffed the arms of their dead +comrades into the muzzles, swarmed over them, and extinguished the fire. +This was done against a supporting fire of French infantry. The blacks +lost a thousand men, but captured the cannon, and drove the whole force +into the city. + +[33] _Think twice before you try me_: the name of a _morne_ of +extraordinary difficulty, which had to be surmounted by one of the +French columns. + +[34] Negro authorities say 750. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Sunshine in Thought._ By CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, Author of + "Meister Karl's Sketch-Book," and Translator of "Heine's + Pictures of Travel." New York: Charles T. Evans. 16mo. + +We do not exactly know how to characterize this jubilant volume. The +author, not content to denounce generally the poets of sentimentality +and the prophets of despair, has evidently a science of Joy latent in +his mind, of which his rich, discursive, and somewhat rollicking +sentences give but an imperfect exposition. He is in search of an ideal +law of Cheerfulness, which neither history nor literature fully +illustrates, but which he still seeks with an undoubting faith. Every +transient glimpse of his law he eagerly seizes, whether indicated in +events or in persons. And it must be admitted that he is not ignorant +either of the great annalists or the great writers of the world. He +knows Herodotus as well as he knows Hume, Thucydides as intimately as +Gibbon. Xenophon and Plutarch are as familiar to him as Michelet, +Thiers, and Guizot. He has studied Aristaenetus and Lucian as closely as +Horace Walpole and Thackeray,--is as ready to quote from Plato as from +Rabelais,--and throws the results of his wide study, with an occasional +riotous disregard of prim literary proprieties, into a fierce defiance +of everything which makes against his favorite theory, that there is +nothing in pure theology, sound ethics, and healthy literature, nothing +in the historic records of human life, which can justify the discontent +of the sentimentalist or the scorn of the misanthrope. + +Engaged thus in an almost Quixotic assault on the palpable miseries of +human existence,--miseries which are as much acknowledged by Homer as by +Euripides, by Ariosto as by Dante, by Shakspeare as by Milton, by Goethe +as by Lamartine,--he has a difficult work to perform. Still he does not +bate a jot of heart and hope. He discriminates, with the art of a true +critic, between objective representations of human life and subjective +protests against human limitations, errors, miseries, and sins. As far +as either representation embodies the human principle of Joy,--whether +Greek or Roman, ancient or modern, Christian or Pagan,--he is content +with the evidence. The moment a writer of either school insinuates a +principle or sentiment of Despair, whether he be a dramatist or a +sentimentalist, the author enters his earnest protest. Classical and +Romantic poets, romancers and historians, when they slip into +misery-mongers, are equally the objects of his denunciations. Keats and +Tennyson fare nearly as ill as Byron and Heine. Mr. Leland feels assured +that the human race is entitled to joy, and there is something almost +comical in his passionate assault on the morbid genius of the world. He +seems to say, "Why do you not accept the conditions of happiness? The +conditions are simple, and nothing but your pestilent wilfulness +prevents your compliance with them." + +This "pestilent wilfulness" is really the key to the whole position. All +objective as well as subjective writers have been impotent to provide +the way by which the seeker after perfect and permanent content can +attain and embody it. It has been sought through wit, humor, fancy, +imagination, reason; but it has been sought in vain. Our author, who, +after nearly exhausting all the concrete representatives of the +philosophy of Joy, admits that nobody embodies his ideal of happiness, +surrenders his ideal, as far as it has been practically expressed in +life or thought. Rabelais dissatisfies him; Scarron dissatisfies him; +Moliere, Swift, Sterne, not to mention others, dissatisfy him. Every +ally he brings forward to sustain his position is reduced by analysis +into a partial enemy of his creed. But while we cannot concur in Mr. +Leland's theory in his exclusive statement of it, and confess to a +strong liking for many writers whom he considers effeminate, we +cordially agree with him in his plea for "Sunshine in Thought," and +sympathize in his vigorous and valorous assault on the morbid elements +of our modern literature. We think that poets should be as cheerful as +possible; whereas some of them seem to think it is their duty to be as +fretful as possible, and to make misery an invariable accompaniment of +genius. The primary object of all good literature is to invigorate and +to cheer, not to weaken and depress; it should communicate mental and +moral life, as well as convey sentiments and ideas,--should brace and +strengthen the mind, as well as fill it; and when it whimpers and wails, +when it teaches despair as philosophy, especially when it uses the +enchantments of imagination to weaken the active powers, its effect is +mischievous. Woe, considered as a luxury, is the most expensive of all +luxuries; and there is danger to the mental and moral health even in the +pensive sadness which, to some readers, sheds such a charm over the +meditations of that kind of genius which is rather thoughtful than full +of thought. For the melodious miseries which mediocrity mimics, for the +wretchedness which some fifth-rate rhymers assume in order to make +themselves interesting, there can, of course, be no toleration. Mr. +Leland pounds them as with the hammer of Thor, and would certainly beat +out their brains, had not Nature fortunately neglected to put such +perilous matter into craniums exposed to such ponderous blows. + +Apart from the general theory and purpose of the book, there is a great +deal of talent and learning exhibited in the illustrations of the +subject. The remarks on Aristophanes, Rabelais, Swift, Sterne, and +Heine,--half analysis, half picture,--are very striking; and there are, +throughout the volume, continual flashes of suggestive thought and vivid +portraiture, which both delight and detain the reader. The style is that +of animated conversation,--the conversation of a man whose veins are as +full of blood as his mind is of ideas, who is hilarious from abounding +health, and whose occasional boisterousness of manner proceeds from the +robustness of his make and the cheer of his soul. The whole volume tends +to create in