diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:20 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:33:20 -0700 |
| commit | b13afb10aaf1245cbc9c25c53d9267e31a791564 (patch) | |
| tree | fdbc6d4d2e85897f7a9c81232e18150aef925119 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9493-8.txt | 9148 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9493-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 202374 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9493.txt | 9148 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9493.zip | bin | 0 -> 202283 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/710a110.txt | 9117 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/710a110.zip | bin | 0 -> 205084 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/810a110.txt | 9117 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/810a110.zip | bin | 0 -> 205166 bytes |
11 files changed, 36546 insertions, 0 deletions
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/9493-8.txt b/9493-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..70f6e70 --- /dev/null +++ b/9493-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9148 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862, 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: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9493] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 5, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JULY 1862 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + + +VOL. X.--JULY, 1862.--NO. LVII. + + + +SOME SOLDIER-POETRY. + + +It is certain that since the time of Homer the deeds and circumstances +of war have not been felicitously sung. If any ideas have been the +subject of the strife, they seldom appear to advantage in the poems +which chronicle it, or in the verses devoted to the praise of heroes. +Remove the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," some English, Spanish, and +Northern ballads, two or three Old-Bohemian, the war-songs composed by +Ziska, and one or two Romaic, from the field of investigation, and one +is astonished at the scanty gleaning of battle-poetry, camp-songs, and +rhymes that have been scattered in the wake of great campaigns, and +many of the above-mentioned are more historical or mythological than +descriptive of war. The quantity of political songs and ballads, +serious and satirical, which were suggested by the great critical +moments of modern history, is immense. Every country has, or might +have, its own peculiar collections. In France the troubles of the +League gave an impulse to song-writing, and the productions of +Desportes and Bertaut are relics of that time. Historical and +revolutionary songs abound in all countries; but even the +"Marseillaise," the gay, ferocious "Carmagnole," and the "Ça Ira," +which somebody wrote upon a drum-head in the Champ de Mars, do not +belong to fighting-poetry. The actual business of following into the +field the men who represent the tendencies of any time, and of helping +to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, +seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the +same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; +the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; +even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and +suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the +gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when +wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be kissed, are +scarcely seen, or feebly hinted at. The horizon of the battle-field +itself is limited, and it is impossible to obtain a total impression +of the picturesque and terrible fact. After the smoke has rolled away, +the historian finds a position whence the scenes deliberately reveal to +him all their connection, and reenact their passion. He is the real +poet of these solemn passages in the life of man. [1] + +[Footnote 1: There is a little volume, called _Voices from the +Ranks_, in which numerous letters written by privates, corporals, +etc., in the Crimea, are collected and arranged. They are full of +incident and pathos. Suffering, daring, and humor, the love of home, +and the religious dependence of men capable of telling their own Iliad, +make this a very powerful book. In modern times the best literature of +a campaign will be found in private letters. We have some from Magenta +and Solferino, written by Frenchmen; the character stands very clear in +them. And here is one written by an English lad, who is describing a +landing from boats in Finland, when he shot his first man. The act +separated itself from the whole scene, and charged him with it. +Instinctively he walked up to the poor Finn; they met for the first +time. The wounded man quietly regarded him; he leaned on his musket, +and returned the fading look till it went out.] + +One would think that a poet in the ranks would sometimes exchange the +pike or musket for the pen in his knapsack, and let all the feelings +and landscapes of war distil through his fine fancy from it drop by +drop. But the knapsack makes too heavy a draught upon the nervous +power which the cerebellum supplies for marching orders; concentration +goes to waste in doing porter's work; his tent-lines are the only kind +a poet cares for. If he extemporizes a song or hymn, it is lucky if it +becomes a favorite of the camp. The great song which the soldier lifts +during his halt, or on the edge of battle, is generally written +beforehand by some pen unconscious that its glow would tip the points +of bayonets, and cheer hearts in suspense for the first cannon-shot of +the foe. If anybody undertakes to furnish songs for camps, he prospers +as one who resolves to write anthems for a prize-committee to sit on: +it is sutler's work, and falls a prey to the provost-marshal. + +Nor are poets any more successful, when they propose to make camp-life +and soldiers' feelings subjects for aesthetic consideration. Their +lines are smooth, their images are spirited; but as well might the +campaign itself have been conducted in the poet's study as its +situations be deliberately transferred there to verse. The +"Wallenstein's Camp" of Schiller is not poetry, but racy and sparkling +pamphleteering. Its rhyming does not prevent it from belonging to the +historical treatment of periods that are picturesque with many passions +and interests, that go clad in jaunty regimental costumes, and require +not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his +soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the +storming and marauding of the mediaeval _Lanzknecht;_ set to +music, it might be sung by fine _dilettanti_ tenors in garrison, +but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the +countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the +campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces +an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which +describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French. +But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to +give. The songs of Körner are well known already in various English +dresses. [2] + +[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's _Midnight Review_, +of Follen's _Blücher's Ball_, of Freihgrath's _Death of +Grabbe_, of Rückert's _Patriot's Lament_, of Arndt's +_Field-Marshal Blücher_, of Pfeffel's _Tobacco-Pipe_, of +Gleim's _War Song_, of Tegner's _Veteran_, (Swedish,) of +Rahbek's _Peter Colbjornsen_, (Danish,) _The Death-Song of +Regner Lodbrock_, (Norse,) and Körner's _Sword-Song_, in Mr. +Longfellow's _Poets and Poetry of Europe_. See all of Körner's +soldier songs well translated, the _Sword-Song_ admirably, by +Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in _Specimens of Foreign Literature_, Vol. +XIV. See, in Robinson's _Literature of Slavic Nations_, some +Russian and Servian martial poetry.] + +But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms +which were points in the welfare of nations--when, for instance, +Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges +of the barons--is more interesting than all the modern songs which +nicely depict soldiers' moods. Language itself was fighting for +recognition, as well as industrial and social rights. The verses mark +successive steps of a people into consciousness and civilization. Some +of this battle-poetry is worth preserving; a few camp-rhymes, also, +were famous enough in their day to justify translating. Here are some +relics, of pattern more or less antique, picked up from that field of +Europe where so many centuries have met in arms. [3] + +[Footnote 3: Among such songs is one by Bayard Taylor, entitled +_Annie Laurie_, which is of the very best kind.] + +The Northern war-poetry, before the introduction of Christianity, is +vigorous enough, but it abounds in disagreeable commonplaces: trunks +are cleft till each half falls sideways; limbs are carved for ravens, +who appear as invariably as the Valkyrs, and while the latter pounce +upon the souls that issue with the expiring breath, the former +banquet upon the remains. The celebration of a victory is an exulting +description of actual scenes of revelling, mead-drinking from mounted +skulls, division of the spoils, and half-drunken brags[4] of future +prowess. The sense of dependence upon an unseen Power is manifested +only in superstitious vows for luck and congratulations that the Strong +Ones have been upon the conquering side. There is no lifting up of the +heart which checks for a time the joy of victory. They are ferociously +glad that they have beaten. This prize-fighting imagery belongs also +to the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and is in marked contrast with the +commemorative poetry of Franks and Germans after the introduction of +Christianity. The allusions may be quite as conventional, but they show +that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the +fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure +establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon +an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. We speak only +of war-poetry. + +[Footnote 4: Braga was the name of the goblet over which the Norse +drinkers made their vows. Probably no Secessionist ever threatened more +pompously over his whiskey. The word goes back a great distance. +_Paruf_ is Sanscrit for rough, and _Ragh_, to be equal to. +In reading the Norse poetry, one can understand why _Brága_ was +the Apollo of the Asa gods, and why the present made to a favorite +Scald was called _Bragar-Laun_ (_Lohn_). _Bravo_ is also a +far-travelled form.] + +Here, for instance, is the difference plainly told. Hucbald, a monk of +the cloister St. Amand in Flanders, wrote "The Louis-Lay," to celebrate +the victory gained by the West-Frankish King Louis III. over the +Normans, in 881, near Saucourt. It is in the Old-High-German. A few +lines will suffice:-- + +The King rode boldly, sang a holy song, +And all together sang, Kyrie eleison. +The song was sung; the battle was begun; +Blood came to cheeks; thereat rejoiced the Franks; +Then fought each sword, but none so well as Ludwig, +So swift and bold, for 't was his inborn nature; +He struck down many, many a one pierced through, +And at his hands his enemies received +A bitter drink, woe to their life all day. +Praise to God's power, for Ludwig overcame; +And thanks to saints, the victor-fight was his. +Homeward again fared Ludwig, conquering king, +And harnessed as he ever is, wherever the need may be, +Our God above sustain him with His majesty! + +Earlier than this it was the custom for soldiers to sing just before +fighting. Tacitus alludes to a kind of measured warcry of the +Germans, which they made more sonorous and terrific by shouting it into +the hollow of their shields. He calls it _barditus_ by mistake, +borrowing a term from the custom of the Gauls, who sang before battle +by proxy,--that is, their bards chanted the national songs. But Norse +and German soldiers loved to sing. King Harald Sigurdson composes +verses just before battle; so do the Skalds before the Battle of +Stiklestad, which was fatal to the great King Olaf. The soldiers learn +the verses and sing them with the Skalds. They also recollect older +songs,--the "Biarkamal," for instance, which Biarke made before he +fought.[5] These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged +with threats of unlimited slaughter. The custom survived all the social +and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the +Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the +Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns: +they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the +time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of +St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, +and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the +"Lyra Germanica," p. 237. + +[Footnote 5: Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol. +III. p. 90.] + +William's minstrel, Taillefer, sang a song before the Battle of +Hastings: but the Normans loved the purely martial strain, and this +was a ballad of French composition, perhaps a fragment of the older +"Roland's Song." The "Roman de Rou," composed by Master Wace, or Gasse, +a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, who died in 1184, is very +minute in its description of the Battle of Val des Dunes, near Caen, +fought by Henry of France and William the Bastard against Guy, a Norman +noble in the Burgundian interest. The year of the battle was 1047. +There is a Latin narrative of the Battle of Hastings, in eight hundred +and thirty-five hexameters and pentameters. This was composed by Wido, +or Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075. + +The German knights on their way to Jerusalem sang a holy psalm, +beginning, "Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of the earth." This was +discovered not long ago in Westphalia; a translation of it, with the +music, can be found in Mr. Richard Willis's collection of hymns. + +One would expect to gather fragments of war-poetry from the early times +of the Hungarians, who held the outpost of Europe against the Turks, +and were also sometimes in arms against the imperial policy of Germany. +But De Gerando informs us that they set both victories and defeats to +music. The "Rákótzi" is a national air which bears the name of an +illustrious prince who was overcome by Leopold. "It is remarkable that +in Hungary great thoughts and deep popular feelings were expressed and +consecrated, not by poetry, but by national airs. The armed Diets which +were held upon the plain of Rákos were the symbol of ancient liberty to +the popular apprehension; there is the 'Air of Rákos,' also the 'Air of +Mohács,' which recalls the fall of the old monarchy, and the 'Air of +Zrinyi,' which preserves the recollection of the heroic defence of +Szigeth."[6] These airs are not written; the first comer extemporized +their inartificial strains, which the feeling of the moment seized upon +and transmitted by tradition. Among the Servians, on the contrary, +the heroic ballad is full of fire and meaning, but the music amounts to +nothing. + +[Footnote 6: A. De Gerando, _La Transylvanie et ses Habitants_, +Tom. II. p. 265, et seq.] + +The first important production of the warlike kind, after Germany began +to struggle with its medieval restrictions, was composed after the +Battle of Sempach, where Arnold Struthalm of Winkelried opened a +passage for the Swiss peasants through the ranks of Austrian spears. It +is written in the Middle-High-German, by Halbsuter, a native of +Lucerne, who was in the fight. Here are specimens of it. There is a +paraphrase by Sir Walter Scott, but it is done at the expense of the +metre and _naďve_ character of the original. + +In the thousand and three hundred and six and eightieth year +Did God in special manner His favor make appear: +Hei! the Federates, I say, +They get this special grace upon St. Cyril's day. + +That was July 9, 1386. The Swiss had been exasperated by the +establishment of new tolls by the nobility, who were upheld in it by +the Duke of Austria. The Federates (_Confederates_ can never again +be used in connection with a just fight) began to attack the castles +which sheltered the oppressive baronial power. The castle behind the +little town of Willisow is stormed and burned. Thereupon the nobles +swear to put these Swiss free peasants down and get them a master. The +poet tells all this, and proceeds to describe their excesses and +pride. Then,-- + +Ye Lowland lords are drawing hither to the +Oberland, +To what an entertainment ye do not understand: +Hei! 't were better for shrift to call, +For in the mountain-fields mischances may +befall. + +To which the nobles are imagined to reply,-- + +"Indeed! where sits the priest, then, to grant +this needful gift?" +In the Schweitz he is all ready,--he'll give +you hearty shrift: +Hei! he will give it to you sheer, +This blessing will he give it with sharp halberds +and such gear. + +The Duke's people are mowing in the fields near Sempach. A knight +insolently demands lunch for them from the Sempachers: a burgher +threatens to break his head and lunch them in a heavy fashion, for the +Federates are gathering, and will undoubtedly make him spill his +porridge. A cautious old knight, named Von Hasenburg, rides out to +reconnoitre, and he sees enough to warn the Duke that it is the most +serious business in which he ever engaged. + +Then spake a lord of Ochsensteín, "O Hasenburg, +hare-heart!" +Him answereth Von Hasenburg, "Thy words +bring me a smart: +Hei! I say to you faithfully, +Which of us is the coward this very day you'll see." + +So the old knight, not relishing being punned upon for his counsel, +dismounts. All the knights, anticipating an easy victory, dismount, +and send their horses to the rear, in the care of varlets who +subsequently saved themselves by riding them off. The solid ranks are +formed bristling with spears. There is a pause as the two parties +survey each other. The nobles pass the word along that it looks like a +paltry business:-- + +So spake they to each other: "Yon folk is +very small,-- +In case such boors should beat us, 't will bring +no fame at all: +'Hei! fine lords the boors have mauled!'" +Then the honest Federates on God in heaven +called. + +"Ah, dear Christ of Heaven, by Thy bitter +death we plead, +Help bring to us poor sinners in this our strait +and need; +Hei! and stand by us in the field, +And have our land and people beneath Thy +ward and shield." + +The shaggy bull (of Uri) was quite ready to meet the lion (Leopold), +and threw the dust up a little with its hoof. + +"Hei! will you fight with us who have beaten you before?" + +To this the lion replies,-- + +"Thank you for reminding me. I have many a knight and varlet here to +pay you off for Laupen, and for the ill turn you did me at Morgarten; +now you must wait here till I am even with you." + +Now drew the growling lion his tail in for a +spring: +Then spake the bull unto him, "Wilt have +your reckoning? +Hei! then nearer to us get, +That this green meadow may with blood be +growing wet." + +Then they began a-shooting against us in the +grove, +And their long lances toward the pious Federates +move: +Hei! the jest it was not sweet, +With branches from the lofty pines down rattling +at their feet. + +The nobles' front was fast, their order deep +and spread; +That vexed the pious mind; a Winkelried he +said, +"Hei! if you will keep from need +My pious wife and child, I'll do a hardy +deed. + +"Dear Federates and true, my life I give to +win: +They have their rank too firm, we cannot break +it in: +Hei! a breaking in I'll make. +The while that you my offspring to your protection +take." + +Herewith did he an armful of spears nimbly take; +His life had an end, for his friends a lane did make: +Hei! he had a lion's mood, +So manly, stoutly dying for the Four Cantons' good. + +And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began +With hewing and with sticking,--it was God's holy plan: +Hei! if this He had not done, +It would have cost the Federates many an honest one. + +The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, +enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or +comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners +which they leave behind. [7] + +[Footnote 7: It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made +in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the +ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle +which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed +before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that +Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is +furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, +there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" +villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced +to _déshabillé_? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up +William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but +Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument +against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.] + +Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are +pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and +described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His +facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or +three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and +temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout +commences, he says,-- + +One hither fled, another there, +With good intent to disappear, + Some hid them in the bushes: +I never saw so great a pinch,-- +A crowd that had no thirst to quench + Into the water pushes. + +They waded in up to the chin, +Still we our shot kept pouring in, + As if for ducks a-fowling: +In boats we went and struck them dead, +The lake with all their blood was red,-- + What begging and what howling! + +Up in the trees did many hide, +There hoping not to be espied; + But like the crows we shot them: +The rest on spears did we impale, +Their feathers were of no avail, + The wind would not transport them. + +He will not vouch for the number of the killed, but gives it on hearsay +as twenty-six thousand drowned and slain; but he regrets that their +flight was so precipitate as to prevent him from recording a more +refreshing total. He is specially merry over the wealth and luxurious +habits of Charles, alludes to his vapor-baths, etc.:-- + +His game of chess was to his cost, +Of pawns has he a many lost, + And twice[8] his guard is broken; +His castles help him not a mite, +And see how lonesome stands his knight! +Checkmate's against him spoken. + +[Footnote 8: Once, the year before, at Granson.] + +The wars of the rich cities with the princes and bishops stimulated a +great many poems that are full of the traits of burgher-life. Seventeen +princes declared war against Nuremberg, and seventy-two cities made a +league with her. The Swiss sent a contingent of eight hundred men. This +war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success +for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, +in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenplül, celebrated this in verses +like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic +street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of +Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All +these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do +not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discomfitures +in the field are the occasion of elaborate ridicule. + +The _Lanzknechts_ were foot-soldiers recruited from the roughs of +Germany, and derived their name from the long lance which they +carried;[9] but they were also armed subsequently with the arquebuse. +They were first organized into bodies of regular troops by George +Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a famous German captain, whose castle was +about twenty miles south-west of Augsburg. It was afterwards the centre +of a little principality which Joseph I. created for the Duke of +Marlborough,[10] as a present for the victory of Hochstädt (Blenheim). +Frundsberg was a man of talent and character, one of the best soldiers +of Charles V. He saved the Imperial cause in the campaign of 1522 +against the French and Swiss. At Bicocco he beat the famous Swiss +infantry under Arnold of Winkelried, a descendant, doubtless, of one of +the children whom Arnold Struthabn left to the care of his comrades. At +Pavia a decisive charge of his turned the day against Francis I. And on +the march to Rome, his unexpected death so inflamed the +_Lanzknechts_ that the meditated retreat of Bourbon became +impossible, and the city was taken by assault. His favorite mottoes +were, _Kriegsrath mit der That_, "Plan and Action," and _Viel +Feinde, viel Ehre_, "The more foes, the greater honor." He was the +only man who could influence the mercenary lancers, who were as +terrible in peace as in war. + +[Footnote 9: It is sometimes spelled _landsknecht_, as if it meant +_country-fellows_, or recruits,--men raised at large. But that was +a popular misapprehension of the word, because some of them were +Suabian bumpkins.] + +[Footnote 10: The French soldier-song about Marlborough is known to +every one.] + +The _Lanzknecht's_ lance was eighteen feet long: he wore a helmet +and breastplate, and was taught to form suddenly and to preserve an +impenetrable square. Before him all light and heavy cavalry went down, +and that great arm of modern war did not recover from its disgrace and +neglect till the time of Frederic. But his character was very +indifferent: he went foraging when there was no campaign, and in time +of peace prepared for war by systematic billeting and plundering. It +was a matter of economy to get up a war in order to provide employment +for the _Lanzknecht_. + +Hans Sachs wrote a very amusing piece in 1558, entitled, "The Devil +won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one +evening, speaks of the _Lanzknecht_ as a new kind of man; he +describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire +to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a +tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a +stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's +Satan, and listens while the _Lanzknechts_ drink. They begin to +tell stories which make his hair stand on end, but they also God-bless +each other so often, at sneezing and hiccupping, that he cannot get a +chance at them. One of them, who had stolen a cock and hung it behind +the stove, asks the landlord to go and fetch the poor devil. Beelzebub, +soundly frightened, beats a hasty retreat, expressing his wonder that +the _Lanzknecht_ should know he was there. He apologizes to +Lucifer for being unable to enrich his cabinet, and assures him that it +would be impossible to live with them; the devils would be eaten out of +house and home, and their bishopric taken from them. Lucifer concludes +on the whole that it is discreet to limit himself to monks, nuns, +lawyers, and the ordinary sinner. + +The songs of the _Lanzknecht_ are cheerful, and make little of the +chances of the fight. Fasting and feasting are both welcome; he is as +gay as a Zouave.[11] To be maimed is a slight matter: if he loses an +arm, he bilks the Swiss of a glove; if his leg goes, he can creep, or a +wooden leg will serve his purpose:-- + +It harms me not a mite, +A wooden stump will make all right; +And when it is no longer good, +Some spital knave shall get the wood. + +But if a ball my bosom strikes, + On some wide field I lie, +They'll take me off upon their pikes,-- + A grave is always nigh; +Pumerlein Pum,--the drums shall say +Better than any priest,--Good day! + +[Footnote 11: Who besings himself thus, in a song from the Solferino +campaign:-- + +"Quand l'zouzou, coiffé de son fez, +A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l'nez, +L'tremblement s'met dans la cambuse; +Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups, +Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts, + Et gare dessous, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse! + Des coups, des coups, des coups, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse."] + +There is a very characteristic piece, without date or name of the +writer, but which, to judge from the German, was written after the time +of Luther. Nothing could better express the feeling of a people who +have been saved by martial and religious enthusiasm, and brought +through all the perils of history. It is the production of some +Meistersinger, who introduced it into a History of Henry the Fowler, +(fought the Huns, 919-935,) that was written by him in the form of a +comedy, and divided into acts. He brings in a minstrel who sings the +song before battle. The last verse, with adapted metre and music, is +now a soldier's song. + +Many a righteous cause on earth + To many a battle growing, +Of music God has thought them worth, + A gift of His bestowing. +It came through Jubal into life; + For Lamech's son inventing +The double sounds of drum and fife, + They both became consenting. + For music good + Wakes manly mood, + Intrepid goes + Against our foes. + Calls stoutly, "On! + Fall on! fall on! + Clear field and street + Of hostile feet, + Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, + Not one against you leave!" + +Elias prophecy would make + In thirsty Israel's passion: + "To me a minstrel bring," he spake, + "Who plays in David's fashion." +Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, + In words of help undoubted,-- +Great waters flowed the rainless land, + The foe was also routed. + + Drom, Druri, Drom, + Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Drumming and fifing good + Make hero-mood; + Prophets upspring, + Poets, too, sing; + Music is life + To peace and strife,-- + And men have ever heeded + What chief by them is needed. + +In Dorian mood when he would sing, + Timotheus the charmer, +'Tis said the famous lyre would bring + All listeners into armor: +It woke in Alexander rage + For war, and nought would slake it, +Unless he could the world engage, + And his by conquest make it. + Timotheus + Of Miletus + Could strongly sing + To rouse the King + Of Macedon, + Heroic one, + Till, in his ire + And manly fire, + For shield and weapon rising, + He went, the foe chastising. + +For what God drives, that ever goes,-- + So sang courageous Judith; +No one can such as He oppose; + There prospers what He broodeth. +Who has from God a martial mood, + Through all resistance breaking, +Can prove himself 'gainst heroes good, + On foes a vengeance taking. + Drums, when we droop; + Stand fast, my troop! + Let dart and sabre + The air belabor; + Give them no heed, + But be agreed + That flight be a breach of honor: + Of that be hearty scorner. + +Although a part, as haps alway, + Will faintly take to fleeing, +A lion's heart have I to-day + For Kaiser Henry's seeing. +The wheat springs forth, the chaff's behind;[12] + Strike harder, then, and braver; + +[Footnote 12: This was first said by Rudolph of Erlach at the Battle of +Laupen, in 1339, fought between citizens of Berne and the neighboring +lords. The great array of the nobles caused the rear ranks of the +Bernese to shrink. "Good!" cried Erlach, "the chaff is separated from +the wheat! Cowards will not share the victory of the brave." +--Zschokke's _History of Switzerland_, p. 48, Shaw's translation.] + +Perhaps they all will change their mind, + So, brothers, do not waver! + Kyrie eleison! + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Alarum beat, + There's no retreat; + Wilt soon be slashed, + Be pierced and gashed: + But none of these things heeding, + The foe, too, set a-bleeding. + +Many good surgeons have we here, + Again to heal us ready; +With God's help, then, be of good cheer, + The Pagans grow unsteady: +Let not thy courage sink before + A foe already flying; +Revenge itself shall give thee more, + And hearten it, if dying. + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Kyrie eleison! + Strike, thrust,--for we + Must victors be; + Let none fall out, + Keep order stout; + Close to my side, + Comrade, abide! + Be grace of God revealed now, + And help us hold the field now! + +God doth Himself encamp us round, + Himself the tight inspiring; +The foe no longer stands his ground, + On every side retiring; +Ye brothers, now set boldly on + The hostile ranks!--they waver,-- +They break before us and are gone,-- + Praise be to God the Saver! + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Come, brother, come! + Drums, make a noise! + My troops, rejoice! + Help now pursue + And thrust and hew; + Pillage restrain,-- + The spoils remain + In reach of every finger, + But not a foe wilt linger. + +Ye bold campaigners, praise the Lord, + And strifeful heroes, take now +The prize He doth to us accord, + Good cheer and pillage make now: +What each one finds that let him take, + But friendly share your booty, +For parents', wives', and children's sake, + For household use or beauty. + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Field-surge on come, + My gash to bind, + Am nearly blind,-- + The arrows stick, + Out pull them quick,-- + A bandage here, + To save my ear,-- + Come, bind me up, + And reach a cup,-- + Ho, here at hand, + I cannot stand,-- + Reach hither what you're drinking, + My heart is 'neath me sinking. + +War-comrades all, heart's-brothers good, + I spare no skill and labor, +For these your hurts in hero-mood + You got from hostile sabre. +Now well behave, keep up thy heart, + God's help itself will tend thee; +Although at present great the smart, + To dress the wound will mend thee; + Wash off the blood, + Time makes it good,-- + Reach me the shear,-- + A plaster here,-- + Hold out your arm, + 'T is no great harm,-- + Give drink to stay, + He limps away: + Thank God, their wounds all tended, + Be dart- and pike-hole mended! + +Three faces does a surgeon wear: + At first God is not higher; +And when with wounds they illy fare, + He comes in angel's tire; +But soon as word is said of pay, + How gracelessly they grieve him! +They bid his odious face away, + Or knavishly deceive him: + No thanks for it + Spoils benefit, + Ill to endure + For drugs that cure; + Pay and respect + Should he collect, + For at his art + Your woes depart; + God bids him speed + To you in need; + Therefore our dues be giving, + God wills us all a living. + +No death so blessed in the world + As his who, struck by foeman, +Upon the airy field is hurled, + Nor hears lament of woman; +From narrow beds death one by one + His pale recruits is calling, +But comrades here are not alone, + Like Whitsun blossoms falling. + 'T is no ill jest + To say that best + Of ways to die + Is thus to lie + In honor's sleep, + With none to weep: + Marched out of life + By drum and fife + To airy grave, + Thus heroes crave + A worthy fame,-- + Men say his name +Is _Fatherland's Befriender_, +By life and blood surrender. + +With the introduction of standing armies popular warlike poetry falls +away, and is succeeded by camp-songs, and artistic renderings of +martial subjects by professed poets. The people no longer do the +fighting; they foot the bills and write melancholy hymns. Weckerlin +(1584-1651) wrote some hearty and simple things; among others, +_Frisch auf, ihr tapfere Soldaten_, "Ye soldiers bold, be full of +cheer." Michael Altenburg, (1583-1640,) who served on the Protestant +side, wrote a hymn after the Battle of Leipsic, 1631, from the watch +word, "God with us," which was given to the troops that day. His hymn +was afterwards made famous by Gustavus Adolphus, who sang it at the +head of his soldiers before the Battle of Lützen, November 16, 1632, +in which he fell. Here it is. (_Verzage nicht, du Häuflein +klein_.) + +Be not cast down, thou little band, +Although the foe with purpose stand + To make thy ruin sure: +Because they seek thy overthrow, +Thou art right sorrowful and low: + It will not long endure. + +Be comforted that God will make +Thy cause His own, and vengeance take,-- + 'T is His, and let it reign: +He knoweth well His Gideon, +Through him already hath begun + Thee and His Word sustain. + +Sure word of God it is to fell +That Satan, world, and gates of hell, + And all their following, +Must come at last to misery: +God is with us,--with God are we,-- + He will the victory bring. + +Here is certainly a falling off from Luther's _Ein feste Burg_, +but his spirit was in the fight; and the hymn is wonderfully improved +when the great Swedish captain takes it to his death. + +Von Kleist (1715-1759) studied law at Königsberg, but later became an +officer in the Prussian service. He wrote, in 1759, an ode to the +Prussian army, was wounded at the Battle of Künersdorf, where Frederic +the Great lost his army and received a ball in his snuff-box. His +poetry is very poor stuff. The weight of the enemy crushes down the +hills and makes the planet tremble; agony and eternal night impend; and +where the Austrian horses drink, the water fails. But his verses were +full of good advice to the soldiers, to spare, in the progress of their +great achievements, the poor peasant who is not their foe, to help his +need, and to leave pillage to Croats and cowards. The advice was less +palatable to Frederic's troops than the verses. + +But there were two famous soldier's songs, of unknown origin, the pets +of every camp, which piqued all the poets into writing war-verses as +soon as the genius of Frederic kindled such enthusiasm among +Prussians. The first was an old one about Prince Eugene, who was +another hero, loved in camps, and besung with ardor around every +watchfire. It is a genuine soldier's song. + +Prince Eugene, the noble captain, +For the Kaiser would recover + Town and fortress of Belgrade; +So he put a bridge together +To transport his army thither, + And before the town parade. + +When the floating bridge was ready, +So that guns and wagons steady + Could pass o'er the Danube stream, +By Semlin a camp collected. +That the Turks might be ejected, + To their great chagrin and shame. + +Twenty-first of August was it, +When a spy in stormy weather + Came, and told the Prince and swore +That the Turks they all amounted, +Near, at least, as could be counted, + To three hundred thousand men, or more. + +Prince Eugenius never trembled +At the news, but straight assembled + All his generals to know: +Them he carefully instructed +How the troops should be conducted + Smartly to attack the foe. + +With the watchword he commanded +They should wait till twelve was sounded + At the middle of the night; +Mounting then upon their horses, +For a skirmish with the forces, + Go in earnest at the fight. + +Straightway all to horseback getting, +Weapons handy, forth were setting + Silently from the redoubt: +Musketeers, dragooners also, +Bravely fought and made them fall so,-- + Led them such a dance about. + +And our cannoneers advancing +Furnished music for the dancing, + With their pieces great and small; +Great and small upon them playing, +Heathen were averse to staying, + Ran, and did not stay at all. + +Prince Eugenius on the right wing +Like a lion did his fighting, + So he did field-marshal's part: +Prince Ludwig rode from one to th' other, +Cried, "Keep firm, each German brother, + Hurt the foe with all your heart!" + +Prince Ludwig, struck by bullet leaden, +With his youthful life did redden, + And his soul did then resign: +Badly Prince Eugene wept o'er him, +For the love he always bore him,-- + Had him brought to Peterwardein. + +The music is peculiar,--one flat, 3/4 time,--a very rare measure, and +giving plenty of opportunity for a quaint camp-style of singing. + +The other song appeared during Frederic's Silesian War. It contains +some choice reminiscences of his favorite rhetoric. + +Fridericus Rex, our master and king, +His soldiers altogether to the field would bring, +Battalions two hundred, and a thousand squadrons clear, +And cartridges sixty to every grenadier. + +"Cursed fellows, ye!"--his Majesty began,-- +"For me stand in battle, each man to man; +Silesia and County Glatz to me they will not grant, +Nor the hundred millions either which I want. + +"The Empress and the French have gone to be allied, +And the Roman kingdom has revolted from my side, +And the Russians are bringing into Prussia war;-- +Up, let us show them that we Prussians are! + +"My General Schwerin, and Field-Marshal Von Keith, +And Von Ziethen, Major-General, are ready for a fight; +Turban-spitting Element! Cross and Lightning get +Who has not found Fritz and his soldiers out yet! + +"Now adieu, Louisa![13]--Louisa, dry your eyes! +There's not a soldier's life for every ball that flies; +For if all the bullets singly hit their men, +Where could our Majesties get soldiers then? + +"Now the hole a musket-bullet makes is small,-- +'T is a larger hole made by a cannon-ball; +But the bullets all are of iron and of lead, +And many a bullet goes for many overhead. + +"'T is a right heavy calibre to our artillery, +And never goes a Prussian over to the enemy, +For 't is cursed bad money that the Swedes have to pay; +Is there any better coin of the Austrian?--who can say? + +"The French are paid off in pomade by their king, +But each week in pennies we get our reckoning; +Sacrament of Cross and Lightning! Turbans, spit away! +Who draws so promptly as the Prussian his pay?" + +With a laurel-wreath adorned, Fridericus my King, +If you had only oftener permitted plundering, +Fredericus Rex, king and hero of the fight, +We would drive the Devil for thee out of sight! + +[Footnote 13: His queen] + +Among the songs which the military ardor of this period stimulated, the +best are those by Gleim, (1719-1803) called "Songs of a Prussian +Grenadier." All the literary men, Lessing not excepted, were seized +with the Prussian enthusiasm; the pen ravaged the domain of sentiment +to collect trophies for Father Friedrich. The desolation it produced in +the attempt to write the word Glory could be matched only by the +sword. But Gleim was a man of spirit and considerable power. The shock +of Frederic's military successes made him suddenly drop the pen with +which he had been inditing Anacreontics, and weak, rhymeless Horatian +moods. His grenadier-songs, though often meagre and inflated, and +marked with the literary vices of the time, do still account for the +great fame which they acquired, as they went marching with the finest +army that Europe ever saw. Here is a specimen:-- + +VICTORY-SONG AFTER THE BATTLE NEAR PRAGUE. + +Victoria! with us is God; + There lies the haughty foe! +He falls, for righteous is our God; + Victoria! he lies low. + +'T is true our father[14] is no more, + Yet hero-like be went, +And now the conquering host looks o'er + From high and starry tent. + +The noble man, he led the way + For God and Fatherland, +And scarce was his old head so gray + As valiant his hand. + +With fire of youth and hero-craft + A banner snatching, he +Held it aloft upon its shaft + For all of us to see; + +And said,--"My children, now attack,-- + Take each redoubt and gun!" +And swifter than the lightning track + We followed, every one. + +Alas, the flag that led the strife + Falls with him ere we win! +It was a glorious end of life: + O fortunate Schwerin! + +And when thy Frederic saw thee low, + From out his sobbing breath +His orders hurled us on the foe + In vengeance for thy death. + +Thou, Henry,[15] wert a soldier true, + Thou foughtest royally! +From deed to deed our glances flew, + Thou lion-youth, with thee! + +A Prussian heart with valor quick, + Right Christian was his mood: +Red grew his sword, and flowing thick + His steps with Pandourt[16]-blood. + +Full seven earth-works did we clear, + The bear-skins broke and fled; +Then, Frederic, went thy grenadier + High over heaps of dead: + +Remembered, in the murderous fight, + God, Fatherland, and thee,-- +Turned, from the deep and smoky night, + His Frederic to see, + +And trembled,--with a flush of fear + His visage mounted high; +He trembled, not that death was near, + But lest thou, too, shouldst die: + +Despised the balls like scattered seed, + The cannon's thunder-tone, +Fought fiercely, did a hero's deed, + Till all thy foes had flown. + +Now thanks he God for all His might, + And sings, Victoria! +And all the blood from out this fight + Flows to Theresia. + +And if she will not stay the plague, + Nor peace to thee concede, +Storm with us, Frederic, first her Prague, + Then, to Vienna lead! + +[Footnote 14: Marshal Schwerin, seventy years of age, who was killed at +the head of a regiment, with its colors in his hand, just as it crossed +through the fire to the enemy's intrenchments.] + +[Footnote 15: The King's brother.] + +[Footnote 16: A corps of foot-soldiers in the Austrian service, +eventually incorporated in the army. They were composed of Servians, +Croats, etc., inhabitants of the military frontier, and were named +originally from the village of Pandúr in Lower Hungary, where probably +the first recruits were gathered.] + +The love which the soldiers had for Frederic survived in the army after +all the veterans of his wars had passed away. It is well preserved in +this camp-song:-- + +THE INVALIDES AT FATHER FREDERIC'S GRAVE. + +Here stump we round upon our crutches, round our Father's grave we go, +And from our eyelids down our grizzled beards the bitter tears will +flow. + +'T was long ago, with Frederic living, that we + got our lawful gains: +A meagre ration now they serve us,--life's no + longer worth the pains. + +Here stump we round, deserted orphans, and + with tears each other see,-- +Are waiting for our marching orders hence, + to be again with thee. + +Yes, Father, only could we buy thee, with our + blood, by Heaven, yes,-- +We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight + through death would storming press! + +When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for +Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of +Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and +anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation. +Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the +cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon +expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of +this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of +verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly +expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the +Battle of Leipsic:-- + +Can there no song + Roar with a might + Loud as the fight +Leipsic's region along? + +Three days and three nights, + No moment of rest, + And not for a jest, +Went thundering the fights. + +Three days and three nights + Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured + There with an iron yardstick were measured, +Bringing the reckoning with them to rights. + +Three days and all night + A battue of larks the Leipsicker make; + Every haul a hundred he takes, +A thousand each flight. + +Ha! it is good, + Now that the Russian can boast no longer + He alone of us is stronger +To slake his steppes with hostile blood. + +Not in the frosty North alone, + But here in Meissen, + Here at Leipsic on the Pleissen, +Can the French be overthrown. + +Shallow Pleissen deep is flowing; + Plains upheaving, + The dead receiving, +Seem to mountains for us growing. + +They will be our mountains never, + But this fame + Shall be our claim +On the rolls of earth forever. + +What all this amounted to, when the German people began to send in +their constitutional _cartes-blanches_, is nicely taken off by +Hoffman von Fallersleben, in this mock war-song, published in 1842:-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the beating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man. +Rouse, rouse +From earth and house! +Ye women and children, good night! +Forth we hasten, we hasten to the fight, +With God for our King and Fatherland. + +_A night-patrol of 1813 sings_. + +O God! and why, and why, +For princes' whim, renown, and might, + To the fight? +For court-flies and other crows, + To blows? +For the nonage of our folk, + Into smoke? +For must-war-meal and class-tax, + To thwacks? +For privilege and censordom-- + Hum-- +Into battle without winking? + But--I was thinking-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the heating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man: +In battle's roar +The time is o'er +To ask for reasons,--hear, the drum +Again is calling,--tum--tum--tum,-- +With God for King and Fatherland. + +Or to put it in two stanzas of his, written on a visit to the Valhalla, +or Hall of German Worthies, at Regensburg:-- + +I salute thee, sacred Hall, + Chronicle of German glory! +I salute ye, heroes all + Of the new time and the hoary! + +Patriot heroes, from your sleep + Into being could ye pass! +No, a king would rather keep + Patriots in stone and brass. + +The Danish sea-songs, like those of the English, are far better than +the land-songs of the soldiers: but here is one with a true and +temperate sentiment, which the present war will readily help us to +appreciate. It is found in a book of Danish popular songs. [17] + +[Footnote 17: _Sange til Brug fřr blandede Selskaber_, samlade af +FREDERIK SCHALDEMOSE. 1816. Songs for Use in Social Meetings, etc.] +(_Herlig er Krigerens Faerd_.) + +Good is the soldier's trade, +For envy well made: +The lightning-blade + Over force-men he swingeth; + A loved one shall prize + The honor he bringeth; +Is there a duty? +That's soldier's booty,-- +To have it he dies. + +True for his king and land +The Northman will stand; +An oath is a band,-- + He never can rend it; + The dear coast, 't is right + A son should defend it; +For battle he burneth, +Death's smile he returneth, + And bleeds with delight. + +Scars well set off his face,-- +Each one is a grace; +His profit they trace,-- + No labor shines brighter: + A wreath is the scar + On the brow of a fighter; +His maid thinks him fairer, +His ornament rarer + Than coat with a star. + +Reaches the king his hand, +That makes his soul grand, +And fast loyal band + Round his heart it is slinging; + From Fatherland's good +The motion was springing: +His deeds so requited, +Is gratefully lighted + A man's highest mood. + +Bravery's holy fire, +Beam nobler and higher, +And light our desire + A path out of madness! + By courage and deed + We conquer peace-gladness: +We suffer for that thing, +We strike but for that thing, + And gladly we bleed. + +But our material threatens the space we have at command. Four more +specimens must suffice for the present. They are all favorite +soldier-songs. The first is by Chamisso, known popularly as the author +of "Peter Schlemihl's Shadow," and depicts the mood of a soldier who +has been detailed to assist in a military execution:-- + +The muffled drums to our marching play. +How distant the spot, and how long the way! +Oh, were I at rest, and the bitterness through! +Methinks it will break my heart in two! + +Him only I loved of all below,-- +Him only who yet to death must go; +At the rolling music we parade, +And of me too, me, the choice is made! + +Once more, and the last, he looks upon +The cheering light of heaven's sun; +But now his eyes they are binding tight: +God grant to him rest and other light! + +Nine muskets are lifted to the eye, +Eight bullets have gone whistling by; +They trembled all with comrades' smart,-- +But I--I hit him in his heart! + +The next is by Von Holtei:-- + +THE VETERAN TO HIS CLOAK. + +Full thirty years art thou of age, hast many a + storm lived through, + Brother-like hast round me tightened, + And whenever cannons lightened, +Both of us no terror knew. + +Wet soaking to the skin we lay for many a + blessed night, + Thou alone hast warmth imparted, + And if I was heavy-hearted, +Telling thee would make me light. + +My secrets thou hast never spoke, wert ever still and true; + Every tatter did befriend me, + Therefore I'll no longer mend thee, +Lest, old chap, 't would make thee new. + +And dearer still art thou to ma when jests about thee roll; + For where the rags below are dropping, + There went through the bullets popping,-- +Every bullet makes a hole. + +And when the final bullet comes to stop a German heart, + Then, old cloak, a grave provide me, + Weather-beaten friend, still hide me, +As I sleep in thee apart. + +There lie we till the roll-call together in the grave: + For the roll I shall be heedful, + Therefore it will then be needful +For me an old cloak to have. + +The next one is taken from a student-song book, and was probably +written in 1814:-- + +THE CANTEEN. + +Just help me, Lottie, as I spring; + My arm is feeble, see,-- +I still must have it in a sling; + Be softly now with me! +But do not let the canteen slip,-- + Here, take it first, I pray,-- +For when that's broken from my lip, + All joys will flow away. + +"And why for that so anxious?--pshaw! + It is not worth a pin: +The common glass, the bit of straw, + And not a drop within!" +No matter, Lottie, take it out,-- + 'T is past your reckoning: +Yes, look it round and round about,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +By Leipsic near, if you must know,-- + 'T was just no children's play,-- +A ball hit me a grievous blow, + And in the crowd I lay; +Nigh death, they bore me from the scene, + My garments off they fling, +Yet held I fast by my canteen,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +For once our ranks in passing through + He paused,--we saw his face; +Around us keen the volleys flew, + He calmly kept his place. +He thirsted,--I could see it plain, + And courage took to bring +My old canteen for him to drain,-- + He drank from it--my King! + +He touched me on the shoulder here, + And said, "I thank thee, friend, +Thy liquor gives me timely cheer,-- + Thou didst right well intend." +O'erjoyed at this, I cried aloud, + "O comrades, who can bring +Canteen like this to make him proud?-- + There drank from it--my King!" + +That old canteen shall no one have, + The best of treasures mine; +Put it at last upon my grave, + And under it this line: +"He fought at Leipsic, whom this green + Is softly covering; +Best household good was his canteen,-- + There drank from it--his King!" + +And finally, a song for all the campaigns of life:-- + +Morning-red! morning-red! +Lightest me towards the dead! +Soon the trumpets will be blowing, +Then from life must I be going, + I, and comrades many a one. + +Soon as thought, soon as thought, +Pleasure to an end is brought; +Yesterday upon proud horses,-- +Shot to-day, our quiet corses + Are to-morrow in the grave. + +And how soon, and how soon, +Vanish shape and beauty's noon! +Of thy cheeks a moment vaunting, +Like the milk and purple haunting,-- + Ah, the roses fade away! + +And what, then, and what, then, +Is the joy and lust of men? +Ever caring, ever getting, +From the early morn-light fretting + Till the day is past and gone. + +Therefore still, therefore still +I content me, as God will: +Fighting stoutly, nought shall shake me: +For should death itself o'ertake me, + Then a gallant soldier dies. + + + + +FROUDE'S HENRY THE EIGHTH. + + +The spirit of historical criticism in the present age is on the whole a +charitable spirit. Many public characters have been heard through their +advocates at the bar of history, and the judgments long since passed +upon them and their deeds, and deferentially accepted for centuries, +have been set aside, and others of a widely different character +pronounced. Julius Caesar, who was wont to stand as the model usurper, +and was regarded as having wantonly destroyed Roman liberty in order to +gratify his towering ambition, is now regarded as a political reformer +of the very highest and best class,--as the man who alone thoroughly +understood his age and his country, and who was Heaven's own instrument +to rescue unnumbered millions from the misrule of an oligarchy whose +members looked upon mankind as their proper prey. He did not overthrow +the freedom of Rome, but he took from Romans the power to destroy the +personal freedom of all the races by them subdued. He identified the +interests of the conquered peoples with those of the central +government, so far as that work was possible,--thus proceeding in the +spirit of the early Roman conquerors, who sought to comprehend even the +victims of their wars in the benefits which proceeded from those wars. +This view of his career is a sounder one than that which so long +prevailed, and which enabled orators to round periods with references +to the Rubicon. It is not thirty years since one of the first of +American statesmen told the national Senate that "Julius Caesar struck +down Roman liberty at Pharsalia," and probably there was not one man in +his audience who supposed that he was uttering anything beyond a +truism, though they must have been puzzled to discover any resemblance +between "the mighty Julius" and Mr. Martin Van Buren, the gentleman +whom the orator was cutting up, and who was actually in the chair while +Mr. Calhoun was seeking to kill him, in a political sense, by +quotations from Plutarch's Lives. We have learnt something since 1834 +concerning Rome and Caesar as well as of our own country and its +chiefs, and the man who should now bring forward the conqueror of Gaul +as a vulgar usurper would be almost as much laughed at as would be that +man who should insist that General Jackson destroyed American liberty +when he removed the deposits from the national bank. The facts and +fears of one generation often furnish material for nothing but jests +and jeers to that generation's successors; and we who behold a million +of men in arms, fighting for or against the American Union, and all +calling themselves Americans, are astonished when we read or remember +that our immediate predecessors in the political world went to the +verge of madness on the Currency question. Perhaps the men of 1889 may +be equally astonished, when they shall turn to files of newspapers that +were published in 1862, and read therein the details of those events +that now excite so painful an interest in hundreds of thousands of +families. Nothing is so easy as to condemn the past, except the +misjudging of the present, and the failure to comprehend the future. + +Men of a very different stamp from the first of the Romans have been +allowed the benefits that come from a rehearing of their causes. +Robespierre, whose deeds are within the memory of many yet living, has +found champions, and it is now admitted by all who can effect that +greatest of conquests, the subjugation of their prejudices, that he was +an honest fanatic, a man of iron will, but of small intellect, who had +the misfortune, the greatest that can fall to the lot of humanity, to +be placed by the force of circumstances in a position which would have +tried the soundest of heads, even had that head been united with the +purest of hearts. But the apologists of "the sea-green incorruptible," +it must be admitted, have not been very successful, as the sence of +mankind revolts at indiscriminate murder, even when the murderer's +hands have no other stain than that which comes from blood,--for that +is a stain which will not "out"; not even printer's ink can erase or +cover it; and the attorney of Arras must remain the Raw-Head and +Bloody-Bones of history. Benedict Arnold has found no direct defender +or apologist; but those readers who are unable to see how forcibly +recent writers have dwelt upon the better points of his character and +career, while they have not been insensible to the provocations he +received, must have read very carelessly and uncritically indeed. Mr. +Paget has all but whitewashed Marlborough, and has shaken many men's +faith in the justice of Lord Macauley's judgement and in the accuracy +of his assertions. Richard III., by all who can look through the clouds +raised by Shakespeare over English history of the fifteenth century, is +admitted to have been a much better man and ruler than were the average +of British monarchs from the Conquest to the Revolution, thanks to the +labors of Horace Walpole and Caroline Halsted, who, however, have only +followed in the path struck out by Sir George Buck at a much earlier +period. The case of Mary Stuart still remains unsettled, and bids fair +to be the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of history; but this is owing to +the circumstance that that unfortunate queen is so closely associated +with the origin of our modern parties that justice where her reputation +is concerned is scarcely to be looked for. Little has been said for +King John; and Mr. Woolryche's kind attempt to reconcile men to the +name of Jeffreys has proved a total failure. Strafford has about as +many admirers as enemies among those who know his history, but this is +due more to the manner of his death than to any love of his life: of so +much more importance is it that men should die well than live well, so +far as the judgement of posterity is concerned with their actions. + +Strafford's master, who so scandalously abandoned him to the headsman, +owes the existence of the party that still upholds his conduct to the +dignified manner in which he faced death, a death at which the whole +world "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has +found no formal defender, but the Catilinarian Conspiracy is now +generally admitted to have been the Popish Plot of antiquity, with an +ounce of truth to a pound of falsehood in the narratives of it that +have come down to us from Rome's revolutionary age, in political +pamphlets and party orations. Cicero's craze on the subject, and that +tendency which all men have to overrate the value of their own actions, +have made of the business in his lively pages a much more consequential +affair than it really was. The fleas in the microscope, and there it +will ever remain, to be mistaken for a monster. Truly, the Tullian +gibbeted the gentleman of the Sergian _gens_. It must be confessed +that Catiline was a proper rascal. How could he have been anything +else, and be one of Sulla's men? And a proper rascal is an improper +character of the very worst kind. Still, we should like to have had his +marginal "notes" on Cicero's speeches, and on Sallust's job pamphlet. +They would have been mighty interesting reading,--as full of lies, +probably, as the matter commented on, but not the less attractive on +that account. What dull affairs libraries would be, if they contained +nothing but books full of truth! The Greek tyrants have found +defenders, and it has been satisfactorily made out that they were the +cleverest men of their time, and that, if they did occasionally bear +rather hard upon individuals, it was only because those individuals +were so unreasonable as not to submit to be robbed or killed in a quiet +and decorous manner. Mr. Grote's rehabilitation of the Greek sophists +is a miracle of ingenuity and sense, and does as much honor to the man +who wrote it as justice to the men of whom it is written. + +Of the doubtful characters of history, royal families have furnished +not a few, some of whom have stood in as bad positions as those which +have been assigned to Robespierre and his immediate associates. +Catharine de' Medici and Mary I. of England, the "Bloody Mary" of +anti-Catholic localities, are supposed to be models of evil, to be in +crinoline; but if you can believe Eugenio Albčri, Catharine was not the +harlot, the tyrant, the poisoner, the bigot, and the son-killer that +she passes for in the common estimation, and he has made out a capital +defence for the dead woman whom he selected as his client. The Massacre +of St. Bartholomew was not an "Italian crime," but a French _coup +d'état_, and was as rough and coarse as some similar transactions +seen by our grandfathers, say the September prison-business at Paris in +1792. As to Mary Tudor, she was an excellent woman, but a bigot; and if +she did turn Mrs. Rogers and her eleven children out to the untender +mercies of a cold world, by sending Mr. Rogers into a hot fire, it was +only that souls might be saved from a hotter and a huger fire,--a sort +of argument the force of which we always have been unable to +appreciate, no doubt because we are of the heretics, and never believed +that persons belonging to our determination ought to be roasted. The +incense of the stake, that was so sweet in ecclesiastical nostrils +three hundred years ago, and also in vulgar nostrils wherever the +vulgar happened to be of the orthodox persuasion, has become an +insufferable stench to the more refined noses of the nineteenth +century, which, nevertheless, are rather partial to the odor of the +gallows. Miss Strickland and other clever historians may dwell upon the +excellence of Mary Tudor's private character with as much force as they +can make, or with much greater force they may show that Gardiner and +other reactionary leaders were the real fire-raisers of her reign; but +the common mind will ever, and with great justice, associate those +loathsome murders with the name and memory of the sovereign in whose +reign they were perpetrated. + +The father of Mary I. stands much more in need of defence and apology +than does his daughter. No monarch occupies so strange a position in +history as Henry VIII. A sincere Catholic, so far as doctrine went, and +winning from the Pope himself the title of Defender of the Faith +because of his writing against the grand heresiarch of the age, he +nevertheless became the chief instrument of the Reformation, the man +and the sovereign without whose aid the reform movement of the +sixteenth century would have failed as deplorably as the reform +movements of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries had failed. A +legitimate king, though the heir of a successful usurpation, and +holding the royal prerogative as high as any man who ever grasped the +sceptre, he was the tool of the mightiest of revolutionists, and poured +out more royal and noble blood than ever flowed at the command of all +the Jacobins and Democrats that have warred against thrones and +dynasties and aristocracies. He is abhorred of Catholics, and +Protestants do not love him; for he pulled down the old religious +fabric of his kingdom, and furnished to the Reformers a permanent +standing-place from which to move the world, while at the same time he +slaughtered Protestants as ruthlessly as ever they were disposed of by +any ruler of the Houses of Austria and Valois. Reeking with blood, and +apparently insensible to anything like a humane feeling, he was yet +popular with the masses of his subjects, and no small share of that +popularity has descended to our time, in which he is admired by the +unreflecting because of the boldness and dash of his actions and on +account of the consequences of those actions, so that he is commonly +known as "bluff King Hal," a title that speaks more as to the general +estimate of his character than would a whole volume of professed +personal panegyric, or of elaborate defence of his policy and his +deeds. But this is not sufficient for those persons who would have +reasons for their historical belief, and who seek to have a solid +foundation for the faith they feel in the real greatness of the second +Tudor king of England. Men of ability have occasionally sought to +create an intelligible Henry VIII., and to cause us to respect one +whose doings have so potently affected human affairs through ten +generations, and the force of whose labors, whether those labors were +blindly or rationally wrought, is apparently as unspent as it was on +that day on which, having provided for the butchery of the noblest of +his servants, he fell into his final sleep. At the head of these +philosophic writers, and so far ahead of them as to leave them all out +of sight, is Mr. James Anthony Froude, whose "History of England from +the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" has been brought down to +the death of Mary I., in six volumes,--another proof of the grand scale +on which history is now written, in order that it may be read on the +small scale; for it is not given to many men to have the time for study +which even a moderate modern course of history requires in these active +days. Mr. Froude is a very different writer from Dr. Nares, but the +suggestions made to the heavy Doctor by Macaulay might be borne in mind +by the lively historian. He should remember that "the life of man is +now threescore years and ten," and not "demand from us so large a +portion of so short an existence" as must necessarily be required for +the perusal of a history which gives an octavo volume for every five +years of the annals of a small, though influential monarchy. + +Mr. Froude did not commence his work in a state of blind admiration of +his royal hero,--the tone of his first volume being quite calm, and on +the whole as impartial as could reasonably have been expected from an +Englishman writing of the great men of a great period in his country's +history; but so natural is it for a man who has assumed the part of an +advocate to identify himself with the cause of his client, that our +author rapidly passes from the character of a mere advocate to that of +a partisan, and by the time that he has brought his work down to the +execution of Thomas Cromwell, Henry has risen to the rank of a saint, +with a more than royal inability to do any wrong. That "the king can do +no wrong" is an English constitutional maxim, which, however sound it +may be in its proper place, is not to be introduced into history, +unless we are desirous of seeing that become a mere party-record. The +practice of publishing books in an incomplete state is one that by no +means tends to render them impartial, when they relate to matters that +are in dispute. Mr. Froude's first and second volumes, which bring the +work down to the murder of Anne Boleyn, afforded the most desirable +material for the critics, many of whom most pointedly dissented from +his views, and some of whom severely attacked his positions, and not +always unsuccessfully. They were, naturally, not disposed to think that +an act bad in itself changed its character when it became the act of +Henry VIII. It was contrary to all human experience to suppose that +Henry was in all cases in the right, while his opponents and his +victims were as invariably in the wrong. If there ever had lived and +reigned a man who could not do wrong, it was preposterous to look for +him in one who had been a wife-killer, a persecutor, the slayer of the +nobility of his kingdom, the exterminator of the last remnants of an +old royal race, the patron of fagots and ropes and axes, and a +hard-hearted and selfish voluptuary, who seems never to have been open +to one kind or generous feeling. Most of those tyrants that have been +hung up on high, by way of warning to despots, have had their +"uncorrupted hours," in which they vindicated their claim to humanity +by the performance of some good deeds. Gratitude for some such acts is +supposed to have caused even the tomb of Nero to be adorned with +garlands. But Henry VIII. never had a kind moment. He was the same +moral monster at eighteen, when he succeeded to his sordid, selfish +father, that he was at fifty-six, when he, a dying man, employed the +feeble remnants of his once Herculean strength to stamp the +death-warrants of innocent men. No wonder that Mr. Froude's critics +failed to accept his estimate of Henry, or that they arrayed anew the +long list of his shocking misdeeds, and dwelt with unction on his total +want of sympathy with ordinary humanity. As little surprising is it +that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be +increased by the course of the critics. That is the usual course. The +biographer comes to love the man whom at first he had only endured. To +endurance, according to the old notion, succeeds pity, and then comes +the embrace. And that embrace is all the warmer because others have +denounced the party to whom it is extended. It is fortunate that no man +of talent has ever ventured to write the biography of Satan. Assuredly, +had any such person done so, there would have been one sincere, +enthusiastic, open, devout Devil-worshipper on earth, which would have +been a novel, but not altogether a moral, spectacle for the eyes of +men. A most clear, luminous and unsatisfactory account of the conduct +of Satan in Eden would have been furnished, and it would have been +logically made out that all the fault of the first recorded son was +with Eve, who had been the temptress, not the tempted, and who had +taken advantage of the Devil's unsophisticated nature to impose upon +his innocence and simplicity, and then had gone about among "the +neighbors" to scandalize his character at tea-tables and +quilting-parties. + +Mr. Froude is too able a man to seek to pass crude eulogy of Henry +VIII. upon the world. He knows that the reason why this or that or the +other thing was done is what his readers will demand, and he does his +best to meet their requirements. Very plausible, and very well +sustained by numerous facts, as well as by philosophical theory, is the +position which he assumes in reference to Henry's conduct. Henry, +according to the Froudean theory, was troubled about the succession to +the throne. His great purpose was to prevent the renewal of civil war +in England, a war for the succession. When he divorced Catharine of +Aragon, when he married Anne Boleyn, when he libelled and murdered Anne +Boleyn, when he wedded Jane Seymour, when he became disgusted with and +divorced Anne of Cleves, when he married and when he beheaded Catharine +Howard, when he patronized, used, and rewarded Cromwell, and when he +sent Cromwell to the scaffold and refused to listen to his plaintive +plea for mercy, when he caused Plantagenet and Neville blood to flow +like water from the veins of old women as well as from those of young +men, when he hanged Catholics and burned Protestants, when he caused +Surrey to lose the finest head in England,--in short, no matter what he +did, he always had his eye steadily fixed across that boiling sea of +blood that he had created upon one grand point, namely, the +preservation of the internal peace of England, not only while he +himself should live, but after his death. His son, or whoso should be +his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should +be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most +of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet. +Church-yards were to be filled in order that all England might be +reduced to the condition of a church-yard. That _Red Spectre_ +which has so often frightened even sensible men since 1789, and caused +some remarkably humiliating displays of human weakness during our +generation and its immediate predecessor, was, it should seem, ever +present to the eyes of Henry VIII. He saw Anarchy perpetually +struggling to get free from those bonds in which Henry VIII. had +confined that monster, and he cut off nearly every man or woman in +whose name a plea for the crown could be set up as against a Tudor +prince or princess. Like his father, to use Mr. Froude's admirable +expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and +he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously +disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would +naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually +striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by +ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a +failing business at the best. Men and women, patrician and plebeian, +might play at rebellion, if they liked it, but they should be made to +find that they were playing the losing game. + +Now, this succession-question theory has the merit of meeting the very +difficulty that besets us when we study the history of Henry's reign, +and it is justified by many things that belong to English history for a +period of more than two centuries,--that is to say, from the deposition +of Richard II., in 1399, to the death of Elizabeth, in 1603. It is a +strangely suggestive satire on the alleged excellence of hereditary +monarchy as a mode of government that promotes the existence of order +beyond any other, that England should not have been free from trouble +for two hundred years, because her people could not agree upon the +question of the right to the crown, and so long as that question was +left unsettled, there could be no such thing as permanent peace for +the castle or the cottage or the city. Town and country, citizen, +baron, and peasant, were alike dependent upon the ambition of aspiring +princes and king-makers for the condition of their existence. The folly +of Richard II. enabled Henry of Bolingbroke to convert his ducal +coronet into a royal crown, and to bring about that object which his +father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, seems to have ever had at +heart. Henry IV. was a usurper, in spite of his Parliamentary title, +according to all ideas of hereditary right; for, failing heirs of the +body to Richard II., the crown belonged to the House of Mortimer, in +virtue of the descent of its chief from the Duke of Clarence, third +son of Edward III, the Duke of Lancaster being fourth son of that +monarch. Henry IV. felt the force of the objection that existed to his +title, and he sought to evade it by pretending to found his claim to +the crown on descent from Edmund of Lancaster, whom he assumed to have +been the _elder_ brother of Edward I.; but no weight was attached +to this plea by his contemporaries, who saw in him a monarch created +by conquest and by Parliamentary action. The struggle that then began +endured until both Plantagenets and Tudors had become extinct, and +the English crown had passed to the House of Stuart, in the person of +James I., who was descended in the female line from the Duke of +Clarence, through Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., and +wife of Henry VII. Intrigues, insurrections, executions, and finally +great civil wars, grew out of the usurpation of the throne by the line +of Lancaster. We find the War of the Roses spoken of by nearly all +writers on it as beginning in 1455, when the first battle of St. Albans +was fought, but in fact the contest of which that war was but the +extreme utterance began nearly sixty years earlier than the day of the +Battle of St. Albans, its commencement dating from the time that Henry +IV. became King. A variety of circumstances prevented it from assuming +its severest development until long after all the actors in its early +stages had gone to their graves. Henry IV. was a man of superior +ability, which enabled him, though not without struggling hard for it, +to triumph over all his enemies; and his early death prevented a +renewal of the wars that had been waged against him. His son, the +overrated Henry V., who was far inferior to his father as a statesman, +entered upon a war with France, and so distracted English attention +from English affairs; and had he lived to complete his successes, all +objection to his title would have disappeared. Indeed, England herself +would have disappeared as a nation, becoming a mere French province, a +dependency of the House of Plantagenet reigning at Paris. But the +victor of Agincourt, like all the sovereigns of his line, died young, +comparatively speaking, and left his dominions to a child who was not a +year old, the ill-fated Henry VI. Then would have broken out the +quarrel that came to a head at the beginning of the next generation, +but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were +able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that +foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal +troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer +party had no leader. + +There is a strange episode in the history of Henry V., which shows how +unstable was the foundation of that monarch's throne. While he was +preparing, at Southampton, for the invasion of France, a conspiracy was +discovered to have been formed to take the throne from him. The chief +actor in it was the Earl of Cambridge, who was speedily tried, +convicted, and beheaded, sharing the fate of his associates. Cambridge +was a son of the Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III., and he had +married Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger Earl of March; and the +intention of the conspirators was to have raised that lady's brother, +Edmund Earl of March, to Henry's place. March was a feeble character, +and Cambridge is believed to have looked to his own wife's becoming +Queen-Regnant of England. The plot, according to one account, was +betrayed by March to the King, and the latter soon got rid of one whose +daring character and ambitious purpose showed that he must be dangerous +as an opposition chief. Henry's enemies were thus left without a head, +in consequence of their leader's having lost his head; and the French +war rapidly absorbing men's attention, all doubts as to Henry's title +were lost sight of in the blaze of glory that came from the field of +Agincourt. The spirit of opposition, however, revived as soon as the +anti-Lancastrians obtained a leader, and public discontent had been +created by domestic misrule and failure in France. That leader was the +Duke of York, son of that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for +his part in the Southampton conspiracy, which conspiracy has been +called by an eminent authority the first spark of the flame which in +the course of time consumed the two Houses of York and Lancaster. Left +an infant of three years, it was long before York became a +party-leader, and probably he never would have disputed the succession +but for the weakness of Henry VI, which amounted to imbecility, and the +urging of stronger-minded men than himself. As it was, the open +struggle began in 1455, and did not end until the defeat and capture of +the person called Perkin Warbeck, in 1497. The greatest battles of +English history took place in the course of these campaigns, and the +greater part of the royal family and most of the old nobility perished +in them, or by assassination, or on the scaffold. + +But the Yorkist party, though vanquished, was far from extinguished by +the military and political successes of Henry VII. It testifies +emphatically to the original strength of that party, and to the extent +and the depth of its influence, that it should be found a powerful +faction as late as the last quarter of Henry VIII.'s reign, fifty years +after the Battle of Stoke. "The elements of the old factions were +dormant," says Mr. Froude, "but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's +reign a White-Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open +success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but +formidable in a high degree, if opportunity to strike should offer +itself. Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been +killed at Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than +weakened it, for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his +personal character was without energy; while he made place for the +leadership of a far more powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered +Earl of Warwick, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. +This lady had inherited, in no common degree, the fierce nature of the +Plantagenets; born to command, she had rallied round her the +Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful kindred of Richard the +King-Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent was purer than the +King's; and on his death, without a male child, half England was likely +to declare either for one of her sons, or for the Marquis of Exeter, +the grandson of Edward IV." Of the general condition of the English +mind at about the date of the fall of Wolsey Mr. Froude gives us a very +accurate picture. "The country," he says, "had collected itself; the +feuds of the families had been chastened, if they had not been subdued; +while the increase of wealth and material prosperity had brought out +into obvious prominence those advantages of peace which a hot-spirited +people, antecedent to experience, had not anticipated, and had not been +able to appreciate. They were better fed, better cared for, more justly +governed, than they had ever been before; and though, abundance of +unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of the nation, looking +back from their new vantage-ground, were able to recognize the past in +its true hatefulness. Henceforward a war of succession was the +predominating terror with English statesmen, and the safe establishment +of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which it is possible +that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the determining +principle of their action. It was therefore with no little anxiety that +the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their +hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within +a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When +the Queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further +offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising +aspect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was +precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, +her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not +live, and the King had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. +At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an immediate and +simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal family; the +crown would descend with even more facility than the property of an +intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been +recognized, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next +heir in blood was James of Scotland; and gravely as statesmen desired +the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the +very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a +king of Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the +Parliament itself declared in formal language that they would resist +any attempt on the part of the Scotch king 'to the uttermost of their +power.'" + +There can be no doubt that Mr. Froude has made out his case, and that +"the predominating terror," not only of English statesmen, but of the +English people and their King, was a war of succession. If we were not +convinced by what the historian says, we should only have to look over +the reign of Elizabeth, and observe how anxious the statesmen of that +time were to have the succession question settled, and how singular was +the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on +the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and +the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by +Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not +simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth +century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed +throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of +a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of +material prosperity and moral excellence as had been the Wars of the +Roses,--a fear which the existence of the contest between Catholicism +and Protestantism was well calculated to exaggerate to a very alarming +extent. The coquetry and affectation of the Queen, which have been held +to detract largely from her claim to be considered a woman of sense and +capacity, become natural in her and intelligible to us when we consider +them in connection with the succession question. She could not +positively declare that she would under no circumstances become a +wife, but at the same time she was firm in her heart never to have a +husband. So she followed the politician's common plan: she compromised. +She allowed her hand to be sought by every empty-handed and +empty-headed and hollow-hearted prince or noble in Europe, determined +that each in his turn should go empty away; and so she played off +princes against her own people, until the course of years had left no +doubt that she had become, and must ever remain, indeed "a barren +stock." Her conduct, which is generally regarded as having been +ridiculous, and which may have been so in its details, and looked upon +only from its feminine side, throws considerable light upon the entire +field of English politics under the Tudor dynasty. + +If it could be established that the conduct of Henry VIII. toward his +people, his church, his nobles, and his wives was regulated solely with +reference to the succession question, and by his desire to preserve +the peace of his kingdom, we believe that few men would be disposed to +condemn most of those of his acts that have been long admitted to +blacken his memory, and which have placed him almost at the very head +of the long roll of heartless tyrants. That the end justifies the +means is a doctrine which everybody condemns by word of mouth, but the +practice founded upon which almost all men approve in their hearts, +whenever it applies to their own schemes, or to schemes the success of +which promises to benefit them, either individually or in the mass. As +the apologists of the French Jacobins have argued that their favorites +were cruel as the grave against Frenchmen only that they might +preserve France from destruction, so might the admirers of Henry plead +that he was vindictively cruel only that the English masses might live +in peace, and be protected in quietly tilling their fields, manuring +them after their own fashion, and not having them turned up and +fertilized after the fashion of Bosworth and Towton and Barnet. Surely +Henry Tudor, second of that name, is entitled to the same grace that is +extended to Maximilien Robespierre, supposing the facts to be in his +favor. + +But are the facts, when fairly stated, in his favor? They are not. His +advocates must find themselves terribly puzzled to reconcile his +practice with their theory. They prove beyond all dispute that the +succession question was the grand thought of England in Henry's time; +but they do not prove, because they cannot prove, that the King's +action was such as to show that he was ready, we will not say to make +important sacrifices to lessen the probabilities of the occurrence of a +succession war, but to do anything in that way that required him to +control any one of the gross passions or grosser appetites of which he +was throughout his loathsome life the slave and the victim. He seems to +have passed the last twenty years of his reign in doing deeds that give +flat contradiction to the theory set up by his good-natured admirers of +after-times, that he was the victim of circumstances, and that, though +one of the mildest and most merciful of men in fact, those villanous +circumstances did compel him to become a tyrant, a murderer, a +repudiator of sacramental and pecuniary and diplomatic obligations, a +savage on a throne, and a Nebuchadnezzar for pride and arrogance, only +that, unfortunately for his subjects in general, and for his wives in +particular, he was not turned out to grass. A beast in fact, he did not +become a beast in form. Scarcely one of his acts, after the divorce of +Catharine of Aragon, was of a character to favor the continuance of +peace in England, while many of them were admirably calculated to +bring about a war for the regal succession. Grant that he was justified +in putting away his Spanish wife,--a most excellent and eminently +disagreeable woman, a combination of qualities by no means +uncommon,--where was the necessity of his taking Anne Boleyn to wife? +Why could he not have given his hand to some foreign princess, and so +have atoned to his subjects for breaking up the Spanish alliance, in +the continuance of which the English people had no common political +interest, and an extraordinary commercial interest? Why could he not +have sent to Germany for some fair-haired princess, as he did years +later, and got Anne of Cleves for his pains, whose ugly face cost poor +Cromwell his head, which was giving the wisest head in England for +the worst one out of it? Henry, Mr. Froude would have us believe, +divorced Catharine of Aragon because he desired to have sons, as one +way to avoid the breaking out of a civil war; and yet it was a sure way +to bring Charles V. into an English dispute for the regal succession, +as the supporter of any pretender, to repudiate the aunt of that +powerful imperial and royal personage. The English nation, Mr. Froude +truly tells us, was at that time "sincerely attached to Spain. The +alliance with the House of Burgundy" (of which Charles V. was the head) +"was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was +enormous,--Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as +many as fifteen thousand Flemings were settled in London. Charles +himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the +late French war; and when, in his supposed character of leader of the +anti-Papal party in Europe, he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate +Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was +fomenting in the population." Was it not a strange way to proceed for +the preservation of peace in England to offend a foreign sovereign who +stood in so strong and influential a position to the English people? +Charles was not merely displeased because of the divorce of his +relative, his mother's sister, a daughter of the renowned Isabella, who +had wrought such great things for Christendom,--promoting the discovery +of America, and conquering Granada,--but he was incensed at the mere +thought of preferring to her place a private gentlewoman, who would +never have been heard of, if Henry had not seen fit to raise her from +common life, first to the throne, and then to the scaffold. That was an +insult to the whole Austro-Burgundian family, whose dominions rivalled +those of the Roman Caesars, and whose chief had just held a King of +France captive and a Pope of Rome besieged. The Emperor might, perhaps, +have been sooted, had his relative's place been bestowed upon some lady +of corresponding blueness of blood; but it offended his pride, when he +reflected on her being supplanted by Mrs. Boleyn. The aristocratical +_morgue_ was too strong in him to bear such an insult with +fortitude. Yet none other than Mrs. Boleyn would Henry have, +notwithstanding the certainty of enraging Charles, and with the equal +certainty of disgusting a majority of his own subjects. If it had been +simply a wife that he desired, and if he was thinking merely of the +succession, and so sought only for an opportunity to beget legitimate +children, why did he so pertinaciously insist upon having no one but +"Mistress Anne" for the partner of his throne and bed? + +When he married Jane Seymour on the 20th of May, 1536, having had +Anne's head cut off on the 19th, Mr. Froude sees in that infamous +proceeding--a proceeding without parallel in the annals of villany, +and which would have disgraced the worst members of Sawney Bean's +unpromising family--nothing but a simple business-transaction. The +Privy Council and the peers, troubled about the succession, asked +Henry to marry again without any delay, when Anne had been prepared for +condemnation. The King was graciously pleased to comply with this +request, which was probably made in compliance with suggestions from +himself,--the marriage with Jane Seymour having been resolved upon +long before it took place, and the desire to effect it being the cause +of the legal assassination of Anne Boleyn, which could be brought about +only through the "cooking" of a series of charges that could have +originated nowhere out of her husband's vile mind, and which led to the +deaths of six innocent persons. "The indecent haste" of the King's +marriage with the Seymour, Mr. Froude says, "is usually considered a +proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin. To +myself the haste is an evidence of something very different. Henry, who +waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, was not without some control over +his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, +he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his +conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which +he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a +proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which +his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which +was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the +absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among +contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth another judgment was +passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an Act of Parliament must +be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture." +[Footnote: Mr. Froude mentions that a request that the King would +marry, similar to that which he received after the fall of Anne +Boleyn, was urged by the Council on the death of Jane Seymour; but, as +he allowed more than two years to elapse between the date of Jane's +death and the date of his marriage with Anne of Cleves, which marriage +he refused to consummate, is not the inference unavoidable that he +wedded Jane Seymour so hurriedly merely to gratify his desire to +possess her person, and that in 1537-39 he was singularly indifferent +to the claims of a question upon his attention?] + +We submit that the approving action of men who were partakers of +Henry's guilt is no proof of his innocence. Their conduct throughout +the Boleyn business simply proves that they were slaves, and that the +slaves were as brutal as their master. If Henry was so indifferent in +the matter of matrimony as to look upon all women with the same +feelings, if he married officially as the King, and not lovingly as a +man, how came it to pass that he was thrown into such an agony of rage, +when, being nearly fifty years old, ugly Anne of Cleves was provided +for him? His disappointment and mortification were then so great that +they hastened that political change which led to Cromwell's fall and +execution. When Henry first saw the German lady, he was as much +affected as George, Prince of Wales, was when he first saw Caroline of +Brunswick, but he behaved better than George in the lady's presence. +Much as he desired children, he never consummated his marriage with +Anne of Cleves, though he must have known that the world would be but +ill-peopled, if none but beautiful women were to be married. Had he +fulfilled the contract made with her, he might have had many sons and +daughters, and the House of Tudor might have been reigning over England +at this day. Both his fifth and sixth wives, Catharine Howard and +Catharine Parr, were fine women; and if he had lived long enough to get +rid of the latter, he would, beyond all question, have given her place +to the most beautiful woman whom he could have prevailed upon to risk +his perilous embraces preliminarily to those of the hangman. + +If Henry had married solely for the purpose of begetting children, he +never would have divorced and slaughtered Anne Boleyn. During her brief +connection with him, she gave birth to two children, one a still-born +son, and the other the future Queen Elizabeth, who lived to her +seventieth year, and whose enormous vitality and intellectual energy +speak well for the physical excellence of her mother. The miscarriage +that Anne experienced in February, 1536, was probably the occasion of +her repudiation and murder in the following May, as Henry was always +inclined to attribute disappointments of this kind to his wives, who +ever dwelt in the valley of the shadow of death.[Footnote: Henry +thought of divorcing Catharine of Aragon some years before she had +become too old to bear children. She was born in the last month of +1485, and the "King's secret matter," as the divorce question was +called, was in agitation as early as the first half of 1527, and +probably at an earlier period. Catharine was the mother of five +children, but one of whom lived, namely, the Princess Mary, afterward +Mary I.] The most charitable view that can be taken of Henry's +abominable treatment of his second wife is, that he was led by his +superstitious feelings, which _he_ called religion, to sacrifice +her to the manes of his first wife, whom Anne had badly treated, and +who died on the 7th of January, 1536. Henry, after his fashion, was +much moved by Catharine's death, and by perusal of the letter which she +wrote him from her dying bed; and so he resolved to make the only +atonement of which his savage nature was capable, and one, too, which +the bigoted Spanish woman would have been satisfied with, could she +have foreseen it. As the alliance between the royal houses of England +and Spain was sealed with the blood of the innocent Warwick, who was +sent to the scaffold by Henry VII. to satisfy Catharine's father, +Ferdinand of Aragon, so were the wrongs of Catharine to be acknowledged +by shedding the innocent blood of Anne Boleyn. The connection, as it +were, began with the butchery of a boy, reduced to idiocy by +ill-treatment, on Tower Hill, and it ended with the butchery of a +woman, who had been reduced almost to imbecility by cruelty, on the +Tower Green. Heaven's judgement would seem to have been openly +pronounced against that blood-cemented alliance, formed by two of the +greatest of those royal ruffians who figured in the fifteenth century, +and destined to lead to nothing but misery to all who were brought +together in consequence of it's having been made. If one were seeking +for proofs of the direct and immediate interposition of a Higher Power +in the ordering of human affairs, it would be no difficult matter to +discover them in the history of the royal houses of England during +the existence of the Lancastrian, the York, and the Tudor families. +Crime leads to crime therein in regular sequence, the guiltless +suffering with the guilty, and because of their connection with the +guilty, until the palaces of the Henries and the Edwards become as +haunted with horrors as were the halls of the Atridae. The "pale +nurslings that had perished by kindred hands," seen by Cassandra when +she passed the threshold of Agamemnon's abode, might have been +paralleled by similar "phantom dreams," had another Cassandra +accompanied Henry VII. when he came from Bosworth Field to take +possession of the royal abodes at London. She, too, might have spoken, +taking the Tower for her place of denunciation, of "that human +shamble-house, that bloody floor, that dwelling abhorred by Heaven, +privy to so many horrors against the most sacred ties." And she might +have seen in advance the yet greater horrors that were to come, and +that hung "over the inexpiable threshold; the curse passing from +generation to generation." + +Mr. Froude thinks that Catharine Howard, the fifth of Henry's wives, +was not only guilty of antenuptial slips, but of unfaithfulness to the +royal bed. It is so necessary to establish the fact of her infidelity, +in order to save the King's reputation,--for he could not with any +justice have punished her for the irregularities of her unmarried +life, and not even in this age, when we have organized divorce, could +such slips be brought forward against a wife of whom a husband had +become weary,--that we should be careful how we attach credit to what +is called the evidence against Catharine Howard; and her +contemporaries, who had means of weighing and criticizing that +evidence, did not agree in believing her guilty. Mr. Froude, who would, +to use a saying of Henry's time, find Abel guilty of murder of Cain, +were that necessary to support his royal favorite's hideous cause, not +only declares that the unhappy girl was guilty throughout, but lugs God +into the tragedy, and makes Him responsible for what was, perhaps, the +cruellest and most devilish of all the many murders perpetrated by +Henry VIII. The luckless lady was but a child at the time she was +devoured by "the jaws of darkness." At most she was but in her +twentieth year, and probably she was a year or two younger than that +age. Any other king than Henry would have pardoned her, if for no other +reason, then for this, that he had coupled her youth with his age, and +so placed her in an unnatural position, in which the temptation to +error was all the greater, and the less likely to be resisted, because +of the girl's evil training,--a training that could not have been +unknown to the King, and on the incidents of which the Protestant plot +for her ruin, and that of the political party of which she was the +instrument, had been founded. But of Henry VIII., far more truly than +of James II., could it have been said by any one of his innumerable +victims, that, though it was in his power to forgive an offender, it +was not in his nature to do so. + +No tyrant ever was preceded to the tomb by such an array of victims as +Henry VIII. If Shakspeare had chosen to bring the highest of those +victims around the last bed that Henry was to press on earth, after the +fashion in which he sent the real or supposed victims of Richard III. +to haunt the last earthly sleep of the last royal Plantagenet, he would +have had to bring them up by sections, and not individually, in +battalions, and not as single spies. Buckingham, Wolsey, More, Fisher, +Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Rocheford, Cromwell, Catharine +Howard, Exeter, Montague, Lambert, Aske, Lady Salisbury, +Surrey,--these, and hundreds of others, selected principally from the +patrician order, or from the officers of the old church, might have led +the ghostly array which should have told the monarch to die and to +despair of redemption; while an innumerable host of victims of lower +rank might have followed these more conspicuous sufferers from the +King's "jealous rage." Undoubtedly some of these persons had justly +incurred death, but it is beyond belief that they were all guilty of +the crimes laid to their charge; yet Mr. Froude can find as little +good in any of them as of evil in Henry's treatment of them. He would +have us believe that Henry was scrupulously observant of the law! and +that he allowed Cromwell to perish because he had violated the laws of +England, and sought to carry out that "higher law" which politicians +out of power are so fond of appealing to, but which politicians in +power seldom heed. And such stuff we are expected to receive as +historical criticism, and the philosophy of history! And pray, of what +breach of the law had the Countess of Salisbury been guilty, that she +should be sent to execution when she had arrived at so advanced an age +that she must soon have passed away in the course of Nature? She was +one of Cromwell's victims, and as he had been deemed unfit to live +because of his violations of the laws of the realm, it would follow +that one whose attainder had been procured through his devices could +not be fairly put to death. She suffered ten months after Cromwell, and +could have committed no fresh offence in the interval, as she was a +prisoner in the Tower at the time of her persecutor's fall, and so +remained until the day of her murder. The causes of her death, +however, are not far to seek: she was the daughter of George +Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Henry hated +every member of that royal race which the Tudors had supplanted; and +she was the mother of Reginald Pole, whom the King detested both for +his Plantagenet blood and for the expositions which he made of the +despot's crimes. + +One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch +even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered +up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all +redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so +assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are +few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard, +Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the +high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English +literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of +expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant, +who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped--for he could no +longer write--the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to +endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies +are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets +the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet +was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much +as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case +he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as +summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King. +Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, +his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, +and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of +patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey +upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a +dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were +all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial +murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated +above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of +snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then +alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both +Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey +most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there +could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had +been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head +ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political +offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr. +Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against +Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to +be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common +decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude +has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the +man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of +Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a +foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest +intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a +useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of +England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond, +whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died, +leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin +Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the +King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby +in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame +d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most +notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if +Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part +assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old +aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the +King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's +story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had +complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, +and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should +all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would +consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also +confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who, +'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is +the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at +first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the +witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid +in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious +a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,--the English +people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic +decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes. +Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of +the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be +guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support +it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's +brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that +brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had +perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to +have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far +the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is +room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the +charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt +which is his due. + +The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting +one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the +space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another +time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that +Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else--dreadful +alternative!