thought that "sunshine" which it so joyously recommends and +celebrates. The reader is warmed by the ardor and earnestness with which +propositions he may distrust are urged upon his attention, and closes +the volume with that feeling of pleased excitement which always comes +from contact with a fresh and original mind. + + + _The Gentleman._ By GEORGE H. CALVERT. Boston: Ticknor & + Fields. + +Paradoxical as it may appear, we believe there never was a time when the +true and pure standard of gentlemanhood could be more impressively +raised and upheld in this republic than now. The vast and keen civil +conflict which so deeply agitates our political life has laid bare the +groundwork and brought to the surface the latent elements of our social +life, so that a new, an obvious, and a searching test is instinctively +applied to character; as in all times of profound moral excitement, +_shams_ grow fantastic and contemptible, and _principles_ of action and +being rise to superlative worth. The question, What constitutes the +Gentleman? suggested at first by the preposterous and exclusive claims +thereto arrogantly put forth by a little community, in justification of +profane and destructive violence to a nation's welfare, has come to be +regarded as embracing all the obligations, responsibilities, and +humanities that make up and certify Christian manhood and genuine +patriotism; the wide and deep significance of a word too often +confounded with mere manners is thus practically found to indicate the +most vital elements of personal worth and social well-being. +Accordingly, a comprehensive, philosophical definition and illustration +of the Gentleman, in the ideal grace and greatness and in the real +authority and use of that so much misunderstood and seldom achieved +character, is doubly welcome at this hour, the strife and discussion +whereof bring out in such strong relief the true _animus_ and equipment +of statesmen, soldiers, citizens, men and women, and force us to realize +the poverty of soul, the inherent baseness, or the magnanimity and +rectitude of our fellow-creatures, with a vividness never before +experienced. How indispensable to the welfare of the State is a society +based on higher motives than those of material ambition, and how +impossible is the existence of such a society, except through individual +probity and disinterestedness, is a lesson written in blood and tears +before our eyes to-day; and thrice welcome, we repeat, is the clear and +emphatic exposition of the Gentleman, as an incarnation of the justice, +love, and honor, whereon, in the last analysis, rest the hopes and +welfare of the nation. No ethical or aesthetical treatise could be more +seasonable than this of Mr. Calvert's. We regard it as the best +lay-sermon thus far evoked by the moral exigencies of the hour; however +appropriate it may also be and is to any and all times and readers of +taste and thought, a superficial, merely dilettante essay on such a +subject and at such a time would repel instead of alluring. + +The charming little volume before us, while made genially attractive by +occasional playfulness and anecdote, is yet pervaded by an earnestness +born of strong conviction and deep sympathies. It analyzes the springs +of character, traces conduct to its elemental source, and follows it to +its ultimate influence. To a concise style it unites an expansive +spirit; with a tone of rich and high culture it blends the vivacity and +grace of the most genial colloquy. From the etymology of the word to the +humanity of the character, a full, forcible, frank, and fervent +discussion of the Gentleman is given, as he figures in history, in +society, in domestic life, and in literature,--and as he lives, a grand +and gracious ideal, in the consciousness of the author. Beginning with +the meaning, origin, and use of the word Gentleman, Mr. Calvert gives a +critical analysis of its historical personation. As a chevalier type, in +such men as Sidney and Bayard. Its ethical and aesthetical meaning is +finely exemplified in the contrast between Charles Lamb and George IV., +Leicester and Hampden, Washington and Napoleon. The Gentleman in St. +Paul is well illustrated. The relation of this character to antiquity is +defined with a scholar's zest: whatever of its force and flavor is +discernible in Socrates and Brutus is gracefully indicated; the +deficiency of Homer's heroes, excepting Hector, therein, is ably +demonstrated. These and like illustrations of so prolific a theme +inevitably suggest episodes of argument, incidental, yet essential to +the main question; and the just and benign remarks on the Duel, the +Position of Women in Ancient and Modern Society, and the Influence of +Christianity upon Manners, are striking in their scope and style, and +breathe the lofty and tender spirit of that Faith which inculcates +_disinterestedness_ as the latent and lasting inspiration of the +Gentleman. Perhaps the most delectable illustrations, which give both +form and beauty to this essay, are those drawn from modern literature: +they are choice specimens of criticism, and full of subtile +discrimination in tracing the relation of literature to life. We would +instance especially the chapters on Shakspeare's Gentleman; the +recognition of the Gentleman in Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle Toby, and +Don Quixote; and the admirable distinction pointed out between the +characters of Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. There is no part of the +volume more worthy attention than the remarks of a "high-bred tone in +writing." The hollowness of Chesterfield's code is keenly exposed; Honor +and Vulgarity are freshly and ably defined; Fashion, Pride, and Vanity, +the conventional elements of the Gentleman, are treated with +philosophical justice; the favorite characters of fiction, and the most +renowned poets and heroes, beaux and braves, pass before us, and are +subjected to the test of that Christian ideal of the Gentleman so +clearly defined and firmly applied by the intrepid author; and many a +disguised coxcomb is stripped of his borrowed plumes, imperial +_parvenus_ exposed as charlatans in manners as well as morals, and +heroic, but modest souls, of whom the world's court-calendar gives no +hint, stand forth exemplars of the highest, because the most soulful +breeding. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. +68, June, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 35226.txt or 35226.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/2/35226/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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