--we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not +the just man made perfect on earth. + + + * * * * * + + + +WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED. + + +Bedded in stone, a toad lived well, + Cold and content as toad could be; +As safe from harm as monk in cell, + Almost as safe from good was he + +And "What is life?" he said, and dozed; + Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he: +"Each creature God in stone hath closed, + That each may have tranquillity. + +"And God Himself lies coiled in stone, + Nor wakes nor moves to any call; +Each lives unto himself alone, + And cold and night envelop all." + +He said, and slept. With curious ear + Close to the stone, a serpent lay. +"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer, + "For well I know God wakes alway. + +"And what is life but wakefulness, + To glide through snares, alert and wise,-- +With plans too deep for neighbors' guess, + And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes? + +"For all the earth is thronged with foes, + And dark with fraud, and set with toils: +Each lies in wait, on each to close, + And God is bribed with share of spoils." + +High in the boughs a small bird sang, + And marvelled such a creed should be. +"How strange and false!" his comment rang; + "For well I know that life is glee. + +"For all the plain is flushed with bloom, + And all the wood with music rings, +And in the air is scarcely room + To wave our myriad flashing wings. + +"And God, amid His angels high, + Spreads over all in brooding joy; +On great wings borne, entranced they lie, + And all is bliss without alloy." + +"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?" + Thus mused a man, the trees among: +"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know + That life must not be spent in song. + +"For what is life, but toil of brain, + And toil of hand, and strife of will,-- +To dig and forge, with loss and pain, + The truth from lies, the good from ill,-- + +"And ever out of self to rise + Toward love and law and constancy? +But with sweet love comes sacrifice, + And with great law comes penalty. + +"And God, who asks a constant soul, + His creatures tries both sore and long: +Steep is the way, and far the goal, + And time is small to waste in song." + +He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned: + With equal love his glances fell +Upon the man with soul upturned, + Upon the toad within its cell. + +And, strange! upon that wondrous face + Shone pure all natures, well allied: +There subtlety was turned to grace, + And slow content was glorified; + +And labor, love, and constancy + Put off their dross and mortal guise, +And with the look that is to be + They looked from those immortal eyes. + +To the faint man the angel strong + Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain: +The one in tears, the one in song, + The cross was borne betwixt them twain. + +He sang the careless bliss that lies + In wood-bird's heart, without alloy; +He sang the joy of sacrifice; + And still he sang, "_All_ life is joy." + +But how, while yet he clasped the pain, + Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled, +I know not, with my human brain, + Nor how the two he reconciled. + + + * * * * * + + +PRESENCE. + + +It was a long and terrible conflict,--I will not say where, because +that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no +match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought +with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as +they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against +oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people +against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great +principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more +enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the +sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in +execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether +blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed +down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or +stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three +hundred. + +Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the +death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time, +though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the +quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the +brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery +ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified +interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend +Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of +brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom +beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now +compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy +eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable +fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other +mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in +a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of +mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and +spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding +minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a +brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the +fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now +imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed +positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with +marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible _coup-de-main_, and +all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no +choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless +inspiration. + +After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on +his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued +with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of +his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was +abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact. + +Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our +relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively, +even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and +position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high +mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that +the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were +all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular +indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more +interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable +reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained. +He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife +was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another +soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my +friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its +solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his +mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat +the story because it is literally _true_, and because some of its +incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form +the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all +departments of human knowledge. + +During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our +interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country +home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his +still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his +face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same +deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest +things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity +of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman +self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that +"are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines +which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the +veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,--the "soft, guileless +consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other +incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon +the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening +hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found +a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the +heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its +inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious +thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting +shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts +warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness, +or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,--that +veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but +souls,--that causes the letters in which loved names are written to +appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on _fire_, while day, in +their cloudy traces, they but _smoke_?" + +Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of +psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and +illusion hold contested sway,--where the relations between spirit and +matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can +only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words +created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would +a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle. + +"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long +rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the +ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea +implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet +would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more +unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the +thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be +found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no +mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of +palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to +crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental +phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or +creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern +lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before +the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the +battalions into a stream of electricity." + +"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know +it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means +incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it +may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the +actual power which one human being may exert over another without the +intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted +scientists concede even more than this." + +"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent +grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed +to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between +soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort +to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night +bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' +I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or +to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood." + +"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the +later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of +modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind +to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical +impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and +perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of +the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by +fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but +which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical +clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and +generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both +assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the +soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the +jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through +the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs +of hope and gladness." + +His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a +pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the +starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the +battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his +frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint +smile of recognition brightened his features. + +"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery +of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a +mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can +touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not +necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case +are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our +entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in +absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, +in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the +barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the +individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We +are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other +hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring +the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being, +infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and +imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then, +those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though +they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why +may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more +subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness +in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of +spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I +refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the +brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher +faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a +chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and +obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be +filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing." + +"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is +based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess +that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a +point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than +the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever +persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material +intervention." + +"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason +about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. +But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid +abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, +there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim +of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the +Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is +commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no +testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I +have received. + +"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second +time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are +a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?" + +"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the +pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from +the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others +from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that +theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves +the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative +interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will +have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain +how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears +to you unphilosophical, if not absurd." + +"I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel +the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation." + +Vilalba smiled slightly. + +"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, +myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am +about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy. + +"It happened to me many years ago,--how flatteringly that little +phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!--when I had just +entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to +New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of +friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French +families of that _quasi_ Parisian city, and in the reception of +their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a +stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I +had health, friends, education, position,--youth, as well, which then +seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of +years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it +not, I am telling you, to-night, this story. + +"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an +aristocratic subject of the old French _régime_. I did not know +the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the +invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the +messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may +be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After +greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my +attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly +veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely, +living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal +light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious, +the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of +graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the +coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful +according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the +same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and +blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of +what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,--that they were +enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life +multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was +mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the +significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering +the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller +revelation. + +"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced, +and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my +host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened +romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium +to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world +began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision; +their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or +harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those +whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's +optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the +first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the +gift rarely accorded to us here,--the fulfilment of a promise hidden +in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing +self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had +been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay +triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when +in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice +inspired, that new birth of + + 'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,' + +had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher +and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be +forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest +and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom +we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures +which precedes reason and asks no leave of the understanding, is not a +gradual and cautious attraction, like the growth of a coral reef, but +sudden and magnetic as the coalescence of two drops of mercury. + +"During several following weeks we met many times, and yet, in looking +back to that dream of heaven, I cannot tell how often, nor for how +long. Time is merely the measure given to past emotions, and those +emotions flowed over me in a tidal sweep which merged all details in +one continuous memory. The lone hemisphere of my life was rounded into +completeness, and its feverish unrest changed to deep tranquillity, as +if a faint, tremulous star were transmuted into a calm, full-orbed +planet. Do you remember that story of Plato's--I recall the air-woven +subtilties of the delightful idealist, to illustrate, not to +prove--that story of the banquet where the ripe wines of the Aegean +Isles unchained the tongues of such talkers as Pausanias and Socrates +and others as witty and wise, until they fell into a discourse on the +origin of Love, and, whirling away on the sparkling eddies of fancy, +were borne to that preëxistent sphere which, in Plato's opinion, +furnished the key to all the enigmas of this? There they beheld the +complete and original souls, the compound of male and female, dual and +yet one, so happy and so haughty in their perfection of beauty and of +power that Jupiter could not tolerate his godlike rivals, and therefore +cut them asunder, sending the dissevered halves tumbling down to earth, +bewildered and melancholy enough, until some good fortune might restore +to each the _alter ego_ which constituted the divine unity. 'And +thus,' says Plato, 'whenever it happens that a man meets with his other +half, the very counterpart of himself, they are both smitten with +strong love; they recognize their ancient union; they are powerfully +attracted by the consciousness that they belong to each other; and they +are unwilling to be again parted, even for a short time. And if Vulcan +were to stand over them with his fire and forge, and offer to melt them +down and run them together, and of two to make them one again, they +would both say that this was just what they desired!' + +"I dare say you have read--unless your partiality for the soft Southern +tongues has chased away your Teutonic taste--that exquisite poem of +Schiller's, 'Das Geheimnitz der Reminiscenz,' the happiest possible +crystallization of the same theory. I recall a few lines from Bulwer's +fine translation:-- + +"'Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart? +Is it because its native home thou art? +Or were they brothers in the days of yore, +Twin-bound both souls, and in the links they bore +Sigh to be bound once more? + +"'Were once our beings blent and intertwining, +And therefore still my heart for thine is pining? +Knew we the light of some extinguished sun,-- +The joys remote of some bright realm undone, +Where once our souls were ONE? + +"'Yes, it is so! And thou wert bound to me +In the long-vanished eld eternally! +In the dark troubled tablets which enroll +The past my Muse beheld this blessed scroll,-- +'One with thy love, my soul'!" + +"Now the Athenian dreamer builded better than he knew. That phantom +which perpetually attends and perpetually evades us,--the inevitable +guest whose silence maddens and whose sweetness consoles,--whose filmy +radiance eclipses all beauty,--whose voiceless eloquence subdues all +sound,--ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and +unchanging,--this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, +because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response in a +living form, its rapturous welcome ignores the old imperfect being, and +the union only is recognized as Self indeed, complete and undivided. +And that fulness of human love becomes a faint type and interpreter of +the Infinite, as through it we glide into grander harmonies and +enlarged relations with the Universe, urged on forever by insatiable +desires and far-reaching aspirations which testify our celestial +origin and intimate our immortal destiny. + +"'Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade, +From the rude Mongol to the starry Greek, +everywhere we seek +Union and bond, till in one sea sublime +Of love be merged all measure and all time!" + +"I never disclosed in words my love to Blanche. Through the lucid +transparency of Presence, I believed that she knew all and +comprehended all, without the aid of those blundering symbols. We never +even spoke of the future; for all time, past and to come, seemed to +converge and centre and repose in that radiant present. In the +enchantment of my new life, I feared lest a breath should disturb the +spell, and send me back to darkness and solitude. + +"Of course, this could not last forever. There came a time when I found +that my affairs would compel me to leave New Orleans for a year, or +perhaps a little longer. With the discovery my dream was broken. The +golden web which had been woven around me shrank beneath the iron hand +of necessity, and fell in fragments at my feet. I knew that it was +useless to speak to Blanch of marriage, for her father, a stern and +exacting man in his domestic relations, had often declared that he +would never give his daughter to a husband who had no fortune. If I +sought his permission to address her now, my fate was fixed. There was +no alternative, therefore, but to wait until my return, when I hoped to +have secured, in sufficient measure, the material passport to his +favor. Our parting was necessarily sudden, and, strange as it may seem, +some fatal repression sealed my lips, and withheld me from uttering the +few words which would have made the future wholly ours, and sculptured +my dream of love in monumental permanance. Ah! with what narrow and +trembling planks do we bridge the abyss of misery and despair! But be +patient while I linger for a moment here. The evening before my +departure, I went to take leave of her. There were other guests in the +drawing-room, the atmosphere was heated and oppressive, and after a +little time I proposed to her to retreat with me, for a few moments, to +the fragrant coolness of the garden. We walked slowly along through +clustering flowers and under arching orange-trees, which infolded us +tenderly within their shining arms, as in tremulous silence we waited +for words that should say enough and yet not too much. The glories of +all summer evenings seemed concentred in this one. The moon now +silvered leaf and blossom, and then suddenly fled behind a shadowing +cloud, while the stars shone out with gladness brief and bright as the +promises of my heart. Skilful artists in the music-room thrilled the +air with some of those exquisite compositions of Mendelssohn which +dissolve the soul in sweetness or ravish it with delight, until it +seems as if all past emotions of joy were melted in one rapid and +comprehensive reëxperience, and all future inheritance gleamed in +promise before our enraptured vision, and we are hurried on with +electric speed to hitherto unsealed heights of feeling, whence we catch +faint glimpses of the unutterable mysteries of our being, and +foreshadowings of a far-off, glorified existence. The eloquence of +earth and sky and air breathed more than language could have uttered, +and, as my eyes met the eyes of Blanche, the question of my heart was +asked and answered, once for all. I recognized the treasured ideal of +my restless, vagrant heart, and I seemed to hear it murmuring gently, +as if to a long-lost mate, _'Where hast thou stayed so long?'_ I +felt that henceforth there was for us no real parting. Our material +forms might be severed, but our spirits were one and inseparate. + +"'On the fountains of our life a seal was set +To keep their waters clear and bright +Forever.' + +"And thus, with scarce a word beside, I said the 'God be with you!' and +went out into the world alone, yet henceforth not alone. + +"Two years passed away. They had been years of success in my worldly +affairs, and were blessed by memories and hopes which grew brighter +with each day. I had not heard of Blanche, save indirectly through a +friend in New Orleans, but I never doubted that the past was as sacred, +the future as secure, in her eyes as in my own. I was now ready to +return, and to repeat in words the vows which my heart had sworn long +before. I fixed the time, and wrote to my friend to herald my coming. +Before that letter reached him, there came tidings which, like a storm +of desolation, swept me to the dust. Blanche was in France, and +married,--how or when or to whom, I knew not, cared not. The +relentless fact was sufficient. The very foundations of the earth +seemed to tremble and slide from beneath me. The sounds of day +tortured, the silence of night maddened me. I sought forgetfulness in +travel, in wild adventure, in reckless dissipation. With that strange +fatality which often leads us to seek happiness or repose where we have +least chance of finding it, I, too, married. But I committed no +perjury. I offered friendship, and it sufficed. Love I never professed +to give, and the wife whom I merely esteemed had not the mental or the +magnetic ascendancy which might have triumphed for a time over the +image shrined in my inmost heart. I sought every avenue through which +I might fly from that and from myself. I tried mental occupation, and +explored literature and science, with feverish ardor and some reward. I +think it is Coleridge who recommends to those who are suffering from +extreme sorrow the study of a new language. But to a mind of deep +feeling diversion is not relief. If we fly from memory, we are pursued +and overtaken like fugitive slaves, and punished with redoubled +tortures. The only sure remedy for grief is self-evolved. We must +accept sorrow as a guest, not shun it as a foe, and, receiving it into +close companionship, let the mournful face haunt our daily paths, even +though it shut out all friends and dim the light of earth and heaven. +And when we have learned the lesson which it came to teach, the fearful +phantom brightens into beauty, and reveals an 'angel unawares,' who +gently leads us to heights of purer atmosphere and more extended +vision, and strengthens us for the battle which demands unfaltering +heart and hope. + +"Do you remember the remark of the child Goethe, when his young reason +was perplexed by attempting to reconcile the terrible earthquake at +Lisbon with the idea of infinite goodness? 'God knows very well that an +immortal soul cannot suffer from mortal accident.' With similar faith +there came to me tranquil restoration. The deluge of passion rolled +back, and from the wreck of my Eden arose a new and more spiritual +creation. But forgetfulness was never possible. In the maddening +turbulence of my grief and the ghastly stillness of its reaction, the +lovely spirit which had become a part of my life seemed to have fled to +the inner temple of my soul, breaking the solitude with glimmering +ray and faint melodious murmur. And when I could bear to look and +listen, it grew brighter and more palpable, until at last it attended +me omnipresently, consoling, cheering, and stimulating to nobler +thought and action. + +"Nor was it a ghost summoned by memory, or the airy creation of fancy. +One evening an incident occurred which will test your credulity, or +make you doubt my sanity. I sat alone, and reading,--nothing more +exciting, however, than a daily newspaper. My health was perfect, my +mind unperturbed. Suddenly my eye was arrested by a cloud passing +slowly back and forth several times before me, not projected upon the +wall, but floating in the atmosphere. I looked around for the cause, +but the doors and windows were closed, and nothing stirred in the +apartment. Then I saw a point of light, small as a star at first, but +gradually enlarging into a luminous cloud which filled the centre of +the room. I shivered with strange coldness, and every nerve tingled as +if touched by a galvanic battery. From the tremulous waves of the cloud +arose, like figures in a dissolving view, the form and features of my +lost love,--not radiant as when I last looked upon them, but pale and +anguish-stricken, with clasped hands and tearful eyes; and upon my ears +fell, like arrows of fire, the words, _You have been the cause of all +this; oh, why did you not'_--The question was unfinished, and from +my riveted gaze, half terror, half delight, the vision faded, and I was +alone. + +"Of course you will pronounce this mere nervous excitement, but, I pray +you, await the sequel. Those burning words told the story of that +mistake which had draped in despair our earthly lives. They were no +reflection from my own mind. In the self-concentration of my +disappointment, I had never dreamed that I alone was in fault,--that I +should have anchored my hope on somewhat more defined than the +voiceless intelligence of sympathy. But the very reproach of the +mysterious visitor brought with it a conviction, positive and +indubitable, that the spiritual portion of our being possesses the +power to act upon the material perception of another, without aid from +material elements. From time to time I have known, beyond the +possibility of deception, that the kindred spirit was still my +companion, my own inalienable possession, in spite of all factitious +ties, of all physical intervention. + +"Have you heard that among certain tribes of the North-American Indians +are men who possess an art which enables them to endure torture and +actual death without apparent suffering or even consciousness? I once +chanced to fall in with one of these tribes, then living in Louisiana, +now removed to the far West, and was permitted to witness some +fantastic rites, half warlike, half religious, in which, however, +there was nothing noticeable except this trance-like condition, which +some of the warriors seemed to command at pleasure, manifested by a +tense rigidity of the features and muscles, and a mental exaltation +which proved to be both clairvoyant and clairoyant: a state analogous +to that of hypnotism, or the artificial sleep produced by gazing +fixedly on a near, bright object, and differing only in degree from +the nervous or imaginative control which has been known to arrest and +cure disease, which chained St. Simeon Stylites to his pillar, and +sustains the Hindoo fakirs in their apparently superhuman vigils. These +children of Nature had probed with direct simplicity some of the deep +secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous +devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a +concentrative energy of the will, which riveted the faculties upon a +single purpose or idea, and held every nerve and sense in absolute +abeyance. We are so little accustomed to test the potency of the will +out of the ordinary plane of its operation, that we have little +conception how mighty a lever it may be made, or to what new exercise +it may be directed; and yet we are all conscious of periods in our +lives when, like a vast rock in ocean, it has suddenly loomed up firm +and defiant amid our petty purposes and fretful indecisions, waxing +grander and stronger under opposition, a something apart from, yet a +conscious portion of ourselves,--a master, though a slave,--another +revelation of the divinity within. + +"I will confess that curiosity led me long ago to slight experiments in +the direction in which you say the diabolic lies, but my mind was +never concentrated on any one idea of sufficient interest to command +success, until, in some periods of mingled peril and excitement, the +memory of Blanche, and the conscious, even startling nearness of that +sweet presence, have lent to my will unwonted energy and inspiration. + +"Twenty years passed slowly away. It is common to speak of the +_flight_ of time. For me, time has no wings. The days and years +are faltering and tardy-footed, laden with the experiences of the +outer and the problems of the inner world, which seem perpetually +multiplied by reflection, like figures in a room mirrored on all +sides. Meanwhile, my wife had died. I have never since sought women +beyond the formal pale of the drawing-room: not from insensibility to +loveliness, but because the memory, 'dearer far than bliss,' of one +irretrievable affection shut out all inferior approach,--like a +solitary planet, admitting no dance of satellites within its orbit. + +"At last the long silence was broken. I heard that Blanche was free, +and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The +ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved +a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a +glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was in +Louisiana, and in the very dwelling and at the same hour which had +witnessed our parting. Again was it a soft summer evening. The same +faint golden rays painted the sun's farewell, and the same silver moon +looked eloquent response, as on the evening breeze floated sweet +remembered odors of jessamine and orange. Again the ideal beauty of the +lovely portrait met my gaze and seemed to melt into my heart; and +once more, softly, lightly, fell a footstep, and the Presence by which +I had never been forsaken, which I could never forsake, stood before me +in 'palpable array of sense.' It was indeed the living Blanche, calm +and stately as of old,--no longer radiant with the flush of youth, but +serene in tenderest grace and sweet reserve, and beautiful through the +lustre of the inner light of soul. She uttered a faint cry of joy, and +placing her trembling hand in mine, we stood transfixed and silent, +with riveted gaze, reading in each other's eyes feelings too sacred for +speech, too deep for smiles or tears. In that long, burning look, it +seemed as if the emotions of each were imparted to the other, not in +slow succession as through words and sentences, but daguerreotyped or +electrotyped in perfected form upon the conscious understanding. No +language could have made so clear and comprehensible the revelation of +that all-centring, unconquerable love which thrilled our inmost being, +and pervaded the atmosphere around us with subtile and tremulous +vibrations. In that moment all time was fused and forgotten. There was +for us no Past, no Future; there was only the long-waited, +all-embracing Now. I could willingly have died then and there, for I +knew that all life could bring but one such moment. My heart spoke +truly. A change passed over the countenance of Blanche,--an expression +of unutterable grief, like Eve's retrospective look at Eden. Quivering +with strange tremor, again she stood before me, with clasped hands and +tearful eyes, in the very attitude of that memorable apparition, and +again fell upon my ears the mysterious plaint and the uncompleted +question,--_'You have been the cause of all this; oh, why did you +not'_-- + +"Now, my friend, can your philosophy explain this startling +verification, this reflex action of the vision, or the fantasy, or +whatever else you may please to term it, whose prophetic shadow fell +upon my astonished senses long years before? In all the intervening +time, we were separated by great distance, no word or sign passed +between us, nor did we even hear of each other except indefinitely and +through chance. Is there, then, any explanation of that vision more +rational than that the spirit thus closely affined with my own was +enabled, through its innate potencies, or through some agency of which +we are ignorant, to impress upon my bodily perceptions its +uncontrollable emotions? That this manifestation was made through what +physiologists call the unconscious or involuntary action of the mind +was proved by the incredulity and surprise of Blanche when I told her +of the wonderful coincidence. + +"I need not relate, even if I could do so, the outpouring of long-pent +emotions which relieved the yearning love and haunting memories of sad, +silent, lingering years. It is enough to tell you briefly of the +story which was repeated in fragments through many hours of unfamiliar +bliss. Soon after my departure from New Orleans, the father of Blanche, +with the stern authority which many parents exercise over the +matrimonial affairs of their daughters, insisted upon her forming an +alliance to which the opposition of her own heart was the only +objection. So trifling an impediment was decisively put aside by him, +and Blanche, having delayed the marriage as long as possible, until the +time fixed for my return was past, and unable to plead any open +acknowledgment on my part which could justify her refusal, had no +alternative but to obey. 'I confess,' said she, in faltering tones, +'that, after my fate was fixed, and I was parted from you, as I +believed for life, I tried to believe that the love which had given so +slight witness in words to its truth and fervor must have faded +entirely away, and that I was forgotten, and perhaps supplanted. And +therefore, in the varied pursuits and pleasures of my new sphere, and +in the indulgence and kindness which ministered to the outer, but, +alas! never to the inner life, I sought happiness, and I, too, like +yourself, strove to forget. Ah! that art of forgetting, which the +Athenian coveted as the best of boons,--when was it ever found through +effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the +allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still +turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its +master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for +expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the +material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, +sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I +was lost to sights and sounds around me, with a sense of having been +in your actual presence. I was aware of an effect rather than of an +immediate consciousness,--as if the magnetism of your touch had swept +over me, cooling the fever of my brain, and charming to deep +tranquillity my troubled heart. And thus I learned, through similar +experience, the same belief as yours. I have felt the continuous +nearness, the inseparable union of our spirits, as plainly as I feel +it now, with my hand clasped in yours, and reading in your eyes the +unutterable things which we can never hope to speak, because they are +foreshadowings of another existence. + +"What I possess I see afar off lying, +And what I lost is real and undying." + +The material presence is indeed very dear, but I believe that it is not +essential to the perpetuity of that love which is nurtured through +mutual and perfect understanding.' + +"'It is not essential,' I replied, 'but it is, as you say, very, very +dear, because it is an exponent and participant of the hidden life +which it was designed to aid and to enframe. Blanche, it was you who +first wakened my soul to the glorious revelation, the heavenly +heritage of love. It was you who opened to me the world which lies +beyond the mere external, who gently allured me from the coarse and +clouding elements of sense, and infolded me in the holy purity of that +marriage of kindred natures which alone is hallowed by the laws of +God, and which no accidents of time or place can rend asunder. Apart +from the bitterness of this long separation, the lesson might not have +been learned; but now that it is ineffaceably engraven on both our +hearts, and confirmed in the assurance of this blessed reunion, may I +not hope that for the remainder of our earthly lives we may study +together in visible companionship such further lessons as may be held +in reserve for us?' + +"Her face glowed with a soft crimson flush, and again her eyes were +suffused with tears, through which beamed a look of sweet, heavenly +sorrow,--such as might have shone in the orbs of the angel who enforced +upon Adam the sentence of expulsion from Paradise, and who, while +sharing the exile's grief, beheld in the remote horizon, far beyond the +tangled wilderness of Earth, another gate, wide opening to welcome him +to the Immortal Land. She was silent for a little time, and then she +murmured, lingering gently on the words, 'No, it must not be. We are, +indeed, inalienably one, in a nearer and dearer sense than can be +expressed by any transient symbol. Let us not seek to quit the +spiritual sphere in which we have long dwelt and communed together, for +one liable to discord and misinterpretation. I have an irresistible +impression that my life here will be very brief. While I remain, come +to me when you will, let me be the Egeria of your hours of leisure, and +a consoler in your cares,--but let us await, for another and a higher +life, the more perfect consummation of our love. For, oh, believe, as I +believe, faith is no mockery, nor is the heart's prophecy a lie. We +were not born to be the dupes of dreams or the sport of chance. The +voice which whispered to me long ago the promise fulfilled in this hour +tells me that in a bright Hereafter we shall find compensation for +every sorrow, reality for every ideal, and that there at last shall be +resolved in luminous perception the veiled and troubled mystery of +PRESENCE!'" + + + * * * * * + +CHIEFLY ABOUT WAR-MATTERS. + +BY A PEACEABLE MAN. + + +There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically sealed +seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the +disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the +general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, +and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain +fantasies, to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring +to give a sufficiently life-like aspect to admit of their figuring in a +romance. As I make no pretensions to state-craft or soldiership, and +could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed, +at first, a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial +business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was +to be substituted for it. But I magnanimously considered that there is +a kind of treason in insulating one's self from the universal fear and +sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil +war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better +deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way +thither on the score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I +remembered the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that +rural squire the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's +ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and +constitution of England were to be set at stake. So I gave myself up to +reading newspapers and listening to the click of the telegraph, like +other people; until, after a great many months of such pastime, it grew +so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely +at matters with my own eyes. + +Accordingly we set out--a friend and myself--towards Washington, while +it was still the long, dreary January of our Northern year, though +March in name; nor were we unwilling to clip a little margin off the +five months' winter, during which there is nothing genial in New +England save the fireside. It was a clear, frosty morning, when we +started. The sun shone brightly on snow-covered hills in the +neighborhood of Boston, and burnished the surface of frozen ponds; and +the wintry weather kept along with us while we trundled through +Worcester and Springfield, and all those old, familiar towns, and +through the village-cities of Connecticut. In New York the streets were +afloat with liquid mud and slosh. Over New Jersey there was still a +thin covering of snow, with the face of Nature visible through the +rents in her white shroud, though with little or no symptom of reviving +life. But when we reached Philadelphia, the air was mild and balmy; +there was but a patch or two of dingy winter here and there, and the +bare, brown fields about the city were ready to be green. We had met +the Spring half-way, in her slow progress from the South; and if we +kept onward at the same pace, and could get through the Rebel lines, we +should soon come to fresh grass, fruit-blossoms, green peas, +strawberries, and all such delights of early summer. + +On our way, we heard many rumors of the war, but saw few signs of it. +The people were staid and decorous, according to their ordinary +fashion; and business seemed about as brisk as usual,--though, I +suppose, it was considerably diverted from its customary channels into +warlike ones. In the cities, especially in New York, there was a rather +prominent display of military goods at the shopwindows,--such as +swords with gilded scabbards and trappings, epaulets, carabines, +revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon at the edge of the +pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there, +while hurrying to the field. As railway-companions, we had now and then +a volunteer in his French-gray great-coat, returning from furlough, or +a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment, in his new-made +uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had +about him,--but proud of his eagle-buttons, and likely enough to do +them honor before the gilt should be wholly dimmed. The country, in +short, so far as bustle and movement went, was more quiet than in +ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements +had been drawn towards the seat of conflict. But the air was full of a +vague disturbance. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a +solitude as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and +indefinable presentiments, since I had not lived, like other men, in +an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily +expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither +side of the river, all of us were looking towards the mysterious and +terrible Manassas, with the idea that somewhere in its neighborhood +lay a ghastly battlefield, yet to be fought, but foredoomed of old to +be bloodier than the one where we had reaped such shame. Of all haunted +places, methinks such a destined field should be thickest thronged with +ugly phantoms, ominous of mischief through ages beforehand. + +Beyond Philadelphia there was a much greater abundance of military +people. Between Baltimore and Washington a guard seemed to hold every +station along the railroad; and frequently, on the hill-sides, we saw a +collection of weather-beaten tents, the peaks of which, blackened with +smoke, indicated that they had been made comfortable by stove-heat +throughout the winter. At several commanding positions we saw +fortifications, with the muzzles of cannon protruding from the +ramparts, the slopes of which were made of the yellow earth of that +region, and still unsodded; whereas, till these troublous times, there +have been no forts but what were grass-grown with the lapse of at least +a lifetime of peace. Our stopping-places were thronged with soldiers, +some of whom came through the cars, asking for newspapers that +contained accounts of the battle between the Merrimack and Monitor, +which had been fought the day before. A railway-train met us, conveying +a regiment out of Washington to some unknown point; and reaching the +capital, we filed out of the station between lines of soldiers, with +shouldered muskets, putting us in mind of similar spectacles at the +gates of European cities. It was not without sorrow that we saw the +free circulation of the nation's life-blood (at the very heart, +moreover) clogged with such strictures as these, which have caused +chronic diseases in almost all countries save our own. Will the time +ever come again, in America, when we may live half a score of years +without once seeing the likeness of a soldier, except it be in the +festal march of a company on its summer tour? Not in this generation, +I fear, nor in the next, nor till the Millennium; and even that blessed +epoch, as the prophecies seem to intimate, will advance to the sound +of the trumpet. + +One terrible idea occurs, in reference to this matter. Even supposing +the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the +population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will +there be of military titles and pretensions for at least half a century +to come! Every country-neighborhood will have its general or two, its +three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without +end,--besides non-commissioned officers and privates, more than the +recruiting-offices ever knew of,--all with their campaign-stories, +which will become the staple of fireside-talk forevermore. Military +merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military +notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction. One +bullet-headed general will succeed another in the Presidential chair; +and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in +Congress and the State legislatures, and fill all the avenues of public +life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, +it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many +shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public +regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects +in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late. + +We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of +our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march +towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia +mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, +before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite +away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a +gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered +to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously +swollen bladder. There are instances of a similar character in old +romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of +necromancers, who build airy towers and battlements, and muster +warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming +impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes +forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him +melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the +march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole business, though +connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of +the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material,--the +majestic patience and docility with which the people waited through +those weary and dreary months,--the martial skill, courage, and +caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,--and, at last, +the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against +nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, +but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, +when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel +artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect. + +The troops being gone, we had the better leisure and opportunity to +look into other matters. It is natural enough to suppose that the +centre and heart of Washington is the Capitol; and certainly, in its +outward aspect, the world has not many statelier or more beautiful +edifices, nor any, I should suppose, more skilfully adapted to +legislative purposes, and to all accompanying needs. But, etc., etc. +[Footnote: We omit several paragraphs here, in which the author speaks +of some prominent Members of Congress with a freedom that seems to have +been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he +admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly +recognize his qualification to estimate these gentlemen, in their +legislative and oratorical capacities.] + + * * * * * + +We found one man, however, at the Capitol, who was satisfactorily +adequate to the business which brought him thither. In quest of him, we +went through halls, galleries, and corridors, and ascended a noble +staircase, balustraded with a dark and beautifully variegated marble +from Tennessee, the richness of which is quite a sufficient cause for +objecting to the secession of that State. At last we came to a barrier +of pine boards, built right across the stairs. Knocking at a rough, +temporary door, we thrust a card beneath; and in a minute or two it was +opened by a person in his shirt-sleeves, a middle-aged figure, neither +tall nor short, of Teutonic build and aspect, with an ample beard of a +ruddy tinge and chestnut hair. He looked at us, in the first place, +with keen and somewhat guarded eyes, as if it were not his practice to +vouchsafe any great warmth of greeting, except upon sure ground of +observation. Soon, however, his look grew kindly and genial, (not that +it had ever been in the least degree repulsive, but only reserved,) and +Leutze allowed us to gaze at the cartoon of his great fresco, and +talked about it unaffectedly, as only a man of true genius can speak +of his own works. Meanwhile the noble design spoke for itself upon the +wall. A sketch in color, which we saw afterwards, helped us to form +some distant and flickering notion of what the picture will be, a few +months hence, when these bare outlines, already so rich in thought and +suggestiveness, shall glow with a fire of their own,--a fire which, I +truly believe, will consume every other pictorial decoration of the +Capitol, or, at least, will compel us to banish those stiff and +respectable productions to some less conspicuous gallery. The work +will be emphatically original and American, embracing characteristics +that neither art nor literature have yet dealt with, and producing new +forms of artistic beauty from the natural features of the +Rocky-Mountain region, which Leutze seems to have studied broadly and +minutely. The garb of the hunters and wanderers of those deserts, too, +under his free and natural management, is shown as the most +picturesque of costumes. But it would be doing this admirable painter +no kind office to overlay his picture with any more of my colorless +and uncertain words; so I shall merely add that it looked full of +energy, hope, progress, irrepressible movement onward, all represented +in a momentary pause of triumph; and it was most cheering to feel its +good augury at this dismal time, when our country might seem to have +arrived at such a deadly stand-still. + +It was an absolute comfort, indeed, to find Leutze so quietly busy at +this great national work, which is destined to glow for centuries on +the walls of the Capitol, if that edifice shall stand, or must share +its fate, if treason shall succeed in subverting it with the Union +which it represents. It was delightful to see him so calmly +elaborating his design, while other men doubted and feared, or hoped +treacherously, and whispered to one another that the nation would +exist only a little longer, or that, if a remnant still held together, +its centre and seat of government would be far northward and westward +of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, +drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and +idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have +an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest +truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what +with Leutze's undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly +encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries to weigh against a +sinister omen that was pointed out to me in another part of the +Capitol. The freestone walls of the central edifice are pervaded with +great cracks, and threaten to come thundering down, under the immense +weight of the iron dome,--an appropriate catastrophe enough, if it +should occur on the day when we drop the Southern stars out of our +flag. + +Everybody seems to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth +of imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are +half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, +wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn +round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,--a +pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided +originality of gait and aspect, and a cigar in his mouth,--etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are again compelled to interfere with our friend's +license of personal description and criticism. Even Cabinet Ministers +(to whom the next few pages of the article were devoted) have their +private immunities, which ought to be conscientiously observed,--unless, +indeed, the writer chanced to have some very piquant motives for +violating them.] + + * * * * * + +Of course, there was one other personage, in the class of statesmen, +whom I should have been truly mortified to leave Washington without +seeing; since (temporarily, at least, and by force of circumstances) +he was the man of men. But a private grief had built up a barrier about +him, impeding the customary free intercourse of Americans with their +chief magistrate; so that I might have come away without a glimpse of +his very remarkable physiognomy, save for a semi-official opportunity +of which I was glad to take advantage. The fact is, we were invited to +annex ourselves, as supernumeraries, to a deputation that was about to +wait upon the President, from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with a +present of a splendid whip. + +Our immediate party consisted only of four or five, (including Major +Ben Perley Poore, with his note-book and pencil.) but we were joined +by several other persons, who seemed to have been lounging about the +precincts of the White House, under the spacious porch, or within the +hall, and who swarmed in with us to take the chances of a presentation. +Nine o'clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the +deputation, and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the +President, who sent us word that he was eating his breakfast, and would +come as soon as he could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must +have been a pretty fair one; for we waited about half an hour in one of +the antechambers, and then were ushered into a reception-room, in one +corner of which sat the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, +expecting, like ourselves, the termination of the Presidential +breakfast. During this interval there were several new additions to +our group, one or two of whom were in a working-garb, so that we formed +a very miscellaneous collection of people, mostly unknown to each +other, and without any common sponsor, but all with an equal right to +look our head-servant in the face. By-and-by there was a little stir on +the staircase and in the passageway, etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the +author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal +appearance and deportment of the President. The sketch appears to have +been written in a benign spirit, and perhaps conveys a not inaccurate +impression of its august subject; but it lacks _reverence_, and it +pains us to see a gentleman of ripe age, and who has spent years under +the corrective influence of foreign institutions, falling into the +characteristic and most ominous fault of Young America.] + + * * * * * + +Good Heavens! what liberties have I been taking with one of the +potentates of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important +consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of +the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a +liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above +allusions to President Lincoln's little peculiarities (already well +known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem +it proper to say a word or two, in regard to him, of unfeigned respect +and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties, +and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to +his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never +deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a +considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he +adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, +at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume +there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to +himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his +own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the +good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development +of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such +designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a +year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, +capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies +and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to +Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself +into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime-minister. + +Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the +neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a +little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves and docks, +resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the +respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it +no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness; but it was +now thronged with the Northern soldiery, whose stir and bustle +contrasted strikingly with the many closed warehouses, the absence of +citizens from their customary haunts, and the lack of any symptom of +healthy activity, while army-wagons trundled heavily over the +pavements, and sentinels paced the sidewalks, and mounted dragoons +dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very +disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town +of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at +the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the +sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with +rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human +life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from +their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly, +thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive persons have +joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal for the cause, but because, +between two conflicting loyalties, they chose that which necessarily +lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other Government against +which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by such plausible +arguments as against that of the United States. The anomaly of two +allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's +feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General +Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no +symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; +for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to +themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad +cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast +extent of our country,--too vast by far to be taken into one small +human heart,--we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, +to our own section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which +renders an Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the +dignity and well-being of his little island, that one hostile foot, +treading anywhere upon it, would make a bruise on each individual +breast. If a man loves his own State, therefore, and is content to be +ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an +honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not +thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, +but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency +impolitic in the present stage of our national difficulties.] + +In Alexandria, we visited the tavern in which Colonel Ellsworth was +killed, and saw the spot where he fell, and the stairs below, whence +Jackson fired the fatal shot, and where he himself was slain a moment +afterwards; so that the assassin and his victim must have met on the +threshold of the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better +understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. +Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like +that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters +have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with +their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well +as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the +walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having +been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a +metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists. + +Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to +inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a +very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church where +Washington used sometimes to attend service,--a pre-Revolutionary +edifice, with ivy growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly. +Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of +the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were +raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a +log-hut, or driven vertically into the soil in a circle,--thus forming +a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the +pyramidal shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the +occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: +some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the +open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by +gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; +and many were cleaning their arms and accoutrements,--the more +carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the +Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while +their comrades cut their hair,--it being a soldierly fashion (and for +excellent reasons) to crop it within an inch of the skull; others, +finally, lay asleep in breast-high tents, with their legs protruding +into the open air. + +We paid a visit to Fort Ellsworth, and from its ramparts (which have +been heaped up out of the muddy soil within the last few months, and +will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a +beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the +surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this +region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will +remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of +an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country +dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to +root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where +blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old +ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century +hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a +worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with +our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the +past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: +so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in +sacrificing good institutions to passionate impulses and impracticable +theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, may be found in the old +footprints of the war. + +Even in an aesthetic point of view, however, the war has done a great +deal of enduring mischief, by causing the devastation of great tracts +of woodland scenery, in which this part of Virginia would appear to +have been very rich. Around all the encampments, and everywhere along +the road, we saw the bare sites of what had evidently been tracts of +hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps of well-grown +trees, not smoothly felled by regular axe-men, but hacked, haggled, and +unevenly amputated, as by a sword, or other miserable tool, in an +unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army +destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for +the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like +those of the squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is +allowed to grow. As to other symptoms of devastation and obstruction, +such as deserted houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of +nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of +neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even +upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have +spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The +carcasses of horses were scattered along the way-side. + +One very pregnant token of a social system thoroughly disturbed was +presented by a party of contrabands, escaping out of the mysterious +depths of Secessia; and its strangeness consisted in the leisurely +delay with which they trudged forward, as dreading no pursuer, and +encountering nobody to turn them back. They were unlike the specimens +of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my +judgment, were far more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,--as if +their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,--so picturesquely natural +in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity, (which is +quite polished away from the Northern black man,) that they seemed a +kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite +as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I +wonder whether I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this. It is no +great matter. At all events, I felt most kindly towards these poor +fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in +the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent +in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt +almost as reluctant, on their own account, to hasten them forward to +the stranger's land; and I think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever +may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present +generation of negroes, the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, +and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world, on very +unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope +that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties. + +There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the +children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia, in a very +singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from +the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth +a brood of Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, +spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,--a monstrous birth, but with +which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an +irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood +and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little +by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark +one,--and two such portents never sprang from an identical source +before. + +While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly +into the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; +so he rode along by our side, and we pestered him with queries and +observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He +was on General McClellan's staff, and a gallant cavalier, high-booted, +with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which +trotted hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed +seat. His face had a healthy hue of exposure and an expression of +careless hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the +war had brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none +beside; since they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and +handle a sword, instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, +occupations, pleasures--all tedious alike--to which the artificial +state of society limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the +camp and the smoke of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the +hardy virtues flourish in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted weed. +The enervating effects of centuries of civilization vanish at once, +and leave these young men to enjoy a life of hardship, and the +exhilarating sense of danger,--to kill men blamelessly, or to be +killed gloriously,--and to be happy in following out their native +instincts of destruction, precisely in the spirit of Homer's heroes, +only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes +not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, +with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter one +another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as +in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no +wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's skull. Indeed, +if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that +old-fashioned kind of goblet has again come into use, at the expense of +our Northern head-pieces,--a costly drinking-cup to him that furnishes +it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!--only, +it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find +ourselves just here! [Footnote: We hardly expected this outbreak in +favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justice of our cause +makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in our outward life. We +have heard of twenty Quakers in a single company of a Pennsylvania +regiment.] + +We now approached General McClellan's head-quarters, which, at that +time, were established at Fairfield Seminary. The edifice was situated +on a gentle elevation, amid very agreeable scenery, and, at a +distance, looked like a gentleman's seat. Preparations were going +forward for reviewing a division of ten or twelve thousand men, the +various regiments composing which had begun to array themselves on an +extensive plain, where, methought, there was a more convenient place +for a battle than is usually found in this broken and difficult +country. Two thousand cavalry made a portion of the troops to be +reviewed. By-and-by we saw a pretty numerous troop of mounted officers, +who were congregated on a distant part of the plain, and whom we +finally ascertained to be the Commander-in-Chief's staff, with +McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself +in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we +had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, +with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss +nor pretension beyond what his character and rank inevitably gave him. + +Now, at that juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there +was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and +low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, +cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his +ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was +this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a +general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an +enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own +troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, +whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer +itself in the very asking. Nevertheless, being most profoundly +ignorant of the art of war, like the majority of the General's critics, +and, on the other hand, having some considerable impressibility by +men's characters, I was glad of the opportunity to look him in the +face, and to feel whatever influence might reach me from his sphere. So +I stared at him, as the phrase goes, with all the eyes I had; and the +reader shall have the benefit of what I saw,--to which he is the more +welcome, because, in writing this article, I feel disposed to be +singularly frank, and can scarcely restrain myself from telling truths +the utterance of which I should get slender thanks for. + +The General was dressed in a simple, dark-blue uniform, without +epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, +at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of +particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age +and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very +compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical +vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,--he and Beauregard having +been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. +His complexion is dark and sanguine, with dark hair. He has a strong, +bold, soldierly face, full of decision; a Roman nose, by no means a +thin prominence, but very thick and firm; and if he follows it, (which +I should think likely,) it may be pretty confidently trusted to guide +him aright. His profile would make a more effective likeness than the +full face, which, however, is much better in the real man than in any +photograph that I have seen. His forehead is not remarkably large, but +comes forward at the eyebrows; it is not the brow nor countenance of a +prominently intellectual man, (not a natural student, I mean, or +abstract thinker,) but of one whose office it is to handle things +practically and to bring about tangible results. His face looked +capable of being very stern, but wore, in its repose, when I saw it, an +aspect pleasant and dignified; it is not, in its character, an American +face, nor an English one. The man on whom he fixes his eye is conscious +of him. In his natural disposition, he seems calm and self-possessed, +sustaining his great responsibilities cheerfully, without shrinking, +or weariness, or spasmodic effort, or damage to his health, but all +with quiet, deep-drawn breaths; just as his broad shoulders would bear +up a heavy burden without aching beneath it. + +After we had had sufficient time to peruse the man, (so far as it could +be done with one pair of very attentive eyes,) the General rode off, +followed by his cavalcade, and was lost to sight among the troops. They +received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar of which--now near, +now in the centre, now on the outskirts of the division, and now +sweeping back towards us in a great volume of sound--we could trace his +progress through the ranks. If he is a coward, or a traitor, or a +humbug, or anything less than a brave, true, and able man, that mass of +intelligent soldiers, whose lives and honor he had in charge, were +utterly deceived, and so was this present writer; for they believed in +him, and so did I; and had I stood in the ranks, I should have shouted +with the lustiest of them. Of course I may be mistaken; my opinion on +such a point is worth nothing, although my impression may be worth a +little more; neither do I consider the General's antecedents as +bearing very decided testimony to his practical soldiership. A +thorough knowledge of the science of war seems to be conceded to him; +he is allowed to be a good military critic; but all this is possible +without his possessing any positive qualities of a great general, just +as a literary critic may show the profoundest acquaintance with the +principles of epic poetry without being able to produce a single +stanza of an epic poem. Nevertheless, I shall not give up my faith in +General McClellan's soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his +courage and integrity even then. + +Another of our excursions was to Harper's Ferry,--the Directors of the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad having kindly invited us to accompany +them on the first trip over the newly laid track, after its breaking up +by the Rebels. It began to rain, in the early morning, pretty soon +after we left Washington, and continued to pour a cataract throughout +the day; so that the aspect of the country was dreary, where it would +otherwise have been delightful, as we entered among the hill-scenery +that is formed by the subsiding swells of the Alleghanies. The latter +part of our journey lay along the shore of the Potomac, in its upper +course, where the margin of that noble river is bordered by gray, +overhanging crags, beneath which--and sometimes right through them--the +railroad takes its way. In one place the Rebels had attempted to arrest +a train by precipitating an immense mass of rock down upon the track, +by the side of which it still lay, deeply imbedded in the ground, and +looking as if it might have lain there since the Deluge. The scenery +grew even more picturesque as we proceeded, the bluffs becoming very +bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper's Ferry, +presents as striking a vista among the hills as a painter could desire +to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown +away amid discomfort; and when we alighted into the tenacious mud and +almost fathomless puddle, on the hither side of the Ferry, (the +ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge +had been destroyed by the Rebels,) I cannot remember that any very +rapturous emotions were awakened by the scenery. + +We paddled and floundered over the ruins of the track, and, scrambling +down an embankment, crossed the Potomac by a pontoon-bridge, a thousand +feet in length, over the narrow line of which--level with the river, +and rising and subsiding with it--General Banks had recently led his +whole army, with its ponderous artillery and heavily laden wagons. Yet +our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a +little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers, in the +rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which the Rebels had +precipitated there. + +As we passed over, we looked towards the Virginia shore, and beheld the +little town of Harper's Ferry, gathered about the base of a round hill +and climbing up its steep acclivity; so that it somewhat resembled the +Etruscan cities which I have seen among the Apennines, rushing, as it +were, down an apparently break-neck height. About midway of the ascent +stood a shabby brick church, towards which a difficult path went +scrambling up the precipice, indicating, one would say, a very fervent +aspiration on the part of the worshippers, unless there was some easier +mode of access in another direction. Immediately on the shore of the +Potomac, and extending back towards the town, lay the dismal ruins of +the United States arsenal and armory, consisting of piles of broken +bricks and a waste of shapeless demolition, amid which we saw +gun-barrels in heaps of hundreds together. They were the relics of the +conflagration, bent with the heat of the fire, and rusted with the +wintry rain to which they had since been exposed. The brightest +sunshine could not have made the scene cheerful, nor have taken away +the gloom from the dilapidated town; for, besides the natural +shabbiness, and decayed, unthrifty look of a Virginian village, it has +an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and +its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less +striking contrast between Southern and New-England villages, if the +former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is +prodigiously efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter. + +There was one small shop, which appeared to have nothing for sale. A +single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except +the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts +regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house +stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base +were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities, +to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly +sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown +seized upon as his fortress, and which, after it was stormed by the +United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old +engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man's hands in +this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a +short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the +pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each +side of the door, are two or three ragged loop-holes which John Brown +perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as +to give himself and his garrison a sight over their rifles. Through +these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief +among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting +against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not +pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy +with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect +ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose +happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that +saying, (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source,) that the +death of this blood-stained fanatic has "made the Gallows as venerable +as the Cross!" Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his +martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded, (such +was his natural integrity,) would have acknowledged that Virginia had a +right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would +have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could +generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its +enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at +the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual +satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his +preposterous miscalculation of possibilities. [Footnote: Can it be a +son of old Massachusetts who utters this abominable sentiment? For +shame!] + +But, coolly as I seem to say these things, my Yankee heart stirred +triumphantly when I saw the use to which John Brown's fortress and +prison-house has now been put. What right have I to complain of any +other man's foolish impulses, when I cannot possibly control my own? +The engine-house is now a place of confinement for Rebel prisoners. + +A Massachusetts soldier stood on guard, but readily permitted our whole +party to enter. It was a wretched place. A room of perhaps twenty-five +feet square occupied the whole interior of the building, having an +iron stove in its centre, whence a rusty funnel ascended towards a hole +in the roof, which served the purposes of ventilation, as well as for +the exit of smoke. We found ourselves right in the midst of the Rebels, +some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving +no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, +huddled close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the +visitors; two were astride of some planks, playing with the dirtiest +pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in +the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,--a man with +a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, +which he had contrived to arrange with a degree of soldierly smartness, +though it had evidently borne the brunt of a very filthy campaign. He +stood erect, and talked freely with those who addressed him, telling +them his place of residence, the number of his regiment, the +circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their +Northern inquisitiveness prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness of +his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the +slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious, but bore himself as +if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the +battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon in +his hand. + +Neither could I detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, +words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were +simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces +singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of +men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, +although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They +were peasants, and of a very low order: a class of people with whom our +Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were +exceedingly respectful,--more so than a rustic New-Englander ever +dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had +they worn any hats, they would probably have been self-constrained to +take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to +hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a +single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had +the remotest comprehension of what they had been fighting for, or how +they had deserved to be shut up in that dreary hole; nor, possibly, did +they care to inquire into this latter mystery, but took it as a godsend +to be suffered to lie here in a heap of unwashed human bodies, well +warmed and well foddered to-day, and without the necessity of bothering +themselves about the possible hunger and cold of to-morrow. Their dark +prison-life may have seemed to them the sunshine of all their lifetime. + +There was one poor wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with +greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one +of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been +capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular +individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or +skirmish, a wounded Union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his +feet, and besought his assistance,--not dreaming that any creature in +human shape, in the Christian land where they had so recently been +brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you prefer to +call him so, though I would not advise it) flung a bitter curse at the +poor Northerner, and absolutely trampled the soul out of his body, as +he lay writhing beneath his feet. The fellow's face was horribly ugly; +but I am not quite sure that I should have noticed it, if I had not +known his story. He spoke not a word, and met nobody's eye, but kept +staring upward into the smoky vacancy towards the ceiling, where, it +might be, he beheld a continual portraiture of his victim's +horror-stricken agonies. I rather fancy, however, that his moral sense +was yet too torpid to trouble him with such remorseful visions, and +that, for his own part, he might have had very agreeable reminiscences +of the soldier's death, if other eyes had not been bent reproachfully +upon him and warned him that something was amiss. It was this reproach +in other men's eyes that made him look aside. He was a wild-beast, as I +began with saying,--an unsophisticated wild-beast,--while the rest of +us are partially tamed, though still the scent of blood excites some of +the savage instincts of our nature. What this wretch needed, in order +to make him capable of the degree of mercy and benevolence that exists +in us, was simply such a measure of moral and intellectual development +as we have received; and, in my mind, the present war is so well +justified by no other consideration as by the probability that it will +free this class of Southern whites from a thraldom in which they +scarcely begin to be responsible beings. So far as the education of the +heart is concerned, the negroes have apparently the advantage of them; +and as to other schooling, it is practically unattainable by black or +white. + +Looking round at these poor prisoners, therefore, it struck me as an +immense absurdity that they should fancy us their enemies; since, +whether we intend it so or no, they have a far greater stake on our +success than we can possibly have. For ourselves, the balance of +advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, +all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for +thence would come the regeneration of a people,--the removal of a foul +scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps them in a state of +disease and decrepitude, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, +the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine +themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has +ever yet resulted according to the purpose of its projectors. The +advantages are always incidental. Man's accidents are God's purposes. +We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for. +[Footnote: The author seems to imagine that he has compressed a great +deal of meaning into these little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic +wisdom. We disagree with him. The counsels of wise and good men are +often coincident with the purposes of Providence; and the present war +promises to illustrate our remark.] + +Our Government evidently knows when and where to lay its finger upon +its most available citizens; for, quite unexpectedly, we were joined +with some other gentlemen, scarcely less competent than ourselves, in +a commission to proceed to Fortress Monroe and examine into things in +general. Of course, official propriety compels us to be extremely +guarded in our description of the interesting objects which this +expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in +stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a +kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a +humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent peculiarities, yet +of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin old gentleman, set off by a +large pair of brilliant epaulets,--the only pair, so far as my +observation went, that adorn the shoulders of any officer in the Union +army. Either for our inspection, or because the matter had already +been arranged, he drew out a regiment of Zouaves that formed the +principal part of his garrison, and appeared at their head, sitting on +horseback with rigid perpendicularity, and affording us a vivid idea +of the disciplinarian of Baron Steuben's school. + +There can be no question of the General's military qualities; he must +have been especially useful in converting raw recruits into trained and +efficient soldiers. But valor and martial skill are of so evanescent a +character, (hardly less fleeting than a woman's beauty,) that +Government has perhaps taken the safer course in assigning to this +gallant officer, though distinguished in former wars, no more active +duty than the guardianship of an apparently impregnable fortress. The +ideas of military men solidify and fossilize so fast, while military +science makes such rapid advances, that even here there might be a +difficulty. An active, diversified, and therefore a youthful, +ingenuity is required by the quick exigencies of this singular war. +Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its +ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence +that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is +now pronounced absolutely incapable of resisting the novel modes of +assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the +flexible talent of a young man that will evolve a new efficiency out of +its obsolete strength. + +It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their +incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous +tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent +disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial +atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human +existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right +to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their +juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. In case of +death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative +sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of +a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood +in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit +to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such +a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the +opportunity to be exhaled! If I had the ordering of these matters, +fifty should be the tenderest age at which a recruit might be accepted +for training; at fifty-five or sixty, I would consider him eligible for +most kinds of military duty and exposure, excluding that of a forlorn +hope, which no soldier should be permitted to volunteer upon, short of +the ripe age of seventy. As a general rule, these venerable combatants +should have the preference for all dangerous and honorable service in +the order of their seniority, with a distinction in favor of those +whose infirmities might render their lives less worth the keeping. +Methinks there would be no more Bull Runs; a warrior with gout in his +toe, or rheumatism in his joints, or with one foot in the grave, would +make a sorry fugitive! + +On this admirable system, the productive part of the population would +be undisturbed even by the bloodiest war; and, best of all, those +thousands upon thousands of our Northern girls, whose proper mates will +perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid +their doom of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be +pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be +more disastrous than the one on which we began the war, when a young +army was struck with paralysis through the age of its commander. + +The waters around Fortress Monroe were thronged with a gallant array of +ships of war and transports, wearing the Union flag,--"Old Glory," as I +hear it called in these days. A little withdrawn from our national +fleet lay two French frigates, and, in another direction, an English +sloop, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red +portent in the air, wherever there is strife. In pursuance of our +official duty, (which had no ascertainable limits,) we went on board +the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her +depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful armament, her mighty +engines, and her furnaces, where the fires are always kept burning, as +well at midnight as at noon, so that it would require only five minutes +to put the vessel under full steam. This vigilance has been felt +necessary ever since the Merrimack made that terrible dash from +Norfolk. Splendid as she is, however, and provided with all but the +very latest improvements in naval armament, the Minnesota belongs to a +class of vessels that will be built no more, nor ever fight another +battle,--being as much a thing of the past as any of the ships of Queen +Elizabeth's time, which grappled with the galleons of the Spanish +Armada. + +On her quarter-deck, an elderly flag-officer was pacing to and fro, +with a self-conscious dignity to which a touch of the gout or +rheumatism perhaps contributed a little additional stiffness. He seemed +to be a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous school of +naval worthies, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette +which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are +somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of +nautical heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which +they fought valorously and strutted most intolerably. How can an +admiral condescend to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and +elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck dignity in the cramped lookout +of the Monitor, or even in the twenty-feet diameter of her cheese-box? +All the pomp and splendor of naval warfare are gone by. Henceforth +there must come up a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, +who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single +pair of eyes; and even heroism--so deadly a gripe is Science laying on +our noble possibilities--will become a quality of very minor +importance, when its possessor cannot break through the iron crust of +his own armament and give the world a glimpse of it. + +At no great distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking +craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with +the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse +of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular +structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no +great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a +machine,--and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed +in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it +looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable, suspicious, +evidently mischievous,--nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; +for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the +same breed, to annihilate whole navies and batter down old supremacies. +The wooden walls of Old England cease to exist, and a whole history of +naval renown reaches its period, now that the Monitor comes smoking +into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms +bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, +oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has +betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often +indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with +simply saying that she looked very queer. + +Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her +interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten +feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and +sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and +ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft, +(for it is impossible to tell stem from stern,) the crew are relatively +quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a +palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility, +the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most +satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in +the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they +see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man +whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages +them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made +by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron +tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost +imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior +surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may +not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in +impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being +sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but +stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in +this new craft. It was pleasant to see their benign exultation in her +powers of mischief, and the delight with which they exhibited the +circumvolutory movement of the tower, the quick thrusting forth of the +immense guns to deliver their ponderous missiles, and then the +immediate recoil, and the security behind the closed port-holes. Yet +even this will not long be the last and most terrible improvement in +the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is +to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no +other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming, and gush of +smoke, and belch of smothered thunder out of the yeasty waves, there +shall be a deadly fight going on below,--and, by-and-by, a sucking +whirlpool, as one of the ships goes down. + +The Monitor was certainly an object of great interest; but on our way +to Newport News, whither we next went, we saw a spectacle that +affected us with far profounder emotion. It was the sight of the few +sticks that are left of the frigate Congress, stranded near the +shore,--and still more, the masts of the Cumberland rising midway out +of the water, with a tattered rag of a pennant fluttering from one of +them. The invisible hull of the latter ship seems to be careened over, +so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite +unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The +flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under +the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, +although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide, +instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man +the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface. + +That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of +Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he +heard that his son's ship was surrendered? "Then Joe's dead!" said he; +and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring +renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of +the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and +himself out of inevitable disaster and defeat. That last gun from the +Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem of +many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe, and our +own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights +became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave +countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that +includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners of England, and other +mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance. +There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and +manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is +certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from +the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of +machinery, which by-and-by will fight out our wars with only the clank +and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging +nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the +tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as +manhood retains any part of its pristine value, no country can afford +to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, any more than that +of the brave Worden, pass unhonored and unrewarded. If the Government +do nothing, let the people take the matter into their own hands, and +cities give him swords, gold boxes, festivals of triumph, and, if he +needs it, heaps of gold. Let poets brood upon the theme, and make +themselves sensible how much of the past and future is contained within +its compass, till its spirit shall flash forth in the lightning of a +song! + +From these various excursions, and a good many others, (including one +to Manassas,) we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; +but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and +parlors of Willard's Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if +we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of +interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly +called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, +the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. +It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the +country,--not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take +a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into +the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither +by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest +atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this +life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but +all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a +miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign +States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; +you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You +are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, +poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, +_attachés_ of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, +diplomatists, mail-contractors, railway-directors, until your own +identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you +have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a +thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure +than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal +habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a +gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the +conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I +had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all +these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A +constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, +and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk +more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke +in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring +about more valuable results. + +It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes +sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with +frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment +passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It +is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad. I see no way of +accounting for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety +of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have +disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of +the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated +and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are +not altogether extinguished in their ashes,--in their throats, I might +rather say;--for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such +a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be +loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where +these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many +remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and +forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken +by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement +put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the +matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces +than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an +extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the +rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an +interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come +hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of +finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in +its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to +not a few. + +We saw at Willard's many who had thus found out for themselves, that, +when Nature gives a young man no other utilizable faculty, she must be +understood as intending him for a soldier. The bulk of the army had +moved out of Washington before we reached the city; yet it seemed to +me that at least two-thirds of the guests and idlers at the hotel wore +one or another token of the military profession. Many of them, no +doubt, were self-commissioned officers, and had put on the buttons and +the shoulder-straps, and booted themselves to the knees, merely +because captain, in these days, is so good a travelling-name. The +majority, however, had been duly appointed by the President, but might +be none the better warriors for that. It was pleasant, occasionally, +to distinguish a grizzly veteran among this crowd of carpet-knights, +--the trained soldier of a lifetime, long ago from West Point, +who had spent his prime upon the frontier, and very likely could +show an Indian bullet-mark on his breast,--if such decorations, won in +an obscure warfare, were worth the showing now. + +The question often occurred to me,--and, to say the truth, it added an +indefinable piquancy to the scene,--what proportion of all these +people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, +and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies +and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. Traitors +there were among them,--no doubt of that,--civil servants of the +public, very reputable persons, who yet deserved to dangle from a cord; +or men who buttoned military coats over their breasts, hiding perilous +secrets there, which might bring the gallant officer to stand +pale-faced before a file of musketeers, with his open grave behind him. +But, without insisting upon such picturesque criminality and punishment +as this, an observer, who kept both his eyes and heart open, would find +it by no means difficult to discern that many residents and visitors of +Washington so far sided with the South as to desire nothing more nor +better than to see everything reestablished on a little worse than its +former basis. If the cabinet of Richmond were transferred to the +Federal city, and the North awfully snubbed, at least, and driven back +within its old political limits, they would deem it a happy day. It is +no wonder, and, if we look at the matter generously, no unpardonable +crime. Very excellent people hereabouts remember the many dynasties in +which the Southern character has been predominant, and contrast the +genial courtesy, the warm and graceful freedom of that region, with +what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity of +our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They +have a conscientious, though mistaken belief, that the South was +driven out of the Union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we +are responsible for having compelled true patriots to love only half +their country instead of the whole, and brave soldiers to draw their +swords against the Constitution which they would once have died +for,--to draw them, too, with a bitterness of animosity which is the +only symptom of brotherhood (since brothers hate each other best) that +any longer exists. They whisper these things with tears in their eyes, +and shake their heads, and stoop their poor old shoulders, at the +tidings of another and another Northern victory, which, in their +opinion, puts farther off the remote, the already impossible chance of +a reunion. + +I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. +Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on +winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another +generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the +present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo +the South "as the Lion wooes his bride"; it is a rough courtship, but +perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we +stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as +Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded +from its golden palaces,--and perhaps all the more heavenly, because +so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive hearts, had gone to plot +ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere. [Footnote: We regret the +innuendo in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to +terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We +hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it +by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally +within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily +efficacious. In truth, the work is already done. + +We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man's loyalty, but +he will allow us to say that we consider him premature in his kindly +feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author +himself says of John Brown, (and, so applied, we thought it an +atrociously cold-blooded _dictum_,) "any common-sensible man +would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it +only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." There +are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and +affect us like an intolerable crime,--which this Rebellion is, into +the bargain.] + + + + +THE MINUTE-GUNS. + + +I stood within the little cove, +Full of the morning's life and hope, +While heavily the eager waves +Charged thundering up the rocky slope. + +The splendid breakers! how they rushed, +All emerald green and flashing white, +Tumultuous in the morning sun, +With cheer, and sparkle, and delight! + +And freshly blew the fragrant wind, +The wild sea-wind, across their tops, +And caught the spray and flung it far, +In sweeping showers of glittering drops. + +Within the cove all flashed and foamed, +With many a fleeting rainbow hue; +Without, gleamed, bright against the sky, +A tender, wavering line of blue, + +Where tossed the distant waves, and far +Shone silver-white a quiet sail, +And overhead the soaring gulls +With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. + +And all my pulses thrilled with joy, +Watching the wind's and water's strife,-- +With sudden rapture,--and I cried, +"Oh, sweet is Life! Thank God for Life!" + +Sailed any cloud across the sky, +Marring this glory of the sun's? +Over the sea, from distant forts, +There came the boom of minute-guns! + +War-tidings! Many a brave soul fled, +And many a heart the message stuns!-- +I saw no more the joyous waves, +I only heard the minute-guns. + + + + +ORIGINALITY. + + +A great contemporary writer, so I am told, regards originality as much +rarer than is commonly supposed. But, on the contrary, is it not far +more frequent than is commonly supposed? For one should not identify +originality with mere primacy of conception or utterance, as if a +thought could be original but once. In truth, it may be so thousands or +millions of times; nay, from the beginning to the end of man's times +upon the earth, the same thoughts may continue rising from the same +fountains in his spirit. Of the central or stem thoughts of +consciousness, of the imperial presiding imaginations, this is actually +true. Ceaseless re-origination is the method of Nature. This alone +keeps history alive. For if every Mohammedan were but a passive +appendage to the dead Mohammed, if every disciple were but a copy in +plaster of his teacher, and if history were accordingly living and +original only in such degree as it is an unprecedented invention, the +laws of decay should at once be made welcome to the world. + +The fact is otherwise. As new growths upon the oldest cedar or baobab +do not merely spin themselves out of the wood already formed,--as they +thrive and constitute themselves only by original conversation with +sun, earth, and air,--that is, in the same way with any seed or +sapling,--so generations of Moslems, Parsees, or Calvinists, while +obeying the structural law of their system, yet quaff from the mystical +fountains of pure Life the sustenance by which they live. Merely out +of itself the tree can give nothing,--literally, nothing. True, if cut +down, it may, under favorable circumstances, continue for a time to +feed the growing shoots out of its own decay. Yet not even at the cost +of decay and speedy exhaustion could the old trunk accomplish this +little, but for the draft made upon it by the new growths. It is +_their_ life, it is the relationship which they assert with sun +and rain and all the elements, which is foremost in bringing about even +this result. So it is with the great old literatures, with the old +systems of philosophy and faith. They are simply avenues, or structural +forms, through which succeeding generations of souls come into +conversation with eternal Nature, and express their original life. + +Observe, again, that the tree lives only while new shoots are produced +upon it. The new twigs and leaves not only procure sustenance for +themselves, but even keep the trunk itself alive: so that the chief +order of support is just opposite what it seems; and the tree lives +from above, down,--as do men and all other creatures. So in history, it +requires a vast amount of original thought or sentiment to sustain the +old structural forms. This gigantic baobab of Catholicism, for example, +is kept alive by the conversion of Life into Belief, which takes place +age after age in the bosoms of women and men. The trunk was long ago in +extensive decay; every wind menaces it with overthrow; but the hearts +that bud and blossom upon it yearly send down to the earth and up to +the sky such a claim for resource as surrounds the dying trunk with +ever new layers of supporting growth. Equally are the thought, poetry, +rhetoric of by-gone times kept in significance by the perceiving, the +imagining, and the sense of a flowing symbolism in Nature, which our +own time brings to them. To make Homer alive to this age,--what an +expenditure of imagination, of pure feeling and penetration does it +demand! Let the Homeric heart or genius die out of mankind, and from +that moment the "Iliad" is but dissonance, the long melodious roll of +its echoes becomes a jarring chop of noises. What chiefly makes Homer +great is the vast ideal breadth of relationship in which he establishes +human beings. But he in whose narrow brain is no space for high +Olympus and deep Orcus,--he whose coarse fibre never felt the +shudder of the world at the shaking of the ambrosial locks, nor a +thrill in the air when a hero fails,--what can this grand stoop of the +ideal upon the actual world signify to him? To what but an ethical +genius in men can appeal for guest-rites be made by the noble +"Meditations" of Marcus Antoninus, or the exquisite, and perhaps +incomparable, "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Browne? +Appreciative genius is centrally the same with productive +genius; and it is the Shakspeare in men alone that prints Shakspeare +and reads him. So it is that the works of the masters are, as it were, +perpetually re-written and renewed in life by the genius of mankind. + +In saying that constant re-origination is the method of Nature, I do +not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. +This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. +By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and +traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the +matrix of the household; after infancy the glowing youth is held in +that of society; and processes kindred with those which bestowed +likeness to father and mother go on to assimilate him with a social +circle or an age. Complaint is made, and by good men, of that implicit +acquiescence which keeps in existence Islam, Catholicism, and the like, +long after their due time has come to die; yet, abolish the law of +imitation which causes this, and the immediate disintegration of +mankind will follow. Mortar is much in the way, when we wish to take +an old building to pieces and make other use of the bricks; do you +therefore advise its disuse? + +But imitation would preserve nothing, did not the law of re-origination +keep it company. We are not born from our parents alone, but from the +loins of eternal Nature no less. Was Orpheus the grandson of Zeus and +Mnemosyne,--of sovereign Unity and immortal Memory? Equally is +Shakspeare and every genuine bard. Could the heroes of old Greece +trace their derivation from the gods? + +Little of a hero is he, even in these times of ours, who is not of the +like lineage. And indeed, one and all, we have a father and mother +whose marriage-morn is of more ancient date than our calendars, and of +whose spousal solemnities this universe is the memorial. All life, +indeed, whatsoever be its form and rank, has, along with connections of +pedigree and lateral association, one tap-root that strikes straight +down into the eternal. + +Because Life is of this unsounded depth, it may well afford to repeat +the same forms forever, nor incurs thereby any danger of exhausting its +significance and becoming stale. Vital repetition, accordingly, goes +on in Nature in a way not doubtful and diffident, but frank, open, +sure, as if the game were one that could not be played out. It is now a +very long while that buds have burst and grass grown; yet Spring comes +forward still without bashfulness, fearing no charge of having +plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its +blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from +the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll +without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the +bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful +that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks +were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night +after night forever the stars, and age after age the eyes of women and +men, shine on without apology, or the least promise that this shall be +positively their last appearance. Life knows itself original always, +nor a whit the less so for any repetition of its elected and +significant forms. Youth and newness are, indeed, inseparable from it. +Death alone is senile; and we become physically aged only by the +presence and foothold of this dogged intruder in our bodies. The body +is a fortress for the possession of which Death is perpetually +contending; only the incessant activity of Life at every foot of the +rampart keeps him at bay; but, with, the advance of years, the +assailants gain, here and there a foothold, pressing the defenders +back; and just in proportion as this defeat take a place the man +becomes _old_. But Life sets out from the same basis of mystery to +build each new body, no matter how many myriads of such forms have been +built before; and forsaking it finally, is no less young, inscrutable, +enticing than before. + +Now Thought, as part of the supreme flowering of Life, follows its law. +It cannot be anticipated by any anticipation of its forms and results. +There were hazel-brown eyes in the world before my boy was born; but +the light that shines in these eyes comes direct from the soul +nevertheless. The light of true thought, in like manner, issues only +from an inward sun; and shining, it carries always its perfect +privilege, its charm and sacredness. Would you have purple or yellow +eyes, because the accustomed colors have been so often repeated? Black, +blue, brown, gray, forever! May the angels in heaven have no other! +Forever, too, and equally, the perpetual loves, thoughts, and melodies +of men! Let them come out of their own mystical, ineffable haunts,--let +them, that is, be _real_,--and we ask no more. + +The question of originality is, therefore, simply one of vitality. Does +the fruit really grow on the tree? does it indeed come by vital +process?--little more than this does it concern us to know. Truths +become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's +bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying +is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the +throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the +honors that are not theirs, the throne and government are disgraced. + +Truisms are corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every +stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an +impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step +nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude +me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does +he draw a film of eclipse over the sun, and cast a shadow on city and +field, but he throws over the salutation itself a more permanent +shadow; and were the words never to reach us save from such lips, they +would, in no long time, become terms of insult or of malediction. But +so often as the sweet greeting comes from wife, child, or friend, its +proper savors are restored. A jesting editor says that "You tell a +telegram" is the polite way of giving the lie; and it is quite possible +that his witticism only anticipates a serious use of language some +century hence. Terms and statements are perpetually saturated by the +uses made of them. Etymology and the dictionary resist effects in vain. +And as single words may thus be discharged of their lawful meaning, so +the total purport of words, that is, truths themselves, may in like +manner be disgraced. If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously +patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or +feeble pietist repeat the word _God_ or recite the raptures of +adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie +are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn +atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest +of morality aver that he writes for money alone. + +But Truth does not share the fortunes of her verbal body. The grand +ideas, the master-imaginations and moving faiths of men, run in the +blood of the race; and a given degree of pure human heat infallibly +brings them out. Not more surely does the rose appear on the rose-bush, +or the apple, pear, or peach upon the trees of the orchard, than these +fruits of the soul upon nations of powerful and thrifty spirit. For +want of vitality the shrub may fail to flower, the tree to bear fruit, +and man to bring forth his spiritual product; but if Thought be +attained, certain thoughts and imaginations will come of it. Let two +nations at opposite sides of the globe, and without intercommunication +arrive at equal stages of mental culture, and the language of the one +will, on the whole, be equivalent to that of the other, nay, the very +rhetoric, the very fancies of the one will, in a broad way of +comparison, be tantamount to those of the other. The nearer we get to +any past age, the more do we find that the totality of its conceptions +and imaginings is much the same with that of our own. There are +specific variation and generic unity; and he whom the former blinds to +the latter reads the old literatures without eyes, and knows neither +his own time nor any other. Owen, Agassiz, Carpenter explain the +homologies of anatomy and physiology; but a doctrine of the homologies +of thought is equally possible, and will sometime be set forth. + +The basis, then, of any sufficient doctrine of literature and literary +production is found in two statements:-- + +First, that the perfect truth of the universe issues, by vital +representation, into the personality of man. + +Secondly, that this truth _tends_ in every man, though often in +the obscurest way, toward intellectual and artistic expression. + +Now just so far as by any man's speech we feel ourselves brought into +direct relationship with this ever-issuing fact, so far the impressions +of originality are produced. That all his words were in the dictionary +before he used them,--that all his thoughts, under some form of +intimation, were in literature before he arrived at them,--matters not; +it is the verity, the vital process, the depth of relationship, which +concerns us. + +Nay, in one sense, the older his truth, the _more_ do the effects +of originality lie open to him. The simple, central, imperial elements +of human consciousness are first in order of expression, and continue +forever to be first in order of power and suggestion. The great +purposes, the great thoughts and melodies issue always from these. This +is the quarry which every masterly thinker or poet must work. Homer is +Homer because he is so simply true alike to earth and sky,--to the +perpetual experience and perpetual imagination of mankind. Had he gone +working around the edges, following the occasional _détours_ and +slips of consciousness, there would have been no "Iliad" or "Odyssey" +for mankind to love and for Pope to spoil. The great poets tell us +nothing new. They remind us. They bear speech deep into our being, and +to the heart of our heart lend a tongue. They have words that +correspond to facts in all men and women. But they are not newsmongers. + +Yesterday, I read in a prose translation of the "Odyssey" the exquisite +idyl of Nausicaa and her Maids, and the discovery of himself by +Ulysses. Perhaps the picture came out more clearly than ever before; at +any rate, it filled my whole day with delight, and to-day I seem to +have heard some sweetest good tidings, as if word had come from an old +playmate, dear and distant in memory, or a happy and wealthy letter had +arrived from a noble friend. Whence this enrichment? There was nothing +in this idyl, to which, even on a first reading, I could give the name +of "new truth." The secret is, that I _have_ indeed had tidings of +old playmates, dear and distant in memory,--of those bright-eyed, +brave, imaging playmates of all later ages, the inhabitants of Homer's +world. And little can one care for novelties of thought, in comparison +with these tones from the deeps of undying youth. Bring to our lips +these cups of the fresh wine of life, if you would do good. Bring us +these; for it is by perpetual rekindlings of the youth in us that our +life grows and unfolds. Each advancing epoch of the inward life is no +less than this,--a fresh efflux of adolescence from the immortal and +exhaustless heart. Everywhere the law is the same,--Become as a little +child, to reach the heavenly kingdoms. This, however, we become not by +any return to babyhood, but by an effusion or emergence from within of +pure life,--of life which takes from years only their wisdom and their +chastening, and gives them in payment its perfect renewal. + +This, then, is the proof of originality,--that one shall utter the pure +consciousness of man. If he live, and live humanly, in his speech, the +speech itself will live; for it will obtain hospitality in all wealthy +and true hearts. + +But if the most original speech be, as is here explained, of that which +is oldest and most familiar in the consciousness of man, it +nevertheless does not lack the charm of surprise and all effects of +newness. For, in truth, nothing is so strange to men as the very facts +they seem to confess every day of their lives. Truisms, I have said, +are the corpses of truths; and they are as far from the fact they are +taken to represent as the perished body from the risen soul. The +mystery of truth is hidden behind them; and when next it shall come +forth, it will bring astonishment, as at first. Every time the grand +old truths are livingly uttered, the world thinks it never heard them +before. The news of the day is hardly spoken before it is antiquated. +For this an hour too late is a century, is forever, too late. But truth +of life and the heart, the world-old imaginations, the root-thoughts of +human consciousness,--these never lose their privilege to surprise, and +at every fresh efflux are wellnigh sure to be persecuted by some as +unlawful impositions upon the credence of mankind. Nay, the same often +happens with the commonest truths of observation. Mr. Ruskin describes +leaves and clouds, objects that are daily before all eyes; and the very +artists cry, "Fie upon him!" as a propounder of childish novelties: +slowly they perceive that it was leaves and clouds which were novel. +Luther thunders in the ears of the Church its own creed; the Pope asks, +"Is it possible that he believes all this?" and the priesthood scream, +"To the stake with the heretic!" A poet prints in the "Atlantic +Monthly" a simple affirmation of the indestructibility of man's true +life; numbers of those who would have been shocked and exasperated to +hear questioned the Church dogma of immortality exclaim against this as +a ridiculous paradox. Once in a while there is grown a heart so +spacious that Nature finds in it room to chant aloud the word +_God_, and set its echoes rolling billowy through one man's being; +and he, lifting up his voice to repeat it among men from that inward +hearing, invariably astounds, and it may be infuriates his +contemporaries. The simple proposition, GOD IS, could it once be +_wholly_ received, would shake our sphere as no earthquake ever +did, and would leave not one stone upon another, I say not merely of +some city of Lisbon, but of entire kingdoms and systems of +civilization. The faintest inference from this cannot be vigorously +announced in modern senates without sending throbs of terror over half +a continent, and eliciting shrieks of remonstrance from the very +shrines of worship. + +The ancient perpetual truths prove, at each fresh enunciation, not only +surprising, but incredible. The reason is, that they overfill the +vessels of men's credence. If you pour the Atlantic Ocean into a pint +basin, what can the basin do but refuse to contain it, and so spill it +over? Universal truths are as spacious and profound as the universe +itself; and for the cerebral capacity of most of us the universe is +really somewhat large! + +But as the major numbers of mankind are too little self-reverent to +dispense with the services of self-conceit, they like to think +themselves equal, and very easily equal, to any truth, and habitually +assume their extempore, off-hand notion of its significance as a +perfect measure of the fact. As if a man hollowed his hand, and, +dipping it full out of Lake Superior, said, "Lake Superior just fills +my hand!" To how many are the words _God, Love, Immortality_ just +such complacent handfuls! And when some mariner of God seizes them with +loving mighty arms, and bears them in his bark beyond sight of their +wonted shores, what wonder that they perceive not the identity of this +sky-circled sea with their accustomed handful? Yet, despite egotism and +narrowness of brain and every other limitation, the spirit of man will +claim its privilege and assert its affinity with all truth; and in such +measure as one utters the pure heart of mankind, and states the real +relationships of human nature, is he sure of ultimate audience and +sufficing love. + + + + +ERICSSON AND HIS INVENTIONS. + + +No events of the present war will be longer remembered, or will hold a +more prominent place in History, than those which took place on the +eighth and ninth of March in Hampton Roads, when the Rebel steamer +Merrimack attacked the Federal fleet. We all know what havoc she made +in her first day's work. When the story of her triumphs flashed over +the wires, it fell like a thunderbolt upon all loyal hearts. + +The Cumberland, manned by as gallant a crew as ever fought under the +Stars and Stripes, had gone down helplessly before her. The Congress, +half-manned, but bravely defended, had been captured and burnt. +Sailing frigates, such as were deemed formidable in the days of Hull +and Decatur, and which some of our old sea-dogs still believed to be +the main stay of the navy, were found to be worse than useless against +this strange antagonist. Our finest steam-frigates, though +accidentally prevented from getting fairly into action, seemed likely, +however skilfully handled, to have proved almost as inefficient; for +all our batteries and broadsides had produced no effect on this +iron-clad monster. She had gone back to her lair uninjured. What was to +prevent her from coming out again to break the blockade, bombard our +seaports, sink and destroy everything that came in her way? + +But we had only seen the first act of the drama. The curtain was to +rise again, and a new character was to appear on the stage. The +champion of the Union, in complete armor, was about to enter the lists. +When the Merrimack steamed out defiantly on Sunday morning, the Monitor +was there to meet her. Then, for the first time in naval warfare, two +iron-clad vessels were pitted against each other. The Merrimack was +driven back disabled. We breathed freely again at this +_dénouement_, and congratulated ourselves that the nation had +been saved from enormous damage and disgrace. We did not foresee that +the great Rebel monster, despairing of a successful encounter with her +antagonist, was to end her career by suicide. We thought only of the +vast injury which she might have done, and might yet be capable of +doing, to the Union cause, but from which we had so providentially +escaped. It was indeed a narrow escape. Nothing but the opportune +arrival of the Monitor saved us; and for this impregnable vessel we +are indebted to the genius of Ericsson. + +This distinguished engineer and inventor, although a foreigner by +birth, has long been a citizen of the United States. His first work in +this country--by which, as in the present instance, he added honor and +efficiency to the American navy--was the steam-frigate Princeton, a +vessel which in her day was almost as great a novelty as the Monitor is +now. The improvements in steam machinery and propulsion and in the arts +of naval warfare, which he introduced in her, formed the subject of a +lecture delivered before the Boston Lyceum by John O. Sargent, in 1844, +from which source we derive some interesting particulars concerning +Ericsson's early history. + +John Ericsson was born in 1803, in the Province of Vermeland, among the +iron mountains of Sweden. His father was a mining proprietor, so that +the youth had ample opportunities to watch the operation of the +various engines and machinery connected with the mines. These had been +erected by mechanicians of the highest scientific attainments, and +presented a fine study to a mind of mechanical tendencies. Under such +influences, his innate mechanical talent was early developed. At the +age of ten years, he had constructed with his own hands, and after his +own plans, a miniature sawmill, and had made numerous drawings of +complicated mechanical contrivances, with instruments of his own +invention and manufacture. + +In 1814 he attracted the attention of the celebrated Count Platen, who +had heard of his boyish efforts, and desired an interview with him. +After carefully examining various plans and drawings which the youth +exhibited, the Count handed them back to him, simply observing, in an +impressive manner, "Continue as you have commenced, and you will one +day produce something extraordinary." + +Count Platen was the intimate personal friend of Bernadotte, the King +of Sweden, and was regarded by him with a feeling little short of +veneration. It was Count Platen who undertook and carried through, in +opposition to the views of the Swedish nobility, and of nearly the +whole nation, that gigantic work, the Grand Ship Canal of Sweden, which +connects the North Sea with the Baltic. He died Viceroy of Norway, and +left behind him the reputation of one of the greatest men of the +century. The few words of kind encouragement which he spoke, on the +occasion to which we have referred, sank deeply into the mind of the +young mechanician, and confirmed him in the career on which he had +entered. + +Immediately after this interview young Ericsson was made a cadet in the +corps of engineers, and, after six months' tuition, at the age of +twelve years, was appointed _niveleur_ on the Grand Ship Canal +under Count Platen. In this capacity, in the year 1816, he was required +to set out the work for more than six hundred men. The canal was +constructed by soldiers. He was at that time not tall enough to look +through the levelling-instrument; and in using it, he was obliged to +mount upon a stool, carried by his attendants for that purpose. As the +discipline in the Swedish army required that the soldier should always +uncover the head in speaking to his superior, gray-headed men came, cap +in hand, to receive their instructions from this mere child. + +While thus employed in the summer months, he was constantly occupied +during the winter with his pencil and pen; and there are many +important works on the canal constructed after drawings made by +Ericsson at this early age. During his leisure hours, he measured up +and made working-drawings of every implement and piece of machinery +connected with this great enterprise; so that at the age of fifteen he +was in possession of accurate plans of the whole work, drawn by his own +hand. + +His associations with military men on the canal had given him an +inclination for military life; and at the age of seventeen he entered +the Swedish army as an ensign, without the knowledge of his friend and +patron, Count Platen. This step excited the indignation of the Count, +who tried to prevail upon him to change his resolution; but finding all +his arguments useless, he terminated an angry interview by bidding +the young ensign "go to the Devil." The affectionate regard which he +entertained for the Count, and gratitude for the interest taken by him +in his education, caused the circumstances of this interview to make a +deep impression upon Ericsson, but were not sufficient to shake his +determination. + +Soon after the young ensign had entered upon his regimental duties, an +affair occurred which threatened to obscure his hitherto bright +prospects. His Colonel, Baron Koskull, had been disgraced by the King, +about the time that he had recommended Ericsson for promotion. This +circumstance induced the King to reject the recommendation. The Colonel +was exceedingly annoyed by this rejection; and having in his possession +a military map made by the expectant ensign, he took it to his Royal +Highness the Crown Prince Oscar, and besought him to intercede for the +young man with the King. The Prince received the map very kindly, +expressing great admiration of its beautiful finish and execution, and +presented himself in person with it to the King, who yielded to the +joint persuasion of the Prince and the map, and promoted the young +ensign to the lieutenancy for which he had been recommended. + +About the time of this promotion, the Government had ordered the +northern part of Sweden to be accurately surveyed. It being the desire +of the King that officers of the army should be employed in this +service, Ericsson, whose regiment was stationed in the northern +highlands, proceeded to Stockholm, for the purpose of submitting +himself to the severe examination then a prerequisite to the +appointment of Government surveyor. + +The mathematical education which he had received under Count Platen now +proved very serviceable. He passed the examination with great +distinction, and in the course of it, to the surprise of the examiners, +showed that he could repeat Euclid _verbatim_,--not by the +exercise of the memory, which in Ericsson is not remarkably retentive, +but from his perfect mastery of geometrical science. There is no doubt +that it is this thorough knowledge of geometry to which he is indebted +for his clear conceptions on all mechanical subjects. + +Having returned to the highlands, he entered on his new vocation with +great assiduity; and, supported by an unusually strong constitution, he +mapped a larger extent of territory than any other of the numerous +surveyors employed on the work. There are yet in the archives of Sweden +detailed maps of upwards of fifty square miles made by his hand. + +Neither the great labors attending these surveys, nor his military +duties, could give sufficient employment to the energies of the young +officer. In connection with a German engineer, Major Pentz, he now +began the arduous task of compiling a work on Canals, to be illustrated +by sixty-four large plates, representing the various buildings, +machines, and instruments connected with the construction of such +works. The part assigned to him in this enterprise was nothing less +than that of making all the drawings, as well as of engraving the +numerous plates; and as all the plates were to be executed in the style +of what is called machine-engraving, he undertook to construct a +machine for the purpose, which he successfully accomplished. This work +he prosecuted with so much industry, in the midst of his other various +labors, that, within the first year of its commencement, he had +executed eighteen large plates, which were pronounced by judges of +machine-engraving to be of superior merit. + +While thus variously occupied, being on a visit to the house of his +Colonel, Ericsson on one occasion showed his host, by a very simple +experiment, how readily mechanical power may be produced, independently +of steam, by condensing flame. His friend was much struck by the beauty +and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give +more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The +young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, +and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a +steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from +the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively +small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once +bringing it out in England, the great field for all mechanical +inventions. + +Ericsson accordingly obtained, leave from the King to visit England, +where he arrived on the eighteenth of May, 1826. He there proceeded to +construct a working engine on the principle above mentioned, but soon +discovered that his _flame-engine_, when worked by the combustion +of mineral coals, was a different thing from the experimental model he +had tried in the highlands of Sweden, with fuel composed of the +splinters of fine pine wood. Not only did he fail to produce an +extended and vivid flame, but the intense heat so seriously affected +all the working parts of the machine as soon to cause its destruction. + +These experiments, it may well be supposed, were attended with no +trifling expenditure; and, to meet these demands upon him, our young +adventurer was compelled to draw on his mechanical resources. + +Invention now followed invention in rapid succession, until the records +of the Patent-Office in London were enriched with the drawings of the +remarkable steam-boiler on the principle of _artificial draught_; +to which principle we are mainly indebted for the benefits conferred on +civilization by the present rapid communication by railways. In +bringing this important invention before the public, Ericsson thought +it advisable to join some old and established mechanical house in +London; and accordingly he associated himself with John Braithwaite, a +name favorably known in the mechanical annals of England. This +invention was hardly developed, when an opportunity was presented for +testing it in practice. + +The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, before erecting +the stationary engines by which they had intended to draw their +passenger and freight carriages, determined to appeal to the mechanical +talent of the country, in the hope of securing some preferable form of +motor. A prize was accordingly offered, in the autumn of 1829, for the +best locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then +completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, +until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not +deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies +to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had +the whole machine constructed within the seven weeks. + +The day of trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the +prize,--namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by +Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the +railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of +spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for +inanimate matter was to be put in motion, and that moves only in +accordance with immutable laws. The signal was given for the start. +Instead of the application of whip and spur, the gentle touch of the +steam-valve gave life and motion to the novel machine. + +Up to that period, the greatest speed at which man had been carried +along the ground was that of the race-horse; and no one of the +multitude present on this occasion expected to see that speed +surpassed. It was the general belief that the maximum attainable by the +locomotive engine would not much exceed ten miles. To the surprise and +admiration of the crowd, however, the Novelty steam-carriage, the +_fastest_ engine started, guided by its inventor Ericsson, +assisted by John Braithwaite, darted along the track at the rate of +upwards of fifty miles an hour! + +The breathless silence of the multitude was now broken by thunders of +hurras, that drowned the hiss of the escaping steam and the rolling of +the engine-wheels. To reduce the surprise and delight excited on this +occasion to the universal standard, and as an illustration of the +extent to which the value of property is sometimes enhanced by the +success of a mechanical invention, it may be stated, that, when the +Novelty had run her two miles and returned, the shares of the Liverpool +and Manchester Railway had risen _ten per cent_. + +But how easily may the just expectations of an inventor be +disappointed! Although the principle of _artificial draught_--the +principle which gave to the Novelty such decided superiority in +speed--is yet retained in all locomotive engines, the mode of producing +this draught in our present engines is far different from that +introduced by Ericsson, and was discovered by the merest accident; and +so soon was this discovery made, after the successful display of the +Novelty engine, that Ericsson had no time to derive the least advantage +from its introduction. To him, however, belongs the credit of having +disproved the correctness of the once established theory, that it was +absolutely necessary that a certain _extensive_ amount of +_surface_ should be exposed to the fire, to generate a given +quantity of steam. + +The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by +Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it +had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the +steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. +Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, and which excited so +much interest in London at the time the Argyle Rooms were on fire. A +similar engine of greater power was subsequently constructed by +Ericsson and Braithwaite for the King of Prussia, which was mainly +instrumental in saving several valuable buildings at a great fire in +Berlin. For this invention Ericsson received, in 1842, the large gold +medal offered by the Mechanics' Institute of New York for the best plan +of a steam fire-engine. + +In the year 1833 Ericsson brought before the scientific world in London +his invention of the Caloric-Engine, which had been a favorite subject +of speculation and reflection with him for many years. From the +earliest period of his mechanical labors, he had been in the habit of +regarding heat as an agent, _which, whilst it exerts mechanical +force, undergoes no change._ The steam in the cylinder of a +steam-engine, after having lifted the weight of the piston, contains +just as much heat as it did before leaving the boiler,--minus only the +loss by radiation. Yet in the low-pressure engine we turn the steam, +after having performed its office, into a condensing-apparatus, where +the heat is in a manner annihilated; and in the high-pressure engine we +throw it away into the atmosphere. + +The acting medium employed in the Caloric-Engine is atmospheric air; +and the leading peculiarity of the machine, as originally designed by +Ericsson, is, that by means of an apparatus styled the Regenerator the +heat contained in the air which escapes from the working cylinder is +taken up by the air which enters it at each stroke of the piston and +used over and over again. + +The machine constructed by Ericsson in London was a working engine of +five-horse power, the performance of which was witnessed by many +gentlemen of scientific pretensions in that metropolis. Among others, +the popular author, Sir Richard Phillips, examined it; and in his +"Dictionary of the Arts of Life and of Civilization," he thus notices +the result of this experiment:--"The author has, with inexpressible +delight, seen the first model machine of five-horse power at work. With +a handful of fuel, applied to the very sensible medium of atmospheric +air, and a most ingenious disposition of its differential powers, he +beheld a resulting action in narrow compass, capable of extension to as +great forces as ever can be wielded or used by man." Dr. Andrew Ure +went so far as to say that the invention would "throw the name of his +great countryman, James Watt, into the shade." Professor Faraday gave +it an earnest approval. But, with these and some other eminent +exceptions, the scientific men of the day condemned the principle on +which the invention was based as unsound and untenable. + +The interest which the subject excited did not escape the British +Government. Before many days had elapsed, the Secretary of the Home +Department, accompanied by Mr. Brunel, the constructor of the Thames +Tunnel, made his appearance in the engine-room where the new motive +power was in operation. Mr. Brunel, who was at that time somewhat +advanced in years, conceived at the outset an erroneous notion of the +nature of the new power, which he would not suffer to be corrected by +explanations. A discussion sprang up between him and the inventor, +which was followed by a long correspondence. The result was, that an +unfavorable impression of the invention was communicated to the British +Government. + +The invention fared little better at the hands of Professor Faraday, +from whose efficient advocacy the most favorable results might have +been anticipated. This gentleman had announced that he would deliver a +lecture on the subject in London, in the spacious theatre of the Royal +Institution. The novelty of the invention, combined with the +reputation of the lecturer, had attracted a very large audience, +including many individuals of eminent scientific attainments. Just +half an hour, however, before he was expected to enlighten this +distinguished assembly, the celebrated lecturer discovered that he had +mistaken the expansive principle which is the very life of the +machine. Although he had spent many hours in studying the +Caloric-Engine in actual operation, and in testing its absolute force +by repeated experiments, Professor Faraday was compelled to inform his +hearers, at the very outset, that he did not know why the engine worked +at all. He was obliged to confine himself, therefore, to the +explanation of the Regenerator, and the process by which the heat is +continually returned to the cylinder, and re-employed in the +production of force. To this part of the invention he rendered ample +justice, and explained it in that felicitous style to which he is +indebted for the reputation he deservedly enjoys, as the most agreeable +and successful lecturer in England. + +Other causes than the misconception of a Brunel and a Faraday operated +to retard the practical success of this beautiful invention. The high +temperature which it was necessary to keep up in the circulating medium +of the engine, and the consequent oxidation, soon destroyed the +pistons, valves, and other working parts. These difficulties the +inventor endeavored to remedy, in an engine, which he subsequently +constructed, of much larger powers, but without success. His failure in +this respect, however, did not deter him from prosecuting his +invention. He continued his experiments from time to time, as +opportunity permitted, confident that he was gradually, but surely, +approaching the realization of his great scheme. + +Meanwhile he applied himself with his accustomed energy to the +practical working out of another favorite idea. The principle of the +Ericsson propeller was first suggested to the inventor by a study of +the means employed to propel the inhabitants of the air and deep. He +satisfied himself that all such propulsion in Nature is produced by +oblique action; though, in common with all practical men, he at first +supposed that it was inseparably attended by a loss of power. But when +he reflected that this was the principle invariably adopted by the +Great Mechanician of the Universe, in enabling the birds, insects, and +fishes to move through their respective elements, he knew that he must +be in error. This he was soon able to demonstrate, and he became +convinced, by a strict application of the laws which govern matter and +motion, that no loss of power whatever attends the oblique action of +the propelling surfaces applied to Nature's locomotives. After +having satisfied himself on the theory of the subject, the first step +of the inventor was the construction of a small model, which he tried +in the circular basin of a bath in London. To his great delight, so +perfectly was his theory borne out in practice, that this model, though +less than two feet long, performed its voyage about the basin at the +rate of three English miles an hour. + +The next step in the invention was the construction of a boat forty +feet long, eight feet beam, and three feet draught of water, with two +propellers, each of five feet three inches in diameter. So successful +was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the +boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without +a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she +attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was +found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons' +burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and +the American packet-ship Toronto was towed in the river Thames by this +miniature steamer at the rate of more than five English miles an hour. +This feat excited no little interest among the boatmen of the Thames, +who were astonished at the sight of this novel craft moving against +wind and tide without any visible agency of propulsion, and, ascribing +to it some supernatural origin, united in giving it the name of the +_Flying Devil_. But the engineers of London Hoarded the +experiment with silent neglect; and the subject, when laid before the +Lords of the British Admiralty, failed to attract any favorable notice +from that august body. + +Perceiving its peculiar and admirable fitness for ships of war, +Ericsson was confident that their Lordships would at once order the +construction of a war-steamer on the new principle. He invited them, +therefore, to take an excursion in tow of his experimental boat. +Accordingly, the gorgeous and gilt Admiralty Barge was ordered up to +Somerset House, and the little steamer was lashed along-side. The barge +contained Sir Charles Adam, Senior Lord of the Admiralty,--Sir William +Simonds, Chief Constructor of the British Navy,--Sir Edward Parry, the +celebrated Arctic navigator,--Captain Beaufort, the Chief of the +Topographical Department of the British Admiralty,--and others of +scientific and naval distinction. + +In the anticipation of a severe scrutiny from so distinguished a +personage as the Chief Constructor of the British Navy, the inventor +had carefully prepared plans of his new mode of propulsion, which were +spread on the damask cloth of the magnificent barge. To his utter +astonishment, as we may well imagine, this scientific gentleman did not +appear to take the slightest interest in his explanations. On the +contrary, with those expressive shrugs of the shoulder and shakes of +the head which convey so much to the bystander without absolutely +committing the actor,--with an occasional sly, mysterious, undertone +remark to his colleagues,--he indicated very plainly, that, though his +humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause for so much +unhappiness, yet that "he could, an if he would," demonstrate by a +single word the utter futility of the whole invention. + +Meanwhile the little steamer, with her precious charge, proceeded at a +steady progress of ten miles an hour, through the arches of the lofty +Southwark and London bridges, towards Limehouse, and the steam-engine +manufactory of the Messrs. Seaward. Their Lordships having landed, and +inspected the huge piles of ill-shaped cast-iron, misdenominated marine +engines, intended for some of His Majesty's steamers, with a look at +their favorite propelling--apparatus, the Morgan paddle-wheel, they +reembarked, and were safely returned to Somerset House by the +disregarded, noiseless, and unseen propeller of the new steamer. + +On parting, Sir Charles Adam, with a sympathizing air, shook the +inventor cordially by the hand, and thanked him for the trouble he had +been at in showing him and his friends this _interesting_ +experiment, adding that he feared he had put himself to too great an +expense and trouble on the occasion. Notwithstanding this somewhat +ominous _finale_ of the day's excursion, Ericsson felt confident +that their Lordships could not fail to perceive the great importance of +the invention. To his surprise, however, a few days afterwards, a +friend put into his hands a letter written by Captain Beaufort, at the +suggestion, probably, of the Lords of the Admiralty, in which that +gentleman, who had himself witnessed the experiment, expressed regret +to state that their Lordships had certainly been very much disappointed +at its result. The reason for the disappointment was altogether +inexplicable to the inventor; for the speed attained at this trial far +exceeded anything that had ever been accomplished by any paddle-wheel +steamer on so small a scale. + +An accident soon relieved his astonishment, and explained the +mysterious givings-out of Sir William Simonds on the day of the +excursion. The subject having been started at a dinner-table where a +friend of Ericsson's was present, Sir William ingeniously and +ingenuously remarked, that, "even if the propeller had the power of +propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, +_because_, the power being applied in the _stern_, it would +be _absolutely impossible_ to make the vessel steer." It may not +be obvious to every one how our naval philosopher derived his +conclusion from his premises; but his hearers doubtless readily +acquiesced in the oracular proposition, and were much amused at the +idea of undertaking to steer a vessel when the power was applied in her +stern. + +But we may well excuse the Lords of the British Admiralty for +exhibiting no interest in the invention, when we reflect that the +engineering corps of the empire were arrayed in opposition to +it,--alleging that it was constructed upon erroneous principles, and +full of practical defects, and regarding its failure as too certain to +authorize any speculations even as to its success. The plan was +specially submitted to many distinguished engineers, and was publicly +discussed in the scientific journals; and there was no one but the +inventor who refused to acquiesce in the truth of the numerous +demonstrations proving the vast loss of mechanical power which must +attend this proposed substitute for the old-fashioned paddle-wheel. + +While opposed by such a powerful array of English scientific wisdom, +the inventor had the satisfaction of submitting his plan to a citizen +of the New World, Mr. Francis B. Ogden,--for many years Consul of the +United States at Liverpool,--who was able to understand its philosophy +and appreciate its importance. Though not an engineer by profession, +Mr. Ogden was distinguished for his eminent attainments in mechanical +science, and is entitled to the honor of having first applied the +important principle of the expansive power of steam, and of having +originated the idea of employing right-angular cranks in marine +engines. His practical experience and long study of the subject--for he +was the first to stem the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam alone--enabled him at +once to perceive the truth of the inventor's demonstrations. And not +only did he admit their truth, but he also joined Ericsson in +constructing the experimental boat to which we have alluded, and +which the inventor launched into the Thames with the name of the +"Francis B. Ogden," as a token of respect to his Transatlantic friend. + +Other circumstances soon occurred which consoled the inventor for his +disappointment in the rejection of the propeller by the British +Admiralty. The subject had been brought to the notice of an officer of +the United States navy. Captain Robert F. Stockton, who was at that +time on a visit to London, and who was induced to accompany him in one +of his experimental excursions on the Thames. Captain Stockton is +entitled to the credit of being the first naval officer who heard, +understood, and dared to act upon the suggestions of Ericsson, as to +the application of the propeller to ships of war. At the first glance, +he saw the important bearings of the invention; and his acute judgment +enabled him at once to predict that it was destined to work a +revolution in naval warfare. After making a single trip in the +experimental steamboat, from London Bridge to Greenwich, he ordered +the inventor to build for him forthwith two iron boats for the United +States, with steam-machinery and propeller on the plan of this rejected +invention. "I do not want," said Stockton, "the opinions of your +scientific men; what I have seen this day satisfies me." He at once +brought the subject before the Government of the United States, and +caused numerous plans and models to be made, at his own expense, +explaining the peculiar fitness of the invention for ships of war. So +completely persuaded was he of its great importance in this aspect, +and so determined that his views should be carried out, that he boldly +assured the inventor that the Government of the United States would +test the propeller on a large scale; and so confident was Ericsson +that the perseverance and energy of Captain Stockton would sooner or +later accomplish what he promised, that he at once abandoned his +professional engagements in England, and came to the United States, +where he fixed his residence in the city of New York. This was in the +year 1839. + +Circumstances delayed, for some two years, the execution of their plan. +With the change of the Federal Administration, Stockton was first able +to obtain a favorable hearing; and having at length received the +necessary authority, the Princeton was built under his superintendence, +from the designs of Ericsson. She was completed and ready for sea +early in 1844, when she was pronounced by Stockton "the cheapest, +fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world." + +In this vessel, in addition to the propeller, Ericsson introduced his +semicylindrical steam-engine, a beautiful invention, so compact that +it occupied only one-eighth of the bulk of the British marine engine +of corresponding power, and was placed more than four feet below the +water-line. The boilers were also below the water-line, having a +peculiar heating-apparatus attached which effected a great saving of +fuel, and with their furnaces and flues so constructed as to burn +anthracite as well as bituminous coal. Instead of the ordinary tall +smoke-pipe,--an insuperable objection to a steamer as a ship of +war,--he constructed a smoke-pipe upon the principle of the telescope, +which could be elevated or depressed at pleasure; and in order to +provide a draught independent of the height of the smoke-pipe, he +placed centrifugal blowers in the bottom of the vessel, which were +worked by separate small engines,--an arrangement originally applied +by him to marine engines in the steam-packet Corsair in 1831. Thus the +steam-machinery of the Princeton fulfilled the most important +requisites for a war-steamer, combining lightness, compactness, +simplicity, and efficiency, and being placed wholly out of reach of the +enemy's fire. + +The armament of the ship also exhibited many peculiarities. "By the +application of the various arts to the purposes of war on board of the +Princeton," says Captain Stockton, in his report to the Navy +Department, "it is believed that the art of gunnery for sea-service +has, for the first time, been reduced to something like mathematical +certainty. The distance to which the guns can throw their shot at every +necessary angle of elevation has been ascertained by a series of +careful experiments. The distance from the ship to any object is +readily ascertained with an instrument on board, contrived for that +purpose, by an observation which it requires but an instant to make, +and by inspection without calculation. By self-acting locks, the guns +can be fired accurately at the necessary elevation,--no matter what +the motion of the ship may be." The instruments here referred to, +namely, the Distance-Instrument and the Self-Acting Gun-Lock, and also +the wrought-iron gun-carriage, by means of which Captain Stockton's +enormous guns were readily handled and directed, all were the +productions of Ericsson's fertile mechanical genius. + +A committee of the American Institute, by whom this remarkable vessel +was examined, thus concluded their report:--"Your Committee take leave +to present the Princeton as every way worthy the highest honors of the +Institute. She is a sublime conception, most successfully +realized,--an effort of genius skilfully executed,--a grand +_unique_ combination, honorable to the country, as creditable to +all engaged upon her. Nothing in the history of mechanics surpasses the +inventive genius of Captain Ericsson, unless it be the moral daring of +Captain Stockton, in the adoption of so many novelties at one time." We +may add that in the Princeton was exhibited the first successful +application of screw-propulsion to a ship of war, and that she was the +first steamship ever built with the machinery below the water-line and +out of the reach of shot. + +Ericsson spent the best part of two years in his labors upon the +Princeton. Besides furnishing the general plan of the ship and +supplying her in every department with his patented improvements, he +prepared, with his own hand, the working-drawings for every part of +the steam-machinery, propelling-apparatus, and steering-apparatus in +detail, and superintended their whole construction and arrangement, +giving careful and exact instructions as to the most minute +particulars. In so doing, he was compelled to make frequent journeys +from New York to Sandy Hook and Philadelphia, involving no small amount +of trouble and expense. For the use of his patent rights in the engine +and propeller, he had, at the suggestion of Captain Stockton, refrained +from charging the usual fees, consenting to accept, as full +satisfaction, whatever the Government, after testing the inventions, +should see fit to pay. He never imagined, however, that his laborious +services as engineer were to go unrequited, or that his numerous +inventions and improvements, unconnected with the engine and propeller, +were to be furnished gratuitously. Yet, when, after the Princeton, as +we have seen, had been pronounced on all hands a splendid success, +Ericsson presented his bill to the Navy Department,--not for the +patent-fees in question, but for the bare repayment of his +expenditures, and compensation for his time and labor in the service +of the United States,--he was informed that his claim could not be +allowed; it could not be recognized as a "legal claim." It was not +denied that the services alleged had been rendered,--that the work for +which compensation was asked had been done by Ericsson, and well +done,--nor that the United States were in the enjoyment of the unpaid +results of his labor and invention. A claim based upon such +considerations might, it would seem, have been brought within the +definition of a legal claim. But if not admissible under the strict +rules of the Navy Department, it was certainly an equitable demand +against the United States; and Ericsson could not believe that the +representatives of the great American people would stand upon +technicalities. He accordingly made a direct appeal to them in a +Memorial to Congress. + +We may as well here give the further history of this claim. It met with +the usual delays and obstructions that private claims, having nothing +but their intrinsic merits to support them, are compelled to +encounter. It called forth the usual amount of legislative +pettifogging. Session after session passed away, and still it hung +between the two Houses of Congress, until the very time which had +elapsed since it was first presented began to be brought up as an +argument against it. At length, when Congress established the Court of +Claims, a prospect opened of bringing it to a fair hearing and a +final decision. It was submitted to that tribunal six years ago. The +Court decided in its favor,--the three judges (Gilchrist, Scarborough, +and Blackford) being unanimous in their judgment. A bill directing its +payment was reported to the Senate,--and there it is still. Although +favorably reported upon by two committees at different sessions, and +once passed by the Senate, without a vote recorded against it, it has +never yet got through both Houses of Congress. For furnishing this +Government with the magnificent war-steamer which was pronounced by +Captain Stockton "the cheapest, fastest, and most certain ship of war +in the world," Ericsson has never been paid a dollar. It remains to be +seen whether the present Congress will permit this stain upon the +national good faith to continue. If it does, its "votes of thanks" are +little better than a mockery. + +The efficiency and utility of the propeller having been established +beyond a doubt, it went at once into extensive use. But the inventor +was again disappointed in his just expectation of reaping an adequate +pecuniary benefit from his exertions. Upon the strength of some +attempts at screw-propulsion,--made and abandoned by various +experimenters,--which had never resulted, and probably never would +have resulted, in any practical application, rival machines, which +conflicted with Ericsson's patent, soon made their appearance. A long +litigation followed, during which all attempts to collect patent-fees +were necessarily suspended; and the result was, that the invention was +virtually abandoned to the public. But no one can take from Ericsson +the honor of having first introduced the screw-propeller into actual +use, and demonstrated its value,--an honor which is now freely +accorded to him by the highest scientific authorities at home and +abroad. + +Although the first five years of his American experience had been less +profitable, in a pecuniary sense, than he had anticipated, he +continued to reside in the city of New York, where he found an ample +field for the exercise of his great powers in the line of his +profession. He planned the war-steamer Pomone, the first screw-vessel +introduced into the French navy. He planned revenue-cutters for the +United States Government, taking care always to have his contracts so +distinctly made that no question could again arise as to his "legal +claim." He invented a useful apparatus for supplying the boilers of +sea-going steamers with fresh water. He invented various modifications +of the steam-engine. + +In the American division of the London Industrial Exhibition of all +Nations in 1851, he exhibited the Distance-Instrument, for measuring +distances at sea,--the Hydrostatic Gauge, for measuring the volume of +fluids under pressure,--the Reciprocating Fluid-Metre, for measuring +the quantity of water which passes through pipes during definite +periods,--the Alarm-Barometer,--the Pyrometer, intended as a standard +measure of temperature, from the freezing-point of water up to the +melting-point of iron,--a Rotary Fluid-Metre, the principle of which +is the measurement of fluids by the velocity with which they pass +through apertures of different dimensions,--and a Sea-Lead, contrived +for taking soundings at sea without rounding the vessel to the wind, +and independently of the length of the lead-line. For these inventions +he received the prize-medal of the Exhibition. + +But while thus continually occupied with new enterprises and objects, +he did not lose sight of his great idea, the Caloric-Engine. All his +spare hours and spare funds were devoted to experiments with the view +of overcoming the practical difficulties which stood in the way of its +success. Towards the end of the year 1851 he seemed to be on the point +of realizing his hopes, having constructed a large stationary engine, +which was applied with great success, at the Phoenix Foundry in New +York, to the actual work of pumping water. Soon after, through the +liberality of Mr. John B. Kitching, a well-known merchant of New +York, he was enabled to test the invention on a magnificent scale. A +ship of two thousand tons, propelled by the power of caloric-engines, +was planned and constructed by him in the short space of seven months, +and in honor of the inventor received the name of the "Ericsson." + +Every one will remember the interest which this caloric-ship excited +throughout the country. She made a trip from New York to Alexandria on +the Potomac, in very rough weather, in the latter part of February, +1853. On this trip the engines were in operation for seventy-three +hours without being stopped for a moment, and without requiring the +slightest adjustment, the consumption of fuel being only five tons in +twenty-four hours. At Alexandria she was visited by the President and +President elect, the heads of the departments, a large number of naval +officers, and many members of both Houses of Congress, and +subsequently by the foreign ministers in a body, and by the Legislature +of Virginia, then in session. Ericsson was invited by a committee of +the Legislature to visit Richmond, as the guest of the State. The +Secretary of the Navy recommended, in a special communication to +Congress, the passage of a resolution authorizing him to contract for +the construction of a frigate of two thousand tons to be equipped with +caloric-engines, and to appropriate for this purpose five hundred +thousand dollars. This recommendation failed in consequence of the +pressure of business at the close of the session. + +But notwithstanding the surprise and admiration which this achievement +excited in the scientific world, the speed attained was not sufficient +to meet the practical exigencies of commerce; and the repetition of +the engines on this large scale could not be undertaken at the charge +of individuals. Ericsson accordingly wisely devoted himself to +perfecting the Calorie-Engine on a small scale, and in 1859 he +produced it in a form which has since proved a complete success. It is +no longer a subject of experiment, but exists as a perfect, practical +machine. More than five hundred of these engines, with cylinders +varying from a diameter of six inches to one of forty inches, are now +in successful operation. It is applied to purposes of pumping, +printing, hoisting, grinding, sawing, turning light machinery, working +telegraphic instruments and sewing-machines, and propelling boats. No +less than forty daily papers (among which we may mention the "National +Intelligencer") are printed by means of this engine. In Cuba it is +used for grinding sugar-cane, on Southern plantations for ginning +cotton; and there is an endless variety of domestic, agricultural, and +mechanical uses to which it may be advantageously applied. + +The extent of power attainable by this machine, consistently with its +application to practical uses, is not yet precisely defined. Within +the limit thus far given to it, its power is certain, uniform, and +entirely sufficient. It is not attended with the numerous perils that +make the steam-engine so uncomfortable a servant, but is absolutely +free from danger. It requires no engineering supervision. It consumes a +very small amount of fuel (about one-third of the amount required by +the steam-engine) and requires no water. These peculiarities not only +make it a very desirable substitute for the steam-engine, but render +it available for many purposes to which the steam-engine would never +be applied. + +In addition to his regular professional avocations, Ericsson was +industriously occupied in devising new applications of the +Calorie-Engine, when the attempted secession of the Southern States +plunged the country into the existing war and struck a blow at all the +arts of peace. Ills whole heart and mind were given at once to the +support of the Union. Liberal in all his ideas, he is warmly attached +to republican institutions, and has a hearty abhorrence of intolerance +and oppression in all their forms. His early military education and +his long study of the appliances of naval warfare increased the +interest with which he watched the progress of events. The abandonment +of the Norfolk navy-yard to the Rebels struck him as a disgrace that +might have been avoided. He foresaw the danger of a formidable +antagonist from that quarter in the steamship which we had so +obligingly furnished them. The building of gun-boats with +steam-machinery _above_ the water-line--where the first shot from +an enemy might render it useless--seemed to him, in view of what he +had done and was ready to do again, a very unnecessary error. Knowing +thoroughly all the improvements made and making in the war-steamers of +England and France, and feeling the liability of their interference in +our affairs, he could not appreciate the wisdom of building new +vessels according to old ideas. The blockade of the Potomac by Rebel +batteries, in the very face of our navy, seemed to him an indignity +which need not be endured, if the inventive genius of the North could +have fair play. + +An impregnable iron gun-boat was, in his judgment, the thing that was +needed; and he determined that the plan of such a vessel should be his +contribution towards the success of the war. The subject was not a +new one to him. He had given it much consideration, and his plan, in +all its essential features, had been matured long before. Proposals +for iron-clad vessels having been invited by the Navy Department, +Ericsson promptly submitted his plans and specifications. Knowing the +opposition that novelties always encounter, he had no great expectation +that his proposal would be accepted. "I have done my part," said he; "I +have offered my plan. It is for the Government to say whether I shall +be allowed to carry it out." He felt confident, however, that, if the +plan should be brought to the notice of the President, his practical +wisdom and sound common sense could not fail to decide in its favor. +Fortunately for the country, Ericsson's offer was accepted by the Navy +Department. He immediately devoted all his energies to the execution of +his task, and the result was the construction of the vessel to which he +himself gave the name of the "Monitor." What she is and what she has +accomplished, we need not here repeat. Whatever may be her future +history, we may safely say, in the words of the New York Chamber of +Commerce, that "the floating-battery Monitor deserves to be, and will +be, forever remembered with gratitude and admiration." + +We rejoice to believe that the merits and services of Ericsson are now +fully appreciated by the people of the United States. The thanks of the +nation have been tendered to him by a resolution of Congress. The +Boston Board of Trade and the New York Chamber of Commerce have passed +resolutions expressive of their gratitude. The latter body expressed +also their desire that the Government of the United States should make +to Captain Ericsson "such suitable return for his services as will +evince the gratitude of a great nation." Upon hearing this suggestion, +Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,--"All the remuneration +I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is +all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of +consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he +discountenanced the movement set on foot among the merchants of New +York for the subscription of a sum of money to be presented to him. He +asks nothing but fair remuneration for services rendered,--and that, it +is to be hoped, the people will take care that he shall receive. + +Ericsson is now zealously at work in constructing six new iron +gun-boats on the plan of the Monitor. If that remarkable structure can +be surpassed, he is the man to accomplish it. His ambition is to render +the United States impregnable against the navies of the world. "Give me +only the requisite means," he writes, "and in a very short time we can +say to those powers now bent on destroying republican institutions, +'_Leave the Gulf with your frail craft, or perish_!' I have all my +life asserted that mechanical science will put an end to the power of +England over the seas. The ocean is Nature's highway between the +nations. It should be free; and surely Nature's laws, when properly +applied, will make it so." + +His reputation as an engineer is worldwide. In 1852 he was made a +Knight of the Order of Vasa by King Oscar of Sweden. The following +extract from a poem "To John Ericsson" we translate from "Svenska +Tidningen," the Government journal of Stockholm. It is eloquently +expressive of the pride and admiration with which he is regarded in his +native country. + +"World-wide his fame, so gracefully adorning +His native Sweden with enduring radiance! +Not a king's crown could give renown so noble: +For his is Thought's great triumph, and the sceptre +He wields is over elements his subjects!" + +Although now in his sixtieth year, Ericsson has the appearance of a man +of forty. He is in the very maturity of a vigorous manhood, and retains +all the fire and enthusiasm of youth. He has a frame of iron, cast in a +large and symmetrical mould. His head and face are indicative of +intellectual power and a strong will. His presence impresses one, at +the first glance, as that of an extraordinary man. His bearing is +dignified and courteous, with a touch perhaps of military +_brusquerie_ in his mode of address. He has a keen sense of humor, +a kindly and generous disposition, and a genial and companionable +nature. He is a "good hater" and a firm friend. Like all men of strong +character and outspoken opinions, he has some enemies; but his chosen +friends he "grapples to his heart with hooks of steel." + +He is not a mere mechanician, but has great knowledge of men and of +affairs, and an ample fund of information on all subjects. His +conversation is engaging and instructive; and when he seeks to enlist +coöperation in his mechanical enterprises, few men can withstand the +force of his arguments and the power of his personal magnetism. + +Although his earnings have sometimes been large, his heavy expenditures +in costly experiments have prevented him from acquiring wealth. Money +is with him simply a means of working out new ideas for the benefit of +mankind; and in this way he does not scruple to spend to the utmost +limit of his resources. He lives freely and generously, but is strictly +temperate and systematic in all his habits. + +The amount of labor which he is capable of undergoing is astonishing. +While engaged in carrying out his inventions, it is a common thing for +him to pass sixteen hours a day at his table, in the execution of +detailed mechanical drawings, which he throws off with a facility and +in a style that have probably never been surpassed. He does not seem to +need such recreation as other men pine after. He never cares to run +down to the seashore, or take a drive into the country, or spend a week +at Saratoga or at Newport. Give him his drawing-table, his plans, his +models, the noise of machinery, the clatter of the foundry, and he is +always contented. Week in and week out, summer and winter, he works on +and on,--and the harder he works, the more satisfied he seems to be. He +is as untiring as one of his own engines, which never stop so long as +the fire burns. Endowed with such a constitution, it is to be hoped +that new triumphs and many years of honor and usefulness are yet before +him. + + * * * * * + + +MOVING. + + +Man is like an onion. He exists in concentric layers. He is born a +bulb and grows by external accretions. The number and character of his +involutions certify to his culture and courtesy. Those of the boor are +few and coarse. Those of the gentleman are numerous and fine. But strip +off the scales from all and you come to the same germ. The core of +humanity is barbarism. Every man is a latent savage. + +You may be startled and shocked, but I am stating fact, not theory. I +announce not an invention, but a discovery. You look around you, and +because you do not see tomahawks and tattooing you doubt my assertion. +But your observation is superficial. You have not penetrated into the +secret place where souls abide. You are staring only at the outside +layer of your neighbors; just peel them and see what you will find. + +I speak from the highest possible authority,--my own. Representing the +gentler half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and +good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with +the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand +and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my +circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of +Americans,--and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the +moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten +that stand lower. Yet through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of +my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty +to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization +leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be +just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white +shores of Britain fifteen hundred years ago. + +For we have been moving. + +People who live in cities and move regularly every year from one good, +finished, right-side-up house to another will think I give a very small +reason for a very broad fact; but they do not know what they are +talking about. They have fallen into a way of looking upon a house only +as an exaggerated trunk, into which they pack themselves annually with +as much nonchalance as if it were only their preparation for a summer +trip to the seashore. They don't strike root anywhere. They don't have +to tear up anything. A man comes with cart and horses. There is a stir +in the one house,--they are gone;--there is a stir in the other +house,--they are settled,--and everything is wound up and set going to +run another year. We do these things differently in the country. We +don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, +then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, +and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then +it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then +it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,--but keep living in it all +the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just +such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown +like a fungus ever since there was anything to grow,--where your life +and luggage have crept into all the crevices and corners, and every +wall is festooned with associations thicker than the cobwebs, though +the cobwebs are pretty thick,--where the furniture and the pictures and +the knick-knacks are so become a part and parcel of the house, so grown +with it and into it, that you do not know they are chiefly rubbish till +you begin to move them and they fall to pieces, and don't know it then, +but persist in packing them up and carrying them away for the sake of +auld lang syne, till, set up again in your new abode, you suddenly find +that their sacredness is gone, their dignity has degraded into +dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only +comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has +suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and +the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this +tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the _débris_ of many +generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary +new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough +for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great +crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, +literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and +amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,--in short, all the +arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,--and on this +side--moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to +my thinking, all the discomforts short of absolute physical torture +that can be condensed into the human lot. Condensed, did I say? If it +were a condensed agony, I could endure it. One great, stunning, +overpowering blow is undoubtedly terrible, but you rally all your +fortitude to meet and resist it, and when it is over it is over and the +recuperative forces go to work; but a trouble that worries and baffles +and pricks and rasps you, that penetrates into all the ramifications of +your life, that fills you with profound disgust, and fires you with +irrepressible fury, and makes of you an Ishmaelite indeed, with your +hand against every man and every man's hand against you,--ah! that is +the _experimentum crucis_. Such is moving, in the country,--not an +act, but a process,--not a volition, but a fermentation. + +We will say that the first of September is the time appointed for the +transit. The day approaches. It is the twenty-ninth of August. I +prepare to take hold of the matter in earnest. I am nipped in the bud +by learning that the woman who was to help about the carpets cannot +come, because her baby is taken with the croup. I have not a doubt of +it. I never knew a baby yet that did not go and have the croup, or the +colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was imperatively necessary +that it should not have them. But there is no help for it. I shudder +and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at the heavy, bulky, +unwieldy carpets, and am covered with dust and abomination. I think +carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. +It is impossible to be clean with them under your feet. You may sweep +your carpet twenty times and raise a dust on the twenty-first. I am +sure I heard long ago of some new fashion that was to be +introduced,--some Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something of +the sort. I should welcome anything that would dispense with these vile +rags. I sigh over the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers +rejoiced in,--and so, apotheosizing the past and anathematizing the +present, I pull away, and the tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer +slips and lets me back with a jerk, and the dust fills my hair and nose +and eyes and mouth and lungs, and my hands grow red and coarse and +ragged and sore and begrimed, and I pull and choke and cough and +strangle and pull. + +So the carpets all come up and the curtains all come down. The bureaus +march out of the chamber-windows and dance on a tight-rope down into +the yard below. The chairs are set at "heads and points." The clothes +are packed into the trunks. The flour and meal and sugar, all the +wholesale edibles, are carted down to the new house and stored. The +forks are wrapped up and we eat with our fingers, and have nothing to +eat at that. Then we are informed that the new house will not be ready +short of two weeks at least. Unavoidable delays. The plasterers were +hindered; the painters misunderstood orders; the paperers have +defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no +matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total +depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their +word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised +reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of +it,--a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis +state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch +towards the new house, just sufficient to keep up the circulation. One +day I dreamily carry down a basket of wine-glasses. At another time I +listlessly stuff all my slippers into a huge pitcher and take up the +line of march. Again a bucket is filled with tea-cups, or I shoulder +the fire-shovel. The two weeks drag themselves away, and the cry is +still, "Unfinished!" To prevent petrifying into a fossil remain, or +relapsing into primitive barbarism, or degenerating into a dormouse, I +rouse my energies and determine to put my own shoulder to the wheel and +see if something cannot be accomplished. I rise early in the morning +and walk to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of "gumption," +"faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am told that he is in Beersheba. Nothing +daunted, I take a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding +manifold dangers from rickety stone-walls, strong enough to keep women +in, but not strong enough to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts +out,--toppling enough to play the mischief with draperies, but not +toppling enough to topple over when urgently pressed to do so. But I +secure my man, and remember no more my sorrow of bulls and stones for +joy at my success. From Beersheba I proceed to Padan-aram to buy seven +pounds of flour, thence to Galilee of the Gentiles for a pound of +cheese, thence to the land of Uz for a smoked halibut, thence to the +ends of the earth for a lemon to make life tolerable,--and the days +hobble on. + +"The flying gold of the ruined woodlands" drives through the air, the +signal is given, and there is no longer "quiet on the Potomac." The +unnatural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once more I bring myself +to bear on the furniture and the trumpery, and there is a small +household whirlpool. All that went before "pales its ineffectual +fires." Now comes the strain upon my temper, and my temper bends, and +quivers, and creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his spear; +all the integuments of my conventional, artificial, and acquired +gentleness peel off, and I stand revealed a savage. Everything around +me sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. Looking-glasses +are shivered by the dozen. A bit is nicked out of the best China +sugar-bowl. A pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around the +centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished +surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, +and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of +woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the +closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a +moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush +rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. +"I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his leg. A +fractured leg is easily mended; but who shall restore me the nose of +my nymph, marred into irremediable deformity and dishonor? + +Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart the darkness to keep me +back from rash deeds. Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of +dark, bright hair and gold and pearls, that I lost two years ago and +would not be comforted. O happy days woven in with the dark, bright +hair! O golden, pearly days, come back to me again! "Never mind your +gewgaws," interposes real life; "what is to be done with the things in +this drawer?" Lying atop of a heap of old papers in the front-yard, +waiting the match that is to glorify them into flame, I find a letter +that mysteriously disappeared long since and caused me infinite alarm +lest indelicate eyes might see it and indelicate hands make ignoble use +of its honest and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new and +interesting facts in mechanics. I become acquainted for the first time +with the _modus operandi_ of "roller-cloths." I never understood +before how the roller got inside the towel. It was one of those gentle +domestic mysteries that repel even while they invite investigation. I +shall not give the result of my discovery to the public. If you wish +very much to find out, you can move, as I did. + +But the rifts of sunshine disappear, the clouds draw together and close +in. The savage walks abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life. + +I have scarcely fallen asleep, when I am reluctantly, by short and +difficult stages, awakened. A rumbling, grating, strident noise first +confuses, then startles me. Is it robbers? Is it an earthquake? Is it +the coming of fate? I lie rigid, bathed in a cold perspiration. I hear +the tread of banditti on the moaning stairs. I see the flutter of +ghostly robes by the uncurtained windows. A chill, uncanny air rushes +in and grips at my damp hair. I am nerved by the extremity of my +terror. I will die of anything but fright. I jerk off the bedclothes, +convulse into an upright posture, and glare into the darkness. Nothing. +I rise softly, creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that always +creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. A light gleams through +the open door of the opposite room whence the sound issues. A familiar +voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It is Petronius, the +unprincipled scoundrel, who is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly +through innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail came near +giving me an epilepsy. My savage lets loose the dogs of war. Petronius +would fain defend himself by declaring that it is morning. I +indignantly deny it. He produces his watch. A fig for his watch! I +stake my consciousness against twenty watches, and go to bed again; but +Sleep, angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up +the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the +morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself +upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be +corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify +me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded +up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring +Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does +not mend his ways, I slowly emerge again into the world,--the dreary, +chaotic world,--the world that is never at rest. + +And there is hurrying to and fro, and a clang of many voices, and the +clatter of much crockery, and a lifting, and balancing, and battering +against walls and curving around corners, and sundry contusions, and a +great waste of expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of +patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, +steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of +something from upsetting with the other, and both arms stretched around +a very big and very square picture-frame that knocks against my nose or +my chin every time the cart goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and +the wind threatening to blow my hat off, and blowing it off, and my +"back-hair" tumbling down,--and the old house is at last despoiled. The +rooms stand bare and brown and desolate. The sun, a hand-breadth above +the horizon, pours in through the unblinking windows. The last load is +gone. The last man has departed. I am left alone to lock up the house +and walk over the hill to the new home. Then, for the first time, I +remember that I am leaving. As I pass through the door of my own room, +not regretfully, I turn. I look up and down and through and through the +place where I shall never rest again, and I rejoice that it is so. As I +stand there, with the red, solid sunshine lying on the floor, lying on +the walls, unfamiliar in its new profusion, the silence becomes +audible. In the still October evening there is an effort in the air. +The dumb house is striving to find a voice. I feel the struggle of its +insensate frame. The old timbers quiver with the unusual strain. The +strong, blind, vegetable energy agonizes to find expression, and, +wrestling like a pinioned giant, the soul of matter throws off the +weight of Its superincumbent inertia. Slowly, gently, most sorrowfully +through the golden air cleaves a voice that is somewhat a wail, yet not +untuned by love. Inarticulate at first, I catch only the low +mournfulness; but it clears, it concentrates, it murmurs into cadence, +it syllables into intelligence, and thus the old house speaks:-- + +"Child, my child, forward to depart, stay for one moment your eager +feet. Put off from your brow the crown which the sunset has woven, and +linger yet a little longer in the shadow which enshrouds me forever. I +remember, in this parting hour, the day of days which the tremulous +years bore in their bosom,--a day crimson with the woodbine's happy +flush and glowing with the maple's gold. On that day a tender, tiny +life came down, and stately Silence fled before the pelting of +baby-laughter. Faint memories of far-off olden time were softly +stirred. Blindly thrilled through all my frame a vague, dim sense of +swelling buds, and singing-birds, and summer-gales,--of the purple +beauty of violets, the smells of fragrant earth, and the sweetness of +summer dews and darks. Many a harvest-moon since then has filled her +yellow horn, and queenly Junes crowned with roses have paled before the +sternness of Decembers. But Decembers and Junes alike bore royal gifts +to you,--gifts to the busy brain and the awakening heart. In dell and +copse and meadow and gay green-wood you drank great draughts of life. +Yet, even as I watched, your eyes grew wistful. Your lips framed +questions for which the Springs found no reply, and the sacred mystery +of living brought its sweet, uncertain pain. Then you went away, and a +shadow fell. A gleam passed out of the sunshine and a note from the +robin's song. The knights that pranced on the household hearth grew +faint and still, and died for want of young eyes to mark their +splendor. But when your feet, ever and anon, turned homeward, they used +a firmer step, and I knew, that, though the path might be rough, you +trod it bravely. I saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler thing +than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burning in the holy place. But +now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the +sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The +summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And--O bitterest cup of +all!--the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I +totter down to the grave, while you go on from strength to strength. +The Junes that gave you life brought death to me, and you sorrow not. O +child of my tender care, look not so coldly on my pain! Breathe one +sigh of regret, drop one tear of pity, before we part!" + +The mournful murmur ceased. I am not adamant. My savage crouched out of +sight among the underbrush. I think something stirred in the back of my +eyes. There was even a suspicion of dampness in front. I thrust my hand +in my pocket to have my handkerchief ready in case of a catastrophe. It +was an unfortunate proceeding. My pocket was crammed full. I had to +push my fingers in between all manner of rubbish, to get at the +required article, and when I got hold of it, I had to pull with all my +might to get it out, and when it did come, out with it came a tin box +of mustard seed, a round wooden box of tooth-powder, a ball of twine, a +paper of picture-books, and a pair of gloves. Of course, the covers of +both the boxes came off. The seed scattered over the floor. The +tooth-powder puffed a white cloud into my face. The ball of twine +unrolled and trundled to the other side of the room. I gathered up what +I could, but, by the time order was restored and my handkerchief ready +for use, I had no use for it. The stirring in the back of my eyes had +stopped. The dewiness had disappeared. My savage sprang out from the +underbrush and brandished his tomahawk. And to the old house I made +answer as a Bushman of Caffraria might, or a Sioux of the +Prae-Pilgrimic Age:-- + +"Old House, hush up! Why do you talk stuff? 'Golden memories' indeed! +To hear you, one might suppose you were an ivied castle on the Rhine, +and I a fair-haired princess, cradled in the depths of regal luxury, +feeding on the blossoms of a thousand generations, and heroic from +inborn royalty. 'Tender care'! Did you not wake me in the middle of the +night, last summer, by trickling down water on my face from a passing +shower? and did I not have to get up at that unearthly hour to move the +bed, and step splash into a puddle, and come very near being floated +away? Did not the water drip, drip, drip upon my writing-desk, and soak +the leather and swell the wood, and stain the ribbon and spoil the +paper inside, and all because you were treacherous at the roof and let +it? Have you not made a perfect rattery of yourself, yawning at every +possible chink and crumbling at the underpinning, and keeping me awake +night after night by the tramp of a whole brigade of the Grand Army +that slaughtered Bishop Hatto? Whenever a breeze comes along stout +enough to make an aspen-leaf tremble, don't you immediately go into +hysterics, and rock, and creak, and groan, as if you were the shell of +an earthquake? Don't you shrivel at every window to let in the +northeasters and all the snow-storms that walk abroad? Whenever a +needle, or a pencil, or a penny drops, don't you open somewhere and +take it in? 'Golden memories'! Leaden memories! Wooden memories! Madden +memories!" + +My savage gave a war-whoop. I turned scornfully. I swept down the +staircase. I banged the front-door. I locked it with an accent, and +marched up the hill. A soft sighing breathed past me. I knew it was the +old house mourning for her departing child. The sun had disappeared, +but the western sky was jubilant in purple and gold. The cool evening +calmed me. The echoes of the war-whoop vibrated almost tenderly along +the hushed hillside. I paused on the summit of the hill and looked +back. Down in the valley stood the sorrowful house, tasting the first +bitterness of perpetual desolation. The maples and the oaks and the +beech-trees hung out their flaming banners. The pond lay dark in the +shadow of the circling hills. The years called to me,--the happy, +sun-ripe years that I had left tangled in the apple-blossoms, and +moaning among the pines, and tinkling in the brook, and floating in the +cups of the water-lilies. They looked up at me from the orchard, dark +and cool. They thrilled across from the hill-tops, glowing still with +the glowing sky. I heard their voice by the lilac-bush. They smiled at +me under the peach-trees, and where the blackberries had ripened +against the southern wall. I felt them once more in the clover-smells +and the new-mown hay. They swayed again in the silken tassels of the +crisp, rustling corn. They hummed with the bees in the garden-borders. +They sang with the robins in the cherry-trees, and their tone was +tender and passing sweet. They besought me not to cast away their +memory for despite of the black-browed troop whose vile and sombre +robes had mingled in with their silver garments. They prayed me to +forget, but not all. They minded me of the sweet counsel we had taken +together, when summer came over the hills and walked by the +watercourses. They bade me remember the good tidings of great joy which +they had brought me when my eyes were dim with unavailing tears. My +lips trembled to their call. The war-whoop chanted itself into a +vesper. A happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered out over the +valley, and a comfort settled on the sad old house as I stretched forth +my hands and from my inmost soul breathed down a _Benedicite!_ + + * * * * * + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +It may seem to some of my readers that I have wandered from my subject +and forgotten the title of these articles, which purport to be a series +of papers on "Methods of Study in Natural History." But some idea of +the progress of Natural History, of its growth as a science, of the +gradual evolving of general principles out of a chaotic mass of facts, +is a better aid to the student than direct instruction upon special +modes of investigation; and it is with the intention of presenting the +study of Natural History from this point of view that I have chosen my +title. + +I have endeavored thus far to show how scientific facts have been +systematized so as to form a classification that daily grows more true +to Nature, in proportion as its errors are corrected by a more intimate +acquaintance with the facts; but I will now attempt a more difficult +task, and try to give some idea of the mental process by which facts +are transformed into scientific truth. I fear that the subject may seem +very dry to my readers, and I would again ask their indulgence for +details absolutely essential to my purpose, but which would indeed be +very wearisome, did they not lead us up to an intelligent and most +significant interpretation of their meaning. + +I should be glad to remove the idea that science is the mere amassing +of facts. It is true that scientific results grow out of facts, but not +till they have been fertilized by thought The facts must be collected, +but their mere accumulation will never advance the sum of human +knowledge by one step;--it is the comparison of facts and their +transformation into ideas that lead to a deeper insight into the +significance of Nature. Stringing words together in incoherent +succession does not make an intelligible sentence; facts are the words +of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach +us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations and +recognize the thought that binds them together as a consistent whole. + +I have spoken of the plans that lie at the foundation of all the +variety of the Animal Kingdom as so many structural ideas which must +have had an intellectual existence in the Creative Conception +independently of any special material expression of them. Difficult +though it be to present these plans as pure abstract formulae, distinct +from the animals that represent them, I would nevertheless attempt to +do it, in order to show how the countless forms of animal life have +been generalized into the few grand, but simple intellectual +conceptions on which all the past populations of the earth as well as +the present creation are founded. In such attempts to divest the +thought of its material expression, especially when that expression is +multiplied in such thousand-fold variety of form and color, our +familiarity with living animals is almost an obstacle to our success. +For I shall hardly be able to allude to the formula of the Radiates, +for instance,--the abstract idea that includes all the structural +possibilities of that division of the Animal Kingdom,--without +recalling to my readers a Polyp or a Jelly-Fish, a Sea-Urchin or a +Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk +plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a +Cuttle-Fish,--or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the +form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,--or of the Vertebrate plan, +without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or +Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes +of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the +limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural +elements, though each branch is entirely distinct. If this be true, +and if these organic formulae have the precision of mathematical +formulae, with which I have compared them, they should be susceptible +of the same tests. + +The mathematician proves the identity of propositions that have the +same mathematical value and significance by their convertibility. If +they have the same mathematical quantities, it must be possible to +transform them, one into another, without changing anything that is +essential in either. The problem before us is of the same character. +If, for instance, all Radiates, be they Sea-Anemones, Jelly-Fishes, +Star-Fishes, or Sea-Urchins, are only various modes of expressing the +same organic formula, each having the sum of all its structural +elements, it should be possible to demonstrate that they are +reciprocally convertible. This is actually the case, and I hope to be +able to convince my readers that it is no fanciful theory, but may be +demonstrated as clearly as the problems of the geometer. The +naturalist has his mathematics, as well as the geometer and the +astronomer; and if the mathematics of the Animal Kingdom have a greater +flexibility than those of the positive sciences, and are therefore not +so easily resolved into their invariable elements, it is because they +have the freedom and pliability of life, and evade our efforts to bring +all their external variety within the limits of the same structural +law which nevertheless controls and includes them all. + +I wish that I could take as the illustration of this statement animals +with whose structure the least scientific of my readers might be +presumed to be familiar; but such a comparison of the Vertebrates, +showing the identity and relation of structural elements throughout +the Branch, or even in any one of its Classes, would be too extensive +and complicated, and I must resort to the Radiates,--that branch of the +Animal Kingdom which, though less generally known, has the simplest +structural elements. + +I will take, then, for the further illustration of my subject, the +Radiates, and especially the class of Echinoderms, Star-Fishes, +Sea-Urchins, and the like, both in the fossil and the living types; and +though some special description of these animals is absolutely +essential, I will beg my readers to remember that the general idea, +and not its special manifestations, is the thing I am aiming at, and +that, if we analyze the special parts characteristic of these +different groups, it is only that we may resolve them back again into +the structural plan that includes them all. + +I have already in a previous article named the different Orders of this +Class in their relative rank, and have compared the standing of the +living ones, according to the greater or less complication of their +structure, with the succession of the fossil ones. Of the five Orders, +Beches-de-Mer, Sea-Urchins, Star-Fishes, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--or, to name them all according to their scientific +nomenclature, Holothurians, Echinoids, Asteroids, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--the last-named are lowest in structure and earliest in time. +Cuvier was the first naturalist who detected the true nature of the +Crinoids, and placed them where they belong in the classification of +the Animal Kingdom. They had been observed before, and long and +laborious investigations had been undertaken upon them, but they were +especially baffling to the student, because they were known only in the +fossil condition from incomplete specimens; and though they still have +their representatives among the type of Echinoderms as it exists at +present, yet, partly owing to the rarity of the living specimens and +partly to the imperfect condition of the fossil ones, the relation +between them was not recognized. The errors about them certainly did +not arise from any want of interest in the subject among naturalists, +for no less than three hundred and eighty different authors have +published their investigations upon the Crinoids, and the books that +have been printed about these animals, many of which were written long +before their animal nature was suspected, would furnish a library in +themselves. The ancients knew little about them. The only one to be +found in the European seas resembles the Star-Fish closely, and they +called it Asterias; but even Aristotle was ignorant of its true +structural relations, and alludes only to its motion and general +appearance. Some account of the gradual steps by which naturalists have +deciphered the true nature of these lowest Echinoderms and their +history in past times may not be without interest, and is very +instructive as showing bow such problems may be solved. + +In the sixteenth century some stones were found bearing the impression +of a star on their surface. They received the name of Trochites, and +gave rise to much discussion. Naturalists puzzled their brains about +them, called them star-shaped crystals, aquatic plants, corals; and to +these last Linnaeus himself, the great authority of the time on all +such questions, referred them. Beside these stony stars, which were +found in great quantities when attention was once called to them, +impressions of a peculiar kind had been observed in the rocks, +resembling flowers on long stems, and called "stone lilies" naturally +enough, for their long, graceful stems, terminating either in a +branching crown or a closer cup, recall the lily tribe among flowers. +The long stems of these seeming lilies are divided transversely at +regular intervals;--the stem is easily broken at any of these natural +divisions, and on each such fragment is stamped a star-like impression +resembling those found upon the loose stones or Trochites. + +About a century ago, Guettard the naturalist described a curious +specimen from Porto Rico, so similar to these fossil lilies of the +rocks that he believed they must have some relation to each other. He +did not detect its animal nature, but from its long stem and branching +crown he called it a marine palm. Thus far neither the true nature of +the living specimen, nor of the Trochites, nor of the fossil lilies +was understood, but it was nevertheless an important step to have found +that there was a relation between them. A century passed away, and +Guettard's specimen, preserved at the Jardin des Plantes, waited with +Sphinx-like patience for the man who should solve its riddle. + +Cuvier, who held the key to so many of the secrets of Nature, detected +at last its true structure; he pronounced it to be a Star-Fish with a +stem, and at once the three series of facts respecting the Trochites, +the fossil lilies, and Guettard's marine palm assumed their true +relation to each other. The Troehites were recognized as simply the +broken portions of the stem of some of these old fossil Crinoids, and +the Crinoids themselves were seen to be the ancient representatives of +the present Comatulae and Star-Fishes with stems. So is it often with +the study of Nature; many scattered links are collected before the man +comes who sees the connection between them and speaks the word that +reconstructs the broken chain. + +I will begin my comparison of all Echinoderms with an analysis of the +Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, because I think I can best show the +identity of parts between them, notwithstanding the difference in +their external form; the Sea-Urchins having always a spherical body, +while the Star-Fishes are always star-shaped, though in some the star +is only hinted at, sketched out, as it were, in a simply pentagonal +outline, while in others the indentations between the rays are very +deep, and the rays themselves so intricate in their ramifications as to +be broken up into a complete net-work of branches. But under all this +variety of outline, our problem remains always the same: to build with +the same number of pieces a star and a sphere, having the liberty, +however, of cutting the pieces differently and changing their relative +proportions. Let us take first the Sea-Urchin and examine in detail +all parts of its external structure. I shall say nothing of the +internal structure of any of these animals, because it does not affect +the comparison of their different forms and the external arrangement of +parts, which is the subject of the present article. + +On the lower side is the mouth, and we may call that side and all the +parts that radiate from it the oral region. On the upper side is a +small area to which the parts converge, and which, from its position +just opposite the so-called mouth or oral opening, we may call the +_ab-oral region_. I prefer these more general terms, because, if +we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the +higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture +through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very +naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts +of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in +all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called +the mouth, though there is not the least structural relation between +the organs so designated, except within the limits of each different +branch or division. To speak of these opposite regions in the +Sea-Urchin as the upper and lower sides would equally mislead us, +since, as we have seen, there is, properly speaking, no above and +below, no right and left sides, no front and hind extremities in these +animals, all parts being evenly distributed around a vertical axis. I +will, therefore, although it has been my wish to avoid technicalities +as much as possible in these papers, make use of the unfamiliar terms +oral and ab-oral regions, to indicate the mouth with the parts +diverging from it and the opposite area towards which all these parts +converge. [Footnote: When reference is made to the whole structure, +including the internal organs as well as the solid parts of the +surface, the terms _actinal_ and _ab-actinal_ are preferable +to oral and ab-oral.] + +[Illustration: Sea-Urchin seen from the oral side, showing the zones +with the spines and suckers; for the ab-oral side, on the summit of +which the zones unite, see February Number, p. 216.] + +The whole surface of the animal is divided by zones,--ten in number, +five broader ones alternating with five narrower ones. The five broad +zones are composed of large plates on which are the most prominent +spines, attached to tubercles that remain on the surface even when the +spines drop off after death, and mark the places where the spines have +been. The five small zones are perforated with regular rows of holes, +and through these perforations pass the suckers or water-tubes which +are their locomotive appendages. For this reason these narrower zones +are called the _ambulacra_, while the broader zones intervening +between them and supporting the spines are called the +_interambulacra_. Motion, however, is not the only function of +these suckers; they are subservient also to respiration and +circulation, taking in water, which is conveyed through them into +various parts of the body. + +[Illustration: Portion of Sea-Urchin representing one narrow zone with +a part of the broad zones on either side and the ab-oral area on the +summit.] + +The oral aperture is occupied by five plates, which may be called jaws, +remembering always that here again this word signifies the function, +and not the structure usually associated with the presence of jaws in +the higher animals; and each of these jaws or plates terminates in a +tooth. Even the mode of eating in these animals is controlled by their +radiate structure; for these jaws, evenly distributed about the +circular oral aperture, open to receive the prey and then are brought +together to crush it, the points meeting in the centre, thus working +concentrically, instead of moving up and down or from right to left, +as in other animals. From the oral opening the ten zones diverge, +spreading over the whole surface, like the ribs on a melon, and +converging in the opposite direction till they meet in the small space +which we have called the ab-oral region opposite the starting-point. + +Here the broad zones terminate in five large plates differing somewhat +from those that form the zones in other parts of the body, and called +ovarian plates, because the eggs pass out through certain openings in +them; while the five narrow zones terminate in five small plates on +each of which is an eye, making thus five eyes alternating with five +ovarian plates. The centre of this area containing the ovarian plates +and the visual plates is filled up with small movable plates closing +the space between them. I should add that one of the five ovarian +plates is larger than the other four, and has a peculiar structure, +long a puzzle to naturalists. It is perforated with minute holes, +forming an exceedingly delicate sieve, and this is actually the purpose +it serves. It is, as it were, a filter, and opens into a canal which +conducts water through the interior of the body; closed by this sieve +on the outside, all the water that passes into it is purified from all +foreign substances that might be injurious to the animal, and is thus +fitted to pass into the water-system, from which arise the main +branches leading to the minute suckers which project through the holes +in the narrow zones of plates. + +[Illustration: Star-Fish from the ab-oral side.] + +Now in order to transform theoretically our Sea-Urchin into a +Star-Fish, what have we to do? Let the reader imagine for a moment that +the small ab-oral area closing the space between the ovarian plates and +the eye-plates is elastic and may be stretched out indefinitely; then +split the five broad zones along the centre and draw them down to the +same level with the mouth, carrying the ovarian plates between them. +We have then a star, just as, dividing, for instance, the peel of an +orange into five compartments, leaving them, of course, united at the +base, then stripping it off and spreading it out flat, we should have a +five-rayed star. + +[Illustration: One arm of Star-Fish from the oral side.] + +But in thus dividing the broad zones of the Sea-Urchins, we leave the +narrow zones in their original relation to them, except that every +narrow zone, instead of being placed between two broad zones, has now +one-half of each of the zones with which it alternated in the +Sea-Urchin on either side of it and lies between them. The adjoining +wood-cut represents a single ray of a Star-Fish, drawn from what we +call its lower side or the oral side. Along the centre of every such +ray, diverging from the central opening or the mouth, we have a +furrow, corresponding exactly to the narrower zones of the Sea-Urchin. +It is composed of comparatively small perforated plates through which +pass the suckers or locomotive appendages. On either side of the +furrows are other plates corresponding to the plates of the broad zones +in the Sea-Urchin. Where shall we look for the five eyes? Of course, at +the tip of every ray; exactly where they were when the rays were drawn +up to form the summit of a sphere, so that the eyes, which are now at +their extremities, were clustered together at their point of meeting. +Where shall we look for the ovarian plates? At each angle of the five +rays, because, when the broad zones of which they formed the summit +were divided, they followed the split, and now occupy the place which, +though it seems so different on the surface of the Star-Fish, is +nevertheless, relatively to the rest of the body, the same as they +occupied in the Sea-Urchin. Assuming, as we premised, that the central +area of the ab-oral region, forming the space between the plates at the +summit of the zones in the Sea-Urchin, is elastic, it has stretched +with the spreading out of the zones, following the indentation between +the rays, and now forms the whole upper surface of the body. All the +internal organs of the animal lie between the oral and ab-oral +regions, just as they did in the Sea-Urchin, only that in the Star- +Fish these regions are coequal in extent, while in the Sea-Urchin the +ab-oral region is very contracted, and the oral region with the parts +belonging to it occupies the greater part of its surface. + +Such being the identity of parts between a Star-Fish and a Sea-Urchin, +let us see now how the Star-Fish may be transformed into the +Pedunculated Crinoid, the earliest representative of its Class, or +into a Comatula, one of the free animals that represent the Crinoids in +our day. + +[Illustration: Crinoid with branching crown; oral side turned upward.] + +We have seen that in the Sea-Urchins the ab-oral region is very +contracted, the oral region and the parts radiating from it and forming +the sides being the predominant features in the structure; and we +shall find, as we proceed in our comparison, that the different +proportion of these three parts, the oral and ab-oral regions and the +sides, determines the different outlines of the various Orders in this +Class. In the Sea-Urchin the oral region and the sides are predominant, +while the ab-oral region is very small. In the Star-Fish, the oral and +ab-oral regions are brought into equal relations, neither +preponderating over the other, and the sides are compressed, so that, +seen in profile, the outline of the Star-Fish is that of a slightly +convex disk, instead of a sphere, as in the Sea-Urchin. But when we +come to the Crinoids, we find that the great preponderance of the +ab-oral region determines all that peculiarity of form that +distinguishes them from the other Echinoderms, while the oral region is +comparatively insignificant. The ab-oral region in the Crinoid rises +to form a sort of cup-like or calyx-like projection. The plates forming +it, which in the Star-Fish or the Sea-Urchin are movable, are soldered +together so as to be perfectly immovable in the Crinoid. Let this +seeming calyx be now prolonged into a stem, and we see at once how +striking is the resemblance to a flower; turn it downwards, an attitude +which is natural to these Crinoids, and the likeness to a drooping +lily is still more remarkable The oral region, with the radiating +ambulacra, is now limited to the small flat area opposite the juncture +of the stem with the calyx; and whether it stretches out to form long +arms, or is more compact, so as to close the calyx like a cup, it +seems in either case to form a flower-like crown. In these groups of +Echinoderms the interambulacral plates are absent; there are no rows +of plates of a different kind alternating with the ambulacral ones, as +in the Sea-Urchins and the Star-Fishes, but the ab-oral region closes +immediately upon the ambulacra. + +It seems a contradiction to say, that, though these Crinoids were the +only representatives of their Class in the early geological ages, +while it includes five Orders at the present time, Echinoderms were as +numerous and various then as now. But, paradoxical as it may seem, this +is nevertheless true, not only for this Class, but for many others in +the Animal Kingdom. The same numerical proportions, the same richness +and vividness of conception were manifested in the early creation as +now; and though many of the groups were wanting that are most prominent +in modern geological periods, those that existed were expressed in such +endless variety that the Animal Kingdom seems to have been as full +then as it is to-day. The Class of the Echinoderms is one of the most +remarkable instances of this. In the Silurian period, the Crinoids +stood alone; there were neither Ophiurans, Asteroids, Echinoids, nor +Holothurians; and yet in one single locality, Lockport, in the State +of New York, over an area of not more than a few square miles, where +the Silurian deposits have been carefully examined, there have been +found more different Species of Echinoderms than are living now along +our whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. + +There is nothing more striking in these early populations of the earth +than the richness of the types. It would seem as if, before the world +was prepared for the manifold existences that find their home here now, +when organic life was limited by the absence of many of the present +physical conditions, the whole wealth of the Creative Thought lavished +itself upon the forms already introduced upon the globe. After thirty +years' study of the fossil Crinoids, I am every day astonished by some +new evidence of the ingenuity, the invention, the skill, if I may so +speak, shown in varying this single pattern of animal life. When one +has become, by long study of Nature, in some sense intimate with the +animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate +action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties +it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis, +of reminiscence and prophecy, of that which has been in eternal harmony +with that which is to be; and while we stand in reverence before the +grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it +such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and +vividness of color, nay, even the ripple of mirthfulness,--for Nature +has its humorous side also,--that we lose our grasp of its completeness +in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its +marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus +characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from +the exercise of our own mental faculties; but it is nevertheless true, +that, the nearer we come to Nature, the more does it seem to us that +all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty +Mind, and that the eternal archetypes of all manifestations of thought +in man are found in the Creation of which he is the crowning work. + +In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more +striking than in the Crinoids. They seem like the productions of one +who handles his work with an infinite ease and delight, taking pleasure +in presenting the same thought under a thousand different aspects. +Some new cut of the plates, some slight change in their relative +position is constantly varying their outlines, from a close cup to an +open crown, from the long pear-shaped oval of the calyx in some to its +circular or square or pentagonal form in others. An angle that is +simple in one projects by a fold of the surface and becomes a fluted +column in another; a plate that was smooth but now has here a +symmetrical figure upon it drawn in beaded lines; the stem which is +perfectly unbroken in one, except by the transverse divisions common to +them all, in the next puts out feathery plumes at every such transverse +break. In some the plates of the stem are all rigid and firmly soldered +together; in others they are articulated upon each other in such a +manner as to give it the greatest flexibility, and allow the seeming +flower to wave and bend upon its stalk. It would require an endless +number of illustrations to give even a faint idea of the variety of +these fossil Crinoids. There is no change that the fancy can suggest +within the limits of the same structure that does not find expression +among them. Since I have become intimate with their wonderful +complications, I have sometimes amused myself with anticipating some +new variation of the theme, by the introduction of some undescribed +structural complication, and then seeking for it among the specimens +at my command, and I have never failed to find it in one or other of +these ever-changing forms. + +The modern Crinoid without stem, or the Comatula, though agreeing with +the ancient in all the essential elements of structure, differs from it +in some specific features. It drops its stem when full-grown, though +the ab-oral region still remains the predominant part of the body and +retains its cup-like or calyx-like form. The Comatulae are not +abundant, and though represented by a number of Species, yet the type +as it exists at present is meagre in comparison to its richness in +former times. Indeed, this group of Echinoderms, which in the earliest +periods was the exponent of all its kind, has dwindled gradually, in +proportion as other representatives of the Class have come in, and +there exists only one species now, the Pentacrinus of the West Indies, +which retains its stem in its adult condition. It is a singular fact, +to which I have before alluded, and which would seem to have especial +reference to the maintenance of the same numeric proportions in all +times, that, while a Class is represented by few types, those types are +wonderfully rich and varied, but in proportion as other expressions of +the same structure are introduced, the first dwindle, and, if they do +not entirely disappear, become at least much less prominent than +before. + +[Illustration: Ophiuran; showing one ray from the oral side.] + +There remain only two other Orders to be considered, the Ophiurans and +the Holothurians. The Ophiurans approach the Crinoids more nearly than +any other group of Echinoderms, and in our classifications are placed +next above them. In them the ab-oral region, which has such a +remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no +longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like +or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids,--though, +when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite +convex. The disk in the Ophiurans is small in comparison to the length +of the arms, and perfectly circular; it does not merge gradually in the +arms as in the Star-Fish, but the arms start abruptly from its +periphery. In these, as in the Crinoids, the interambulacral plates are +absent, and the interambulacral spaces are filled by an encroachment of +the ab-oral region upon them. There is an infinite variety and beauty +both of form and color in these Sea-Stars. The arms frequently measure +many times the diameter of the whole disk, and are so different in +size and ornamentation in the different Species that at first sight +one might take them for animals entirely distinct from each other. In +some the arms are comparatively short and quite simple,--in others +they are very long, and may be either stretched to their full length or +partly contracted to form a variety of graceful curves; in some they +are fringed all along the edges,--in others they are so ramified that +every arm seems like a little bush, as it were, and, intertwining with +each other, they make a thick network all around the animal. In the +geological succession, these Ophiurans follow the Crinoids, being +introduced at about the Carboniferous period, and perhaps earlier. +They have had their representatives in all succeeding times, and are +still very numerous in the present epoch. + +To show the correspondence of the Holothurians with the typical formula +of the whole class of Echinoderms, I will return to the Sea-Urchins, +since they are more nearly allied with that Order than with any of the +other groups. We have seen that the Sea-Urchins approach most nearly to +the sphere, and that in them the oral region and the sides predominate +so greatly over the ab-oral region that the latter is reduced to a +small area on the summit of the sphere. In order to transform the +Sea-Urchin into a Holothurian, we have only to stretch it out from end +to end till it becomes a cylinder, with the oral region or mouth at +one extremity, and the ab-oral region, which in the Holothurian is +reduced to its minimum, at the other. The zones of the Sea-Urchin now +extend as parallel rows on the Holothurian, running from one end to the +other of the long cylindrical body. On account of their form, some of +them have been taken for Worms, and so classified by naturalists; but +as soon as their true structure was understood, which agrees in every +respect with that of the other Echinoderms, and has no affinity +whatever with the articulated structure of the Worms, they found their +true place in our classifications. + +[Illustration: Holothurian.] + +The natural attitude of these animals is different from that of the +other Echinoderms: they lie on one side, and move with the oral +opening forward, and this has been one cause of the mistakes as to +their true nature. But when we would compare animals, we should place +them, not in the attitude which is natural to them in their native +element, but in what I would call their normal position,--that is, such +a position as brings the corresponding parts in all into the same +relation. For instance, the natural attitude of the Crinoid is with +the ab-oral region downward, attached to a stem, and the oral region or +mouth upward; the Ophiuran turns its oral region, along which all the +suckers or ambulacra are arranged, toward the surface along which it +moves; the Star-Fish does the same; the Sea-Urchin also has its oral +opening downward; but the Holothurian moves on one side, mouth +foremost, as represented in the adjoining wood-cut, dragging itself +onward, like all the rest, by means of its rows of suckers. If, now, we +compare these animals in the various attitudes natural to them, we may +fail to recognize the identity of parts, or, at least, it will not +strike us at once. But if we place them all--Holothurian, Sea-Urchin, +Star-Fish, Ophiuran, and Crinoid--with the oral or mouth side +downward, for instance, we shall see immediately that the small area at +the opposite end of the Holothurian corresponds to the area on the top +of the Sea-Urchin; that the upper side of the Star-Fish is the same +region enlarged; that, in the Ophiuran, that region makes one side of +the small circular disk; while in the Crinoid it is enlarged and +extended to make the calyx-like projection and stem. In the same way, +if we place them in the same attitude, we shall see that the long, +straight rows of suckers along the length of the Holothurian, and the +arching zones of suckers on the spherical body of the Sea-Urchin, and +the furrows with the suckers protruding from them along the arms of +the Star-Fish and Ophiuran, and the radiating series of pores from the +oral opening in the Crinoid are one and the same thing in all, only +altered somewhat in their relative proportion and extent. Around the +oral opening of the Holothurian there are appendages capable of the +most extraordinary changes, which seem at first to be peculiar to these +animals, and to have no affinity with any corresponding feature in the +same Class. But a closer investigation has shown them to be only +modifications of the locomotive suckers of the Star-Fish and +Sea-Urchin, but ramifying to such an extent as to assume the form of +branching feelers. The little tufts projecting from the oral side in +the Sea-Urchins, described as gills, are another form of the same kind +of appendage. + +The Holothurians have not the hard, brittle surface of the other +Echinoderms; on the contrary, their envelope is tough and leathery, +capable of great contraction and dilatation. No idea can be formed of +the beauty of these animals either from dried specimens or from those +preserved in alcohol. Of course, in either case, they lose their color, +become shrunken, and the movable appendages about the mouth shrivel up. +One who had seen the Holothurian only as preserved in museums would be +amazed at the spectacle of the living animal, especially if his first +introduction should be to one of the deep, rich crimson-colored +species, such as are found in quantities in the Bay of Fundy. I have +seen such an animal, when first thrown into a tank of sea-water, remain +for a while closely contracted, looking like a soft crimson ball. +Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as it becomes accustomed to its new +position, it begins to elongate; the fringes creep softly out, +spreading gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal +seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate +tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals +are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on +the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring +than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion +surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The +habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily growing constantly +more popular, and before long the beauty of these inhabitants of the +ocean will be as familiar to us as that of Birds and Insects. Many of +the most beautiful among them are, however, difficult to obtain, and +not easily kept alive in confinement, so that they are not often seen +in aquariums. + +Having thus endeavored to sketch each different kind of Echinoderm, let +us try to forget them all in their individuality, and think only of the +structural formula that applies equally to each. In all, the body has +three distinct regions, the oral, the ab-oral, and the sides; but by +giving a predominance to one or other of these regions, a variety of +outlines characteristic of the different groups is produced. In all, +the parts radiate from the oral opening, and join in the ab-oral +region. In all, this radiation is accompanied by rows of suckers +following the line of the diverging rays. It is always the same +structure, but, endowed with the freedom of life, it is never +monotonous, notwithstanding its absolute permanence. In short, drop +off the stem of the Crinoid, and depress its calyx to form a flat disk, +and we have an Ophiuran; expand that disk, and let it merge gradually +in the arms, and we have a Star-Fish; draw up the rays of the +Star-Fish, and unite them at the tips so as to form a spherical +outline, and we have a Sea-Urchin; stretch out the Sea-Urchin to form +a cylinder, and we have a Holothurian. + +And now let me ask,--Is it my ingenuity that has imposed upon these +structures the conclusion I have drawn from them?--have I so combined +them in my thought that they have become to me a plastic form, out of +which I draw a Crinoid, an Ophiuran, a Star-Fish, a Sea-Urchin, or a +Holothurian at will? or is this structural idea inherent in them all, +so that every observer who has a true insight into their organization +must find it written there? Had our scientific results anything to do +with our invention, every naturalist's conclusions would be colored +by his individual opinions; but when we find all naturalists +converging more and more towards each other, arriving, as their +knowledge increases, at exactly the same views, then we must believe +that these structures are the Creative Ideas in living reality. In +other words, so far as there is truth in them, our systems are what +they are, not because Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, or all the men who +ever studied Nature, have so thought and so expressed their thought, +but because God so thought and so expressed His thought in material +forms when He laid the plan of Creation, and when man himself existed +only in the intellectual conception of his Maker. + + + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +II. + +THE WEDDING. + +In her satin gown so fine +Trips the bride within the shrine. +Waits the street to see her pass, +Like a vision in a glass. +Roses crown her peerless head: +Keep your lilies for the dead! + +Something of the light without +Enters with her, veiled about; +Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, +Please themselves with silken wear; +Shadows point to what shall be +In the dim futurity. + +Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke +Might of mortal never broke! +From the altar of her vows +To the grave's unsightly house +Measured is the path, and made; +All the work is planned and paid. + +As a girl, with ready smile, +Where shall rise some ponderous pile, +On the chosen, festal day, +Turns the initial sod away, +So the bride with fingers frail +Founds a temple or a jail,-- + +Or a palace, it may be, +Flooded full with luxury, +Open yet to deadliest things, +And the Midnight Angel's wings. +Keep its chambers purged with prayer: +Faith can guard it, Love is rare. + +Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! +Priest, recite the sacred runes! +Hast no ghostly help nor art +Can enrich a selfish heart, +Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, +Joy with bloom for bargain sold? + +Hail, the wedded task of life! +Mending husband, moulding wife. +Hope brings labor, labor peace; +Wisdom ripens, goods increase; +Triumph crowns the sainted head, +And our lilies wait the dead. + + * * * * * + + +FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER. + + +I. + +The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor +reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow +his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of +satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the +Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches +of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, +fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone +fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days, +but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a +New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the +scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted +how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up +and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and +Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the +hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the +spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers +of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible +lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and +waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson. + +Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world,--that is, so +much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his own +sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on its +borders, he neither knew, nor cared to know, much more of the human +race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun. In the +discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on +the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling +brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County, invariably +blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was one of the best +on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest +of a few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on real +estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him in the consideration +she enjoyed within the limits of the sect; and his two children, Moses +and Asenath, vindicated the paternal training by the strictest sobriety +of dress and conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways led +him among "the world's people"; and Asenath had never been known to +wear, or to express a desire for, a ribbon of a brighter tint than +brown or fawn-color. Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his +sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and +looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation +into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild +voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions. + +He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy +square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the +Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and +grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made +him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among +men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of +swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained, +and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his +home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited +quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines, +gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set +forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the +hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level +of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from +trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge +of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were +grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted +squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane. + +The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a green little hollow +just below it, the walled garden, with its clumps of box and lilac, and +the vast barn on the left, all joined in expressing a silent welcome to +their owner, as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five, left +his work in the garden, and walked forward in his shirt-sleeves. + +"Well, father, how does thee do?" was his quiet greeting, as they shook +hands. + +"How's mother, by this time?" asked Eli. + +"Oh, thee needn't have been concerned," said the son. "There she is. Go +in: I'll 'tend to the horse." + +Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a woman +of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth, placid beauty +of countenance which had survived her youth. She was dressed in a +simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so +scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with her for six +months without ever discovering a spot on the former or an uneven fold +in the latter. Asenath, who followed, was almost as plainly attired, +her dress being a dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard +sun-bonnet, with broad cape, covered her head. + +"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to his +wife. + +"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome. + +No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had +witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life,--after +the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with a peculiar +sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a +season of tribulation, and therefore was too earnest to be profaned to +the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal embrace, +she would have felt, had it been given, like the doomed daughter of the +Gileadite, consecrated to sacrifice. + +Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings of the +Meeting, and to receive personal news of the many friends whom Eli had +seen; but they asked few questions until the supper table was ready and +Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it +must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until +the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee +the inspiration came. Hovering, at first, over indifferent details, he +gradually approached those of more importance,--told of the addresses +which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony +borne, and the appearance and genealogy of any new Friends who had +taken a prominent part therein. Finally, at the close of his relation, +he said,-- + +"Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about. Friend +Speakman's partner--perhaps thee's heard of him, Richard Hilton--has a +son who is weakly. He's two or three years younger than Moses. His +mother was consumptive, and they're afraid he takes after her. His +father wants to send him into the country for the summer,--to some +place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate exercise, and +Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought I'd mention it to thee, and if +thee thinks well of it, we can send word down next week, when Josiah +Comly goes." + +"What does _thee_ think?" asked his wife, after a pause. + +"He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman says, and would +be very little trouble to thee. I thought perhaps his board would buy +the new yoke of oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat +ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to decide." + +"I suppose we could take him," said Abigail, seeing that the decision +was virtually made already; "there's the corner-room, which we don't +often use. Only, if he should get worse on our hands"-- + +"Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He's only weak-breasted, as +yet, and clerking isn't good for him. I saw the young man at the store. +If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly." + +So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an inmate +of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer. + + +II. + +At the end of ten days he came. + +In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of +three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. +Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered +him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an +invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin +crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's case, it +was already broken before his arrival. His only embarrassment, in +fact, arose from the difficulty which he naturally experienced in +adapting himself to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The +greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar +and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally +of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like a +new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position among +them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or +at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was not easy for him to assume, +at such short notice, those of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath +as "Miss Mitchenor," Eli turned to him with a rebuking face. + +"We do not use compliments, Richard," said he; "my daughter's name is +Asenath." + +"I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your ways, since you +have been so kind as to take me for a while," apologized Richard +Hilton. + +"Thee's under no obligation to us," said Friend Mitchenor, in his +strict sense of justice; "thee pays for what thee gets." + +The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose. + +"We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard," she remarked, +with a kind expression of face, which had the effect of a smile; "but +our ways are plain and easily learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're +no respecters of persons." + +It was some days, however, before the young man could overcome his +natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of +speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but +it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such +sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either +extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt Mitchenor." +On the other hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won the +confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally busied +himself in the garden, by way of exercise, or accompanied Moses to the +cornfield or the woodland on the hill, but was careful never to +interfere at inopportune times, and willing to learn silently, by the +simple process of looking on. + +One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated +the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of +chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow workbasket on +her arm, issued from the house. As she approached him, she paused and +said,-- + +"The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard. If thee's strong +enough to walk to the village and back, it might do thee more good than +sitting still." + +Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall. + +"Certainly I am able to go," said he, "if you will allow it." + +"Haven't I asked thee?" was her quiet reply. + +"Let me carry your basket," he said, suddenly, after they had walked, +side by side, some distance down the lane. + +"Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and +some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee +mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,--I'm told,--if +they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, +thee mustn't over-exert thy strength." + +Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered +the last sentence. + +"Why, Miss--Asenath, I mean--what am I good for, if I have not strength +enough to carry a basket?" + +"Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be +thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's +only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely +nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of." + +While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in order, +unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his steps. + +"Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom!" she exclaimed, +pointing to a shady spot beside the brook; "does thee know them?" + +Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a handful of the +nodding yellow bells, trembling above their large, cool, spotted +leaves. + +"How beautiful they are!" said he; "but I should never have taken them +for violets." + +"They are misnamed," she answered. "The flower is an +_Erythronium_; but I am accustomed to the common name, and like +it. Did thee ever study botany?" + +"Not at all--I can tell a geranium, when I see it, and I know a +heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a +rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable +distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew +something about them." + +"If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to learn. I think a +study of this kind would pleasantly occupy thy mind. Why couldn't thee +try? I would be very willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not +much, indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show thee how +simple the principles are." + +Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath, as they slowly +walked forward, proceeded to dissect it, explained the mysteries of +stamens and pistils, pollen, petals, and calyx, and, by the time they +had reached the village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of +the Linnaean system of classification. His mind took hold of the +subject with a prompt and profound interest. It was a new and wonderful +world which suddenly opened before him. How surprised he was to learn +that there were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected from +a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed, that the gray +lichens on the rocks belonged to the vegetable kingdom! His respect for +Asenath's knowledge thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her +youth and sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal, friend; and +the simple, candid manner which was the natural expression of her +dignity and purity thoroughly harmonized with this relation. + +Although, in reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a +gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of +mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before +observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well +imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted +dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual +griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had +developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded +below the reach of tides and storms. + +She would have been very much surprised, if any one had called her +handsome; yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive beauty, which seemed to +grow and deepen from day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek +standard, it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine and +straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled, and the lips +calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown hair, parted over a high +white forehead, was smoothly laid across the temples, drawn behind the +ears, and twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sunbonnet +gave her face a nun-like character, which set her apart, in the +thoughts of "the world's people" whom she met, as one sanctified for +some holy work. She might have gone around the world, repelling every +rude word, every bold glance, by the protecting atmosphere of purity +and truth which inclosed her. + +The days went by, each bringing some new blossom to adorn and +illustrate the joint studies of the young man and maiden. For Richard +Hilton had soon mastered the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla +Wakefield,--the only source of Asenath's knowledge,--and entered, with +her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he procured from +Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken her in his knowledge of the +technicalities of the science, her practical acquaintance with plants +and their habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring the +meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought home his discoveries +to enjoy her aid in classifying and assigning them to their true +places. Asenath had generally an hour or two of leisure from domestic +duties in the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was over; +and sometimes, on "Seventh-days," she would be his guide to some +locality where the rarer plants were known to exist. The parents saw +this community of interest and exploration without a thought of +misgiving. They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any +possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed by the +absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued his study. An +earnest discussion as to whether a certain leaf was ovate or +lanceolate, whether a certain plant belonged to the species +_scandens_ or _canadensis_, was, in their eyes, convincing +proof that the young brains were touched, and therefore _not_ the +young hearts. + +But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical +emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study +requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of +communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that +his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams, +even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the +possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from the +genial season, the pure country air, and the release from gloomy +thoughts which his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a +future--though brief, perhaps, still a _future_--began to glimmer +before him. If this could be his life,--an endless summer, with a +search for new plants every morning, and their classification every +evening, with Asenath's help, on the shady portico of Friend +Mitchenor's house,--he could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of +life unthinkingly. + +The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis and trillium +followed, then the yellow gerardias and the feathery purple pogonias, +and finally the growing gleam of the golden-rods along the wood-side +and the red umbels of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced the +close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection, +brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed,-- + +"Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year." + +"What sign?" he asked. + +"That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then +nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and +golden-rods." + +Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life +would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets, +its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. How could +he give up the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed through +the summer? The question suddenly took a more definite form in his +mind: How could he give up Asenath? Yes,--the quiet, unsuspecting girl, +sitting beside him, with her lap full of the September blooms he had +gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life. Pure and beautiful +as she was, almost sacred in his regard, his heart dared to say.--"I +need her and claim her!" + +"Thee looks pale to-night, Richard," said Abigail, as they took their +seats at the supper-table. "I hope thee has not taken cold." + + +III. + +"Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the rudbeckias grow," said +Asenath, on the following "Seventh-day" afternoon. + +They crossed the meadows, and followed the course of the stream, under +its canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the +hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall +autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like +young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia, +tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike +of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive +sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves +dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer streaming from its bushy +fringe, gurgled over the pebbles in its bed. Here and there, on its +banks, shone the deep yellow stars of the flower they sought. + +Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically plucking a stem of +rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently, into the water. + +"Why, Richard! what's thee doing?" cried Asenath; "thee has thrown away +the very best specimen." + +"Let it go," he answered, sadly. "I am afraid everything else is thrown +away." + +"What does thee mean?" she asked, with a look of surprised and anxious +inquiry. + +"Don't ask me, Asenath. Or--yes, I _will_ tell you. I must say it +to you now, or never afterwards. Do you know what a happy life I've +been leading since I came here?--that I've learned what life is, as if +I'd never known it before? I want to live, Asenath,--and do you know +why?" + +"I hope thee will live, Richard," she said, gently and tenderly, her +deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed tears. + +"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't understand +that, because you do not know what you are to me. No, you never guessed +that all this while I've been loving you more and more, until now I +have no other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you, not +to share your life!" + +"Oh, Richard!" + +"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this to +myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb the +peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take it back, +if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for loving +you,--forgive me now and every day of my life." + +He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on the +edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight frame +trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had become very +pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and brow as +she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered flowers fell from her +hands, and she hid her face. For a few minutes no sound was heard but +the liquid gurgling of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the +thicket beside them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice of +hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name,-- + +"Asenath!" + +She took away her hands and slowly lifted her face. She was pale, but +her eyes met his with a frank, appealing, tender expression, which +caused his heart to stand still a moment. He read no reproach, no +faintest thought of blame; but--was it pity?--was it pardon?--or-- + +"We stand before God, Richard," said she, in a low, sweet, solemn tone. +"He knows that I do not need to forgive thee. If thee requires it, I +also require His forgiveness for myself." + +Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow, she met his gaze with +the bravery of a pure and innocent heart. Richard, stunned with the +sudden and unexpected bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of +it into a being which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first +impulse was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his arms, and +hold her in the embrace which encircled, for him, the boundless promise +of life; but she stood there, defenceless, save in her holy truth and +trust, and his heart bowed down and gave her reverence. + +"Asenath," said he, at last, "I never dared to hope for this. God bless +you for those words! Can you trust me?--can you indeed love me?" + +"I can trust thee,--I do love thee!" + +They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging pressure. No kiss +was given, but side by side they walked slowly up the dewy meadows, in +happy and hallowed silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old +farm-house appeared through the trees. + +"Father and mother must know of this, Richard," said she. "I am afraid +it may be a cross to them." + +The same fear had already visited his own mind, but he answered, +cheerfully,-- + +"I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of life, and shall soon +be strong enough to satisfy them. Besides, my father is in prosperous +business." + +"It is not that," she answered; "but thee is not one of us." + +It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim +candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence +was attributed to fatigue. + +The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring +Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various +special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting +parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers +which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was +taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him. + +"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with +thee." + +"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a +seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand. + +"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to +approach so important a crisis in his life, + +"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live +with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man." + +"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does +thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say +against thee." + +"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and +she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my +hands?" + +"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker, +with a face too amazed to express any other feeling. + +"Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care? I love her with my +whole heart and soul, and the fortune of my life depends on your +answer." + +The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow deeper and more +rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill glitter of steel. Richard, not +daring to say a word more, awaited his reply in intense agitation. + +"So!" he exclaimed at last, "this is the way thee's repaid me! I didn't +expect _this_ from thee! Has thee spoken to her?" + +"I have." + +"Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded her to think as +thee does. Thee'd better never have come here. When I want to lose my +daughter, and can't find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know." + +"What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?" Richard sadly asked, +forgetting, in his excitement, the Quaker speech he had learned. + +"Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall be a Friend while +_I_ live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings and vanities are not +for her. Thee belongs to the world, and thee may choose one of the +world's women." + +"Never!" protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor was already ascending +the garden-steps on his way to the house. + +The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to the nearest grove and +threw himself on the ground. Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion, +unable to grasp any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards +evening, he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It was Moses. + +The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents, and expected +to "pass meeting" in a few weeks. He knew what had happened, and felt a +sincere sympathy for Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His +face was very grave, but kind. + +"Thee'd better come in, Richard," said he; "the evenings are damp, and +I've brought thy overcoat I know everything, and I feel that it must be +a great cross for thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it." + +"Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?" he asked, in +a tone of despondency which anticipated the answer. + +"Father's very hard to move," said Moses; "and when mother and Asenath +can't prevail on him, nobody else need try. I'm afraid thee must make +up thy mind to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think +thee'd better go back to town." + +"I'll go to-morrow,--go and die!" he muttered hoarsely, as he followed +Moses to the house. + +Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed his +hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an Iceland +rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and +his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the +morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went +up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the +farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him. + +"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as +he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the +village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word +of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved +face, he was taken away. + + +IV. + +True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor, +the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind. +It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard +Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the +few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely +dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it +back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when +he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it +there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its +folded leaves. If that day came not, she would at the last give it back +to God, saying, "Father, here is Thy most precious gift: bestow it as +Thou wilt." + +As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it +was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not +heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in +dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles with +herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's +departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to +the summer's companionship with him. She performed her household +duties, if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as +before; and her father congratulated himself that the unfortunate +attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however, +was not deceived by this external resignation. She noted the faint +shadows under the eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the +unconscious traces of pain which sometimes played about the dimpled +corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter with a silent, tender +solicitude. + +The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she +stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her +position with such sweet composure that many of the older female +Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli +Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young +Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed +with worldly goods--followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he +thought, "before she is consoled." + +Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment of +Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's +conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented +as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last +assumed such a definite form that Friend Mitchenor brought them to the +notice of his family. + +"I met Josiah Comly in the road," said he, one day at dinner. "He's +just come from Philadelphia, and brings bad news of Richard Hilton. +He's taken to drink, and is spending in wickedness the money his father +left him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it seems he's +not to be reclaimed." + +Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he either disregarded or +failed to understand her look. Asenath, who had grown very pale, +steadily met her father's gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never +yet heard from her lips,-- + +"Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's name when I am +by?" + +The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was that of authority. +The old man was silenced by a new and unexpected power in his +daughter's heart: he suddenly felt that she was not a girl, as +heretofore, but a woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer +compel. + +"It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath," he said; "we had best forget +him." + +Of their friends, however, she could not expect this reserve, and she +was doomed to hear stories of Richard which clouded and embittered her +thoughts of him. And a still severer trial was in store. She +accompanied her father, in obedience to his wish, and against her own +desire, to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has passed into a +proverb, that the Friends, on these occasions, always bring rain with +them; and the period of her visit was no exception to the rule. The +showery days of "Yearly-Meeting Week" glided by, until the last, and +she looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to Bucks County, +glad to have escaped a meeting with Richard Hilton, which might have +confirmed her fears, and could but have given her pain in any case. + +As she and her father joined each other, outside the meeting-house, at +the close of the afternoon meeting, a light rain was falling. She took +his arm, under the capacious umbrella, and they were soon alone in the +wet streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained +them. At a crossing, where the water, pouring down the gutter towards +the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood, +staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered +clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair +hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a +song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend +Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by +the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly, +face to face with them. + +"Asenath!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish pierced through the +confusion of his senses, and struck down into the sober quick of his +soul. + +"Richard!" she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low, terrified voice. + +It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her, or rather--as she +afterwards thought, in recalling the interview--the body of Richard +Hilton, possessed by an evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than +hectic red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the +recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient, reckless devil +seemed to lurk under the set mask of his features. + +"Here I am, Asenath," he said at length, hoarsely. "I said it was +death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than death, I suppose; but what +matter? You can't be more lost to me now than you were already. This is +_thy_ doing, Friend Eli!" he continued, turning to the old man, +with a sneering emphasis on the "_thy_." "I hope thee's satisfied +with thy work!" + +Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it chilled Asenath's +blood to hear. + +The old man turned pale. "Come away, child!" said he, tugging at her +arm. But she stood firm, strengthened for the moment by a solemn +feeling of duty which trampled down her pain. + +"Richard," she said, with the music of an immeasurable sorrow in her +voice, "oh, Richard, what has thee done? Where the Lord commands +resignation, thee has been rebellious; where He chasteneth to purify, +thee turns blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard; I +thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would have helped and +uplifted thee,--not through me, as an unworthy object, but through the +hopes and the pure desires of thy own heart. I expected that thee would +so act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my affection +a reproach,--oh, Richard, not to cast over my heart the shadow of thy +sin!" + +The wretched young man supported himself against the post of an awning, +buried his face in his hands, and wept passionately. Once or twice he +essayed to speak, but his voice was choked by sobs, and, alter a look +from the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to meet, he +again covered his face. A stranger, coming down the street, paused out +of curiosity. "Come, come!" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from +the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on. + +Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief. +She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free. + +"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us +give me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee +then, but it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and +pity I feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other +feelings. I would still do anything for thee except that which thee +cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the +gulf between us so wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep +for thee and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still +precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!" + +He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears +and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up +and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father +and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was +spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question +had visited Asenath's tongue. + +She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which +give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and +transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never +blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers, +under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant +music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost, +reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face +with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened +the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence +of God. + + +V. + +Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the +Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his +marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years +Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an +unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally +determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to +manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, +and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show +of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her more +keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a +neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which +lie parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had +preceded it. + +It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with +new faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a +quiet satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which +might be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all +the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo +of the sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar +wild-flowers which _the first_ Richard Hilton had gathered. This +was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his +fall. Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those pure +and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious of their true +charm. She did not dare to express to herself, in words, that one +everlasting joy of woman's heart, through all trials and sorrows,--"I +have loved, I have been beloved." + +On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the +meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring, +and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were +dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow +dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn +leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless +violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the +miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept +in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the +remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent +sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around +her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured +forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of +the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck +it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the +spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft +radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, +evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered, +taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love. + +During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but +had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a man +whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli +Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's +gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her +protestations were of no avail. + +"Father," she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and +still remembered, "thee can take away, but thee cannot give." + +He never mentioned the subject again. + +Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting +with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career +of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as +hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After +that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading +a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed,--almost hoped; +for in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and +peace which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of +him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion, +than to know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and +blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was +simply a prolongation of the present,--an alternation of seed-time and +harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should +bid her lay down her load and follow Him. + +Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in +a community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the +large old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He +at once took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of +whom he knew already, from having met them, year after year, in +Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient +occupation; the money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough +to support him comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment +seemed now to have come to the old man. He was done with the earnest +business of life. Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and +Friend; and Asenath would be reasonably provided for at his death. As +his bodily energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind +became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a +cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer who was one of "the +world's people." Thus, at seventy-five, he was really younger, because +tenderer of heart and more considerate, than he had been at sixty. + +Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to +approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had +become thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form +around her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the +scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless +she be very old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, gave that her +perfect goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence; +but, when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so +clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends +that she possessed "a gift," which might, in time, raise her to honor +among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word +from "Aunt 'Senath" oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the +parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness; +and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little +farther into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every +morning's sun, for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission +brightened into a cheerful content with life. + +It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been +rumors of the expected presence of "Friends from a distance," and not +only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not +connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road through the woods, it +was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the +meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in +his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the +forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the branches +of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of +hickory-leaves, sweet-fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here +and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and +sunshine, grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers +to a lonely heart. That serene content which she had learned to call +happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the +waters took back their transparency under a cloudless sky. + +Passing around to the "women's side" of the meeting-house, she mingled +with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the +expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth +Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be +there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and +Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend +Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him +once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about +him, because they thought he was too much inclined to "the newness," +but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend +Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old +man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks. + +At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued +rustling which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of +silence, shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons +would feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first, +and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of +exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her +admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her +eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her +body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the +commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious +scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an +aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel. + +The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty +years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair +gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child +of "the stillness and the quietness." His voice, though not loud, was +clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which +arrested, not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor. +His delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the +Quaker preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his +words, through the contrast with those who preceded him. + +His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as +the highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine. The +paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which +appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his +fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner; +we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot +pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in +others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but +kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love +may not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet +created hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said, +is but a general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they +manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives,--in the exercise +of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian love. + +The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers. +There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to +speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath +Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and +her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and +truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her +alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain +them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and +walked to his side. + +Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. "I feel moved to-day," +he said,--"moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to +relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come +directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution, +whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the +house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and +exercise." + +Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed +and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them +from trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she +heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a +stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that +meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present! +Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's +passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his +living face before her! She gasped for breath,--his face _was_ +before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her +memory recalled, had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen +years had made, and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap +of the heart, she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have +fallen from her seat but for the support of the partition against which +she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with +the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with +their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths. + +The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to +the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to +sit still and listen further. + +"Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path," he +continued, "the young man left his home and went to a city in another +State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender +hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the +hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends, +Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds +destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and +forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it +was the principle of _life_ which grew stronger within him, the +young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of +self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the +wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed +only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy +evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the +approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his +arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a +face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him. +'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy +mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young man shook +his head. 'I will be silent, then, but I will save thee. I know the +human heart, and its trials and weaknesses, and it may be put into my +mouth to give thee strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he +had been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard the sad +story, from beginning to end; and the young man wept upon his breast, +to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest and tenderest pity +bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and the +Friend's right hand was upon his head while they prayed. + +"The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still +further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he +had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to +life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease. +The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear. He +bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was +mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness +of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends. + +"I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story," Friend Carter +concluded, "from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time, +to influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among +you, my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning? Oh, +believe that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into +the hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of +wrath in the hands of the Lord!" + +He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the +eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and +thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace +and joy descended upon her heart. + +When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized +Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he +endeavored in rain to control, approached the preacher. + +"The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips," said he; "will thee +come to one side, and hear me a minute?" + +"Eli Mitchenor!" exclaimed Friend Carter; "Eli! I knew not thee was +here! Doesn't thee know me?" + +The old man stared in astonishment. "It seems like a face I ought to +know," he said, "but I can't place thee." + +They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned +again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in his own, +exclaimed,-- + +"Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I +am--or, rather, I was--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew." + +Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy, +and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened. + +"But thee calls thyself Carter?" he finally said. + +"Soon after I was saved," was the reply, "an aunt on the mother's side +died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her +name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like +losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now." + +"Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!" said the +old man. "Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a +concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee +walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?" + +"Asenath?" + +"Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her. +I'm coming, Moses!"--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which +was approaching. + +Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard +Hilton there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not +betrayed his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did +not wish it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might +surprise him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough +for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was +redeemed,--that a holier light than the autumn sun's now rested, and +would forever rest, on the one landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone +with the pure brightness of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek +and smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step was light +and elastic as in the old time. + +Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its +string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The +breeze had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm +light of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed +penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace. + +But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep +followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called her by name. + +She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face. + +"I knew thee, Richard!" at last she said, in a trembling voice; "may +the Lord bless thee!" + +Tears were in the eyes of both. + +"He has blessed me," Richard answered, in a reverent tone; "and this +is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives +me." + +"I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard,--forgiven, but not +forgotten." + +The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by +side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the +crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their +stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low +and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and +listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky. + +At last Richard stopped. + +"Asenath," said he, "does thee remember that spot on the banks of the +creek, where the rudbeckias grew?" + +"I remember it," she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face. + +"If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be +thy answer?" + +Her words came brokenly. + +"I would say to thee, Richard,--I can trust thee,--I _do_ love +thee!'" + +"Look at me, Asenath." + +Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first +confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his +shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it +again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man. + + + + +TAXATION NO BURDEN. + + +According to returns made by the Census Bureau to the Secretary of the +Treasury, the gross value of the productions of the United States for +1860 was $3,900,000,000: namely,--the product of Manufactures, the +Mechanic Arts, Mining, and the Fisheries, $1,900,000,000; the product +of Agriculture, $2,000,000,000. + +It is a well-understood principle of political economy, that the +annual product of a country is the source from which internal taxes +are to be derived. + +The nation is to be considered a partnership, the several members +engaged in the various departments of business, and producing annually +products of the value of $3,900,000,000, which are distributed among +the partners, affording to each a certain share of profit. The firm is +out of debt, but a sudden emergency compels an investment, in a new +and not immediately profitable branch of business, of $1,500,000,000, +which sum the firm borrows. As the consequence of this liability, the +firm must afterward incur an annual additional expense as follows: +$100,000,000 for the payment of members not engaged in productive +labor, $90,000,000 for interest upon the debt incurred, and $60,000,000 +for a sinking-fund which shall pay the debt in less than twenty years. + +It is absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the business of +the firm, that this immense investment, so unexpectedly called for, +shall be made to pay. How shall this problem be solved? + +Large sums are confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of +the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an +active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the +annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion of his farm is +very badly cultivated; no intelligent laborers can be induced to remain +upon it, owing to certain causes, easily removable, but which, being +an easy-going man, well satisfied with his income as it has been, +Uncle Sam has been unwilling to take hold of with any determination. + +Suddenly and without notice, he is compelled to borrow $15,000, and +spend it upon this portion of his farm; and he then finds, while +expending the money for another object and not a profitable one, he can +remove the only obstacle which prevented his obtaining a full supply +of the best and most intelligent labor, and that he can very soon +increase his annual product to $42,500. The increase of $2,500 each +year will enable him to pay his additional clerks, to meet the interest +on his liabilities, and to accumulate a sinking-fund sufficient to pay +his debts before his children come of age. He will be able to take some +comfort and satisfaction in his agricultural laborers; he will have a +larger amount of cotton to spin and to sell than ever before, and so +much wool, that, instead of being obliged to buy one-third the amount +required by his factory, as he has heretofore done, he will have more +than he can spin; and lastly, he will be able to raise fruit, to make +wine, to produce indigo, cochineal, and a great variety of articles +never produced on his farm before. + +What sound business-man would not thus regulate his investment, when +compelled to make it, even though he had been unwilling to borrow the +money for the simple purpose of making such an improvement? + +If a farm and factory, which badly managed produce $40,000 annually, +can by good management be made to produce $42,500, and can be very +much increased in value and ease of management by the process, the +owner had better borrow $15,000 to accomplish the object, and the tax +upon him of $2,500 required to meet the interest and sink the principal +will be no burden. That is the whole problem,--no more, no less. + +We have been driven into a war to maintain the boundaries of our farm; +in so doing we shall probably spend $1,500,000,000. It behooves us not +only to meet the expenditure promptly, but to make the investment pay. + +We have but to increase the annual product of the country six and +one-half per cent, and we shall meet the tax for expenses, interest, +and sinking-fund, and be as well off as we now are, provided the tax be +equitably assessed. + +This increase can be made without any increase in the number of +laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by +the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large +portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have +heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive +soil of the North. + +Slavery is the one obstacle to be removed in order to render this war a +paying operation. + +Under the false pretence that the climate of the South is too hot for +white men to labor in the fields, the degradation involved in +field-labor in a Slave State excludes intelligent cultivators from the +cotton-fields, a very large portion of which have a climate less hot +and less unsuitable for white men than that of Philadelphia, while +there is not a river-bottom in the whole South in which the extremes of +heat during the summer are so great as in St. Louis. Slave-labor +cultivates, in a miserable, shiftless manner, less than two per cent, +of the area of the Cotton States; and upon this insignificant portion a +crop of cotton has been raised in one year worth over $200,000,000. + +There is ample and conclusive evidence to be found in the statistics of +the few well-managed and well-cultivated cotton-plantations, that +skilful, educated farmers can get more than double the product to the +hand or to the acre that is usually obtained as the result of +slave-labor. + +Again, it will be admitted that $350 per annum is more than an average +return for the work of a common laborer on an average New England farm, +including his own support. + +It is capable of demonstration from, actual facts that an average +laborer, well directed, can produce a gross value of $1,000 per annum, +upon the uplands of Georgia and South Carolina, in the cultivation of +cotton and grain. Negro slaves under a negro driver, with no white man +on the premises, have produced this result in Hancock County, Georgia, +upon lands previously considered worthless, with a system of +cultivation singular and exceptional in that region, but common in all +well-cultivated sections, namely, a simple rotation of crops and a +moderate amount of manure. + +Elevate the negro from a state of slavery to the dignity of a free +laborer, and his consumption of manufactured goods increases +enormously. In proof of this may be cited the trade with Hayti, and the +immense increase in the import of manufactured goods into the British +West Indies since emancipation. Slaves are furnished with two suits of +clothes in a year, made from the coarsest and cheapest materials: it is +safe to estimate, that, if the fair proportion of their earnings were +paid them, their demand upon the North for staple articles would be +doubled, while the importations of silks, velvets, and other foreign +luxuries, upon which their earnings have been heretofore lavished by +their masters, would decrease. + +The commonly received view of the position of the cotton-planter is +that he is in a chronic state of debt. Such is the fact; not, however, +because he does not make a large amount of profit,--for cotton-planting +is the most profitable branch of agriculture in the United States,--but +because his standard of value is a negro, and not a dollar, and, in the +words of a Southern writer, "He is constantly buying more land to make +more cotton to buy more negroes to cultivate more land to raise more +cotton to buy more negroes," and for every negro he buys he gets +trusted for another. Both himself and his hands are of the least +possible value to the community. By maintaining his system he excludes +cheap labor from the cultivation of cotton,--slave-labor being the +most wasteful and the most expensive of any. He purchases for his +laborers the least possible amount of manufactured articles, and he +wastes his own expenditure in the purchase of foreign luxuries. + +Reference has been made to the increase to be expected in the product +of wool, after the removal or destruction of Slavery. + +We import annually 30,000,000 pounds of wool, and make little or no use +of the best region for growing wool in the whole country,--the western +slope of the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains and of the Blue Ridge. +Free laborers will not go there, although few slaves are there to be +found; for they well know that there is no respect or standing for the +free laborer in any Slave State. + +Again, throughout the uplands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, +it has been proved that sheep can be raised upon the English system +with the greatest success. Upon their light lands, (selling at less +than $1 per acre,) turnips can be raised in great abundance and fed to +sheep in the field, and by the process the fields brought to a point of +fertility, for cotton or grain, equal to the best bottom-lands of +Mississippi or Louisiana. This fact has been sufficiently proved by the +experience of the very few good farmers in Georgia. + +The climate of these sections is wonderfully healthy, and is far +better adapted to the production of wool than that of England, the +extremes of heat and cold being far greater, and yet the cold not being +sufficient to prevent the raising of turnips or feeding from the field +in winter. To produce fine fleece-wool, a warm summer and a cool +winter are requisite. + +Let any one examine Southern writings upon agriculture, and note the +experience of the few working, sensible cultivators, who, by a system +of rewards and premiums partially equivalent to the payment of wages +to their slaves, have obtained the best results of which Slavery is +capable, and he will realize the immense increase to be expected when +free and intelligent labor shall be applied to Southern agriculture. + +We hold, therefore, that by the destruction of Slavery, and by that +only, this war can be made to pay, and taxation become no burden. + +By free labor upon Southern soil we shall add to the annual product of +the country a sum more than equal to the whole tax which will be +required to pay interest and expenses, and to accumulate a sinking-fund +which will pay the debt in less than twenty years; while to the North +will come the immensely increased demand for manufactured articles +required by a thrifty and prosperous middle class, instead of the small +demand for coarse, cheap articles required by slaves, and the demand +for foreign luxuries called for by the masters. + +The addition of $250,000,000 to the product of the country would be a +gain to every branch of industry; and if the equable system of taxation +by a stamp-tax on all sales were adopted, the burden would not be +felt. The additional product being mostly from an improved system of +agriculture at the South, a much larger demand would exist for the +manufactures of the North, and a much larger body of distributors +would be required. + +Let us glance for a moment at the alternative,--the restoration of the +Union without the removal of Slavery. + +The system of slave-labor has been shaken to its foundation, and for +years to come its aggregate product will be far less than it has been, +thus throwing upon the North the whole burden of the taxes with no +compensating gain in resources. + +Only the refuse of our army could remain in the Slave States, to +become to us in the future an element of danger and not of +security,--the industrious and respectable portion would come back to +the North, to find their places filled and a return to the pursuits of +peace difficult to accomplish. + +With Slavery removed, the best part of our army will remain upon the +fertile soil and in the genial climate of the South, forming +communities, retaining their arms, keeping peace and good order with +no need of a standing army, and constituting the _nuclei_ around +which the poor-white trash of the South would gather to be educated in +the labor-system of the North, and thus, and thus only, to become loyal +citizens. + +The mass of the white population of the South are ignorant and deluded; +they need leaders, and will have them. + +We have allowed them to be led by slaveholders, and are reaping our +reward. Remove Slavery, and their present leaders are crushed out +forever. + +Give them new leaders from among the earnest and industrious portion of +our army, and we increase our resources and render taxation no burden, +and we restore the Union in fact and not simply in name. + +Leave Slavery in existence, and we decrease our resources, throw the +whole tax upon the North, reinforce the Secession element with the +refuse of our army, and bequeath to our children the shadow of a Union, +a mockery and a derision to all honest men. + + + + +THE POET TO HIS READERS. + + +Nay, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say,--"Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost: +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burrs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown; +When these I write--ah, well-a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May! + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek: +Can all the varied phrases tell, +That Babel's wandering children speak, +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read! +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. + + * * * * * + + +THE CHILDREN'S CITIES. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all +alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and +not one above another. + +His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys +covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each +other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other +two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the +city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. + +The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to +write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them +to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went +into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will +was drawn up as he desired. + +One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying +to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool +thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better +boat,--for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace +quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat +of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of +sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when +the will blew away, that he could speak no more when the lawyers came +back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died +without telling his sons what he wished them to do. + +However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they +were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little +persons,--at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never +quarrelled,--so that the child-people loved them almost as well as +they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the +princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, +because there was no king's will, and by rights the eldest ought to +have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called +his brothers to him and said,-- + +"I am quite sure, though there is no will, that our royal papa built +the three cities that we might each have one to reign over, and not one +reign over all. Therefore I will have you both, dear brothers, choose a +city to govern over, and I will govern over the city you do not +choose." + +And his brothers danced for joy; and the people too were pleased, for +they loved all the three princes. But there were not enough people in +the kingdom to fill more than one city quite full. Was not this very +odd? Gentil thought so; but, as he could not make out the reason, he +said to the child-people,-- + +"I will count you, and divide you into three parts, and each part shall +go to one city." + +For, before the king had built the cities, the child-people had lived +in the green valleys, and slept on beds of flowers. + +So Joujou, the second prince, chose the city of Pastime; and Bonbon, +the youngest prince, chose the city of Confection; and the city of +Lessonland was left for Prince Gentil, who took possession of it +directly. + +And first let us see how the good Gentil got on in his city. + +The city of Lessonland was built of books, all books, and only books. +The walls were books, set close like bricks, and the bridges over the +rivers (which were very blue) were built of books in arches, and there +were books to pave the roads and paths, and the doors of the houses +were books with golden letters on the outside. The palace of Prince +Gentil was built of the largest books, all bound in scarlet and green +and purple and blue and yellow. And inside the palace all the loveliest +pictures were hung upon the walls, and the handsomest maps; and in his +library were all the lesson-books and all the story-books in the world. +Directly Gentil began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these books for? They must mean that we are to learn, and +to become very clever, in order to be good. I wish to be very clever, +and to make my people so; so I must set them a good example." + +And he called all his child-people together, who would do anything for +the love of him, and he said,-- + +"If we mean to be of any use in the world, we must learn, learn, learn, +and read, read, read, and always be doing lessons." + +And they said they would, to please him; and they all gathered together +in the palace council-chamber, and Gentil set them tasks, the same as +he set himself, and they all went home to learn them, while he learned +his in the palace. + +Now let us see how Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, +Joujou,--oh, so fond of fun! as you may believe, from his choosing the +city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime! how unlike the city of dear, +dull Lessonland! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful +toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of +the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people +to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that +ran along by clock-work, and such rocking-horses! And there was not to +be found a book In the whole city, but the houses were crammed with +toys from the top to the bottom,--tops, hoops, balls, battle-doors, +bows and arrows, guns, peep-shows, drums and trumpets, marbles, +ninepins, tumblers, kites, and hundreds upon hundreds more, for there +you found every toy that ever was made in the world, besides thousands +of large wax dolls, all in different court-dresses. And directly Joujou +began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these toys for? They must mean that we are to play +always, that we may be always happy. I wish to be very happy, and that +my people should be happy, always. Won't I set them an example?" + +And Joujou blew a penny-trumpet, and got on the back of the largest +rocking-horse and rocked with all his might, and cried,-- + +"Child-people, you are to play always, for in all the city of Pastime +you see nothing else but toys!" + +The child-people did not wait long; some jumped on rocking-horses, some +drove off in carriages, and some in gigs and music-carts. And organs +were played, and bells rang, and shuttlecocks and kites flew up the +blue sky, and there was laughter, laughter, in all the streets of +Pastime! + +And now for little Bonbon, how is he getting on? He was a dear little +fat fellow,--but, oh, so fond of sweets! as you may believe, from his +choosing the city of Confection. And there were no books in Confection, +and no toys; but the walls were built of gingerbread, and the houses +were built of gingerbread, and the bridges of barley-sugar, that +glittered in the sun. And rivers ran with wine through the streets, +sweet wine, such as child-people love; and Christmas-trees grew along +the banks of the rivers, with candy and almonds and golden nuts on the +branches; and in every house the tables were made of sweet brown +chocolate, and there were great plum-cakes on the tables, and little +cakes, and all sorts of cakes. And when Bonbon began to reign he did +not think much about it, but began to eat directly, and called out, +with his mouth full,-- + +"Child-people, eat always! for in all the city of Confection there is +nothing but cakes and sweets." + +And did not the child-people fall to, and eat directly, and eat on, and +eat always? + +Now by this time what has happened to Gentil? for we left him in the +city of Lessonland. All the first day he learned the lessons he had set +himself, and the people learned theirs too, and they all came to Gentil +in the evening to say them to the Prince. But by the time Gentil had +heard all the lessons, he was very, very tired,--so tired that he +tumbled asleep on the throne; and when the child-people saw their +prince was asleep, they thought they might as well go to sleep too. And +when Gentil awoke, the next morning, behold! there were all his people +asleep on the floor. And he looked at his watch and found it was very +late, and he woke up the people, crying, with a very loud voice,-- + +"It is very late, good people!" + +And the people jumped up, and rubbed their eyes, and cried,-- + +"We have been learning always, and we can no longer see to read,--the +letters dance before our eyes." + +And all the child-people groaned, and cried very bitterly behind their +books. Then Gentil said,-- + +"I will read to you, my people, and that will rest your eyes." + +And he read them a delightful story about animals; but when he stopped +to show them a picture of a lion, the people were all asleep. Then +Gentil grew angry, and cried in a loud voice,-- + +"Wake up, idle people, and listen!" + +But when the people woke up, they were stupid, and sat like cats and +sulked. So Gentil put the book away, and sent them home, giving them +each a long task for their rudeness. The child-people went away; but, +as they found only books out of doors, and only books at home, they +went to sleep without learning their tasks. And all the fifth day they +slept. But on the sixth day Gentil went out to see what they were +doing; and they began to throw their books about, and a book knocked +Prince Gentil on the head, and hurt him so much that he was obliged to +go to bed. And while he was in bed, the people began to fight, and to +throw the books at one another. + +Now as for Joujou and his people, they began to play, and went on +playing, and did nothing else but play. And would you believe it?--they +got tired too. The first day and the second day nobody thought he ever +could be tired, amongst the rocking-horses and whips and marbles and +kites and dolls and carriages. But the third day everybody wanted to +ride at once, and the carriages were so full that they broke down, and +the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the +little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were +broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very +largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a +drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go +to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and +shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they +were toy-arrows, but which made Joujou very much afraid, for he did not +wish his people to hate him. + +"What do you want?" he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to +please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the +golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court of the +palace?" + +"Yes! yes!" cried the people, and the drummer jumped down from the +wall. "Yes! yes! Punch and Judy! We are tired of marbles, and balls, +and ninepins. But we sha'n't be tired of Punch and Judy!" + +So the people gathered together in the court of the palace, and saw +Punch and Judy over and over again, all day long on the fifth day. And +they had it so often, that, when the sixth day came, they pulled down +the stage, and broke Punch to pieces, and burned Judy, and screamed out +that they were so hungry they did not know what to do. And the drummer +called out,-- + +"Let us eat Prince Joujou!" + +But the people loved him still; so they answered,-- + +"No! but we will go out of the city and invade the city of Confection, +and fight them, if they won't give us anything to eat!" + +So out they went, with Joujou at their head; for Joujou, too, was +dreadfully hungry. And they crossed the green valley to the city of +Confection, and began to try and eat the gingerbread walls. But the +gingerbread was hard, because the walls had been built in ancient days; +and the people tried to get on the top of the walls, and when they had +eaten a few holes in the gingerbread, they climbed up by them to the +top. And there they saw a dreadful sight. All the people had eaten so +much that they were ill, or else so fat that they could not move. And +the people were lying about in the streets, and by the side of the +rivers of sweet wine, but, oh, so sick, that they could eat no more! +And Prince Bonbon, who had got into the largest Christmas-tree, had +eaten all the candy upon it, and grown so fat that he could not move, +but stuck up there among the branches. When the people of Pastime got +upon the walls, however, the people of Confection were very angry; and +one or two of those who could eat the most, and who still kept on +eating while they were sick, threw apples and cakes at the people of +Pastime, and shot Joujou with sugar-plums, which he picked up and ate, +while his people were eating down the plum-cakes, and drinking the wine +till they were tipsy. + +As soon as Gentil heard what a dreadful noise his people were making, +he got up, though he still felt poorly, and went out into the streets. +The people were fighting, alas! worse than ever; and they were trying +to pull down the strong book-walls, that they might get out of the +city. A good many of them were wounded in the head, as well as Prince +Gentil, by the heavy books falling upon them; and Gentil was very +sorry for the people. + +"If you want to go out, good people," he said, "I will open the gates +and go with you; but do not pull down the book-walls." + +And they obeyed Gentil, because they loved him, and Gentil led them out +of the city. When they had crossed the first green valley, they found +the city of Pastime empty, not a creature in it! and broken toys in the +streets. At sight of the toys, the poor book-people cried for joy, and +wanted to stop and play. So Gentil left them in the city, and went on +alone across the next green valley. But the city of Confection was +crammed so full with sick child-people belonging to Bonbon, and with +Joujou's hungry ones, that Gentil could not get in at the gate. So he +wandered about in the green valleys, very unhappy, until he came to his +old father's palace. There he found the fool, sitting on the banks of +the river. + +"O fool," said Gentil, "I wish I knew what my father meant us to do!" + +And the fool tried to comfort Gentil; and they walked together by the +river where the fool had made the boat of the will, without knowing +what it was. They walked a long way, Gentil crying, and the fool trying +to comfort him, when suddenly the fool saw the boat he had made, lying +among some green rushes. And the fool ran to fetch it, and brought it +to show Gentil. And Gentil saw some writing on the boat, and knew it +was his father's writing. Then Gentil was glad indeed; he unfolded +the paper, and thereon he read these words,--for a good king's words +are not washed away by water:-- + +"My will and pleasure is, that my dearly beloved sons, Prince Gentil, +Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, should all reign together over the +three cities which I have built. But there are only enough child-people +to fill one city; for I know that the child-people cannot live always +in one city. Therefore let the three princes, with Gentil, the eldest, +wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Lessonland +in the morning, that the bright sun may shine upon their lessons and +make them pleasant; and Gentil to set the tasks. And in the afternoon +let the three princes, with Joujou wearing the crown, lead all the +child-people to the city of Pastime, to play until the evening; and +Joujou to lead the games. And in the evening let the three princes, +with Bonbon wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of +Confection, to drink sweet wine and pluck fruit off the Christmas-trees +until time for bed; and little Bonbon to cut the cake. And at time for +bed, let the child-people go forth into the green valleys and sleep +upon the beds of flowers: for in Child Country it is always spring." + +This was the king's will, found at last; and Gentil, whose great long +lessons had made him wise, (though they had tired him too,) thought the +will the cleverest that was ever made. And he hastened to the city of +Confection, and knocked at the gate till they opened it; and he found +all the people sick by this time, and very pleased to see him, for they +thought him very wise. And Gentil read the will in a loud voice, and +the people clapped their hands and began to get better directly, and +Bonbon called to them to lift him down out of the tree where he had +stuck, and Joujou danced for joy. + +So the king's will was obeyed. And in the morning the people learned +their lessons, and afterwards they played, and afterwards they enjoyed +their feasts. And at bed-time they slept upon the beds of flowers, in +the green valleys: for in Child Country it is always spring. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +1. VICTOR HUGO. _Les Misérables. Fantine_. New York: P. W. +Christern. 8vo. + +2. _The Same_. Translated from the Original French, by CHARLES E. +WILBOUR. New York: G. W. Carleton. 8vo. + + +"FANTINE," the first of five novels under the general title of "Les +Misérables," has produced an impression all over Europe, and we already +hear of nine translations, It has evidently been "engineered" with +immense energy by the French publisher. Translations have appeared in +numerous languages almost simultaneously with its publication in Paris. +Every resource of bookselling ingenuity has been exhausted in order to +make every human being who can read think that the salvation of his +body and soul depends on his reading "Les Misérables." The glory and +the obloquy of the author have both been forced into aids to a system +of puffing at which Barnum himself would stare amazed, and confess +that he had never conceived of "a dodge" in which literary genius and +philanthropy could be allied with the grossest bookselling humbug. But +we trust, that, after our American showman has recovered from his +first shock of surprise, he will vindicate the claim of America to be +considered the "first nation on the face of the earth," by immediately +offering Dickens a hundred thousand dollars to superintend his +exhibition of dogs, and Florence Nightingale a half a million to appear +at his exhibition of babies. + +The French bookseller also piqued the curiosity of the universal public +by a story that Victor Hugo wrote "Les Misérables" twenty-five years +ago, but, being bound to give a certain French publisher all his works +after his first celebrated novel, he would not delight the world with +this product of his genius until he had forced the said publisher into +a compliance with his terms. The publisher shrank aghast from the sum +which the author demanded, and this sum was yearly increased in amount, +as years rolled away and as Victor Hugo's reputation grew more +splendid. At last the publisher died, probably from vexation, and +Victor Hugo was free. Then he condescended to allow the present +publisher to issue "Les Misérables" on the payment of eighty thousand +dollars. It is not surprising, that, to get his money back, this +publisher has been compelled to resort to tricks which exceed +everything known in the whole history of literature. + +"Fantine," therefore, comes before us, externally, as the most +desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from +drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of +having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most +reckless _charlatanerie_ to save himself from utter ruin and +complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before +us as an attempt both to include and to supersede the Christian +religion. Wilkinson, in a preface to one of his books, stated that he +thought that "Christendom was not the error of which _Chapmandom_ +was the correction,"--Chapman being then the English publisher of a +number of skeptical books. In the same way we may venture to affirm +that Christendom is not the beginning of which _Hugoism_ is the +complement and end. We think that the revelation made by the publisher +of "Les Misérables" sadly interferes with the revelation made by +Victor Hugo. Saint Paul may be inferior to Saint Hugo, but everybody +will admit that Saint Paul would not have hesitated a second in +deciding, in the publication of _his_ epistles, between the good +of mankind and his own remuneration. Saint Hugo confessedly waited +twenty-five years before he published his new gospel. The salvation of +Humanity had to be deferred until the French saviour received his +eighty thousand dollars. At last a bookselling Barnum appears, pays +the price, and a morality which utterly eclipses that of Saint Paul is +given to an expectant world. + +This morality, sold for eighty thousand dollars, is represented by +Bishop Myriel. The character is drawn with great force, and is full +both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary +churchmen. The portion of the work in which it figures contains many +striking sayings. Thus, we are told, that, when the Bishop "had money, +his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich." +"Ask not," he said, "the name of him who asks you for a bed; it is +especially he whose name is a burden to him who has need of an +asylum." This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness +so far as to receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses +reject, and, when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the +latter by telling the officers who had apprehended the thief that he +had given him the silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, +that, like Peter Bell, he "becomes a good and pious man," starts a +manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent +purposes. Fantine, the heroine, after having been seduced by a +Parisian student, comes to work in his factory. She has a child that +she supports by her labor. This fact is discovered by some female +gossip, and she is dismissed from the factory as an immoral woman, and +descends to the lowest depths of prostitution,--still for the purpose +of supporting her child. Jean Valjean, the reformed criminal, +discovers her, is made aware that her debasement is the result of the +act of his foreman, and takes her, half dead with misery and sickness, +to his own house. Meanwhile he learns that an innocent person, by +being confounded with himself, is in danger of being punished for his +former deeds. He flies from the bedside of Fantine, appears before the +court, announces himself as the criminal, is arrested, but in the end +escapes from the officers who have him in charge. Fantine dies. Her +child is to be the heroine of Novel Number Two of "Les Misérables," and +will doubtless have as miserable an end as her mother. From this bare +abstract, the story does not seem to promise much pleasure to +novel-readers, yet it is all alive with the fiery genius of Victor +Hugo, and the whole representation is so intense and vivid that it is +impossible to escape from the fascination it exerts over the mind. Few +who take the book up will leave it until they have read it through. It +is morbid to a degree that no eminent English author, not even Lord +Byron, ever approached; but its morbid elements are so combined with +sentiments abstractly Christian that it is calculated to wield a more +pernicious influence than Byron ever exerted. Its tendency is to +weaken that abhorrence of crime which is the great shield of most of +the virtue which society possesses, and it does this by attempting to +prove that society itself is responsible for crimes it cannot +prevent, but can only punish. To legislators, to Magdalen societies, +to prison-reformers, it may suggest many useful hints; but, considered +as a passionate romance, appealing to the sympathies of the ordinary +readers of novels, it will do infinitely more harm than good. The +bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice. On the +whole, therefore, we think that Victor Hugo, when he stood out +twenty-five years for his price, did a service to the human race. The +great value of his new gospel consisted in its not being published. We +wish that another quarter of a century had elapsed before it found a +bookseller capable of venturing on so reckless a speculation. + + * * * * * + +_Christ the Spirit_: being an Attempt to state the Primitive View +of Christianity. By the Author of "Remarks on Alchemy and the +Alchemists," and "Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher." 2 vols. New York: +James Miller. + +Tins remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the +United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign +and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the +grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, +and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the +creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, +may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and +moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach +theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the +divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to +reestablish Christianity upon, its true basis. In opposition to +existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as +opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, "It is the spirit that +quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,"--or again, with the Spirit of +Truth itself, he declares, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true +worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the +Father seeketh such to worship Him." General Hitchcock believes that +the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret +society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea +with the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was written for the instruction of +the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath +by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of +this theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly +interesting and instructive. + +The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essenes +thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and +a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man; as +spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held +that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; +and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote--the Four +Gospels--they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified +the law of Moses,--Christ representing in his double character both the +spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the +spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the +"wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the +Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in +all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the +Spirit of Nature,--the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in +whom it abides. + +From this brief statement it will be seen that General Hitchcock takes +a view of Christianity widely different from that of theologians. Jesus +of Nazareth, as a person, he regards simply as a great teacher of this +sect of philosophers; and in the Christ of the New Testament, a being +endowed with supernatural powers, he sees a personification of the +Spirit of Truth. The literal history of a series of supernatural +events occurring in Judea two thousand years ago he transforms into +sublime teachings of the great truths inherent in human nature, and +which, wherever man is, are there forever reënacting the same +drama,--in the assumed history of Jesus, divinely portrayed,--not, if +rightly understood, as an actual history of any one man, but as a +symbolic narration, representing the spiritual life of all men. + +Many grave reflections are forced upon us in contemplating a view so +original of a subject upon which apparently nothing more remained to be +said. It becomes not only the question, How will this work be received +by the religious world? but, How, in a true spirit of inquiry, +_ought_ it to be received? The theory of the author is peculiarly +simple, but in its simplicity lies an exceeding beauty. The idea that +the Scriptures are symbolical has always found adherents, but never +such an advocate. Swedenborg affirmed this truth, and invented a +formal mode of interpretation, upon which he wrote his multitudinous +octavos, themselves mystical volumes, and whose effect has been to +involve a subject already obscure in still deeper darkness, and to +transfer the adoration of a small portion of the Christian world from +the letter of the Scriptures to the letter of Swedenborg,--a +questionable benefit to his followers, in spite of the many important +truths which this great man advocated. The radical difference between +such a system and that which we are now considering is evident. Not +Swedenborg alone, but many others, through artificial systems of their +own, have sought to interpret the mysteries of the Bible; but it has +remained for the author of "Christ the Spirit" to attempt a discovery +of the key unlocking the symbolism of the New Testament, as it was +understood by the gospel writers themselves. + +_The Pearl of Orr's Island._ A Story of the Coast of Maine. By +MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The +Minister's Wooing," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +Mrs. Stowe is never more in her element than in depicting +unsophisticated New-England life, especially in those localities where +there is a practical social equality among the different classes of +the population. "The Pearl of Orr's Island," the scene of which is +laid in one of those localities, is every way worthy of her genius. +Without deriving much interest from its plot, it fastens the pleased +attention of the reader by the freshness, clearness, and truth of its +representations, both of Nature and persons. The author transports us +at once to the place she has chosen as the scene of her story, makes us +as familiarly acquainted with all its surroundings as if we had been +born and bred there, introduces us to all the principal inhabitants in +a thoroughly "neighborly" way, and contrives to impress us with a +sense of the substantial reality of what she makes us mentally see, +even when an occasional improbability in the story almost wakes us up +to a perception that the whole is a delightful illusion. + +This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee +recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables +the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine +of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In +the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with +Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed +to this magazine: the difference is in time and circumstance, and not +in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture +and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of +Spenser's exquisite individualizations of abstract feminine +excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted +spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her +nature, and her soul moves in a sphere of religious experience compared +with which "fairy-land" is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel +as well as a woman; yet the height of her meditations does not +interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human +duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to +her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid +delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we +cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe's best claims to be considered a woman +of true imaginative genius. + +In the rest of the population of Orr's Island the reader cannot fail to +take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the +hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. +But "Cap'n" Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and +Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for +a long dissertation on New England and human character. Miss Roxy, +especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee-land, and is so +thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her +eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been +allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in +actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in +education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital +self-sacrifice and tenderness of heart. + +We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than +Mrs. Stowe's other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they +love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, +is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with +Moses. The latter is "made happy" in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. +Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the +last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or +knowing it. + +In style, "The Pearl of Orr's Island" ranks with the best narratives in +American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and +Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only +facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It +is the exact mirror of the author's mind and character. It is fresh, +simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention +from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which +are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. +The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so +excellent,--that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the +matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the +singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest +reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of +description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara +and Moses on the open sea, the night-visit which Mara makes to the +rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede +Mara's death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and +fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated +to common words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and +passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of +accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual +perception,--in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and +sentiment,--and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward +sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,--"The Pearl of +Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has +heretofore contributed to American literature. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. I. New York. G. P. Putnam. 13mo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +History of the United States Naval Academy, with Biographical Sketches, +and the Names of all the Superintendents, Professors, and Graduates. To +which is added a Record of some of the Earliest Votes by Congress, of +Thanks, Medals, and Swords, to Naval Officers. By Edward Chauncey +Marshall, A.M., formerly Instructor in Captain Kinsley's Military +School at West Point, Assistant Professor in the New York University, +etc. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 156. $1.00. + +Instruction for Naval Light Artillery, Afloat and Ashore. Prepared and +arranged for the United States Naval Academy. By William H. Parker, +Lieutenant U.S.N. Second Edition. Revised by Lieutenant S.B. Luce, +U.S.N., Assistant Instructor of Gunnery at the United States Naval +Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 120. $1.50. + +Manual of Target-Practice for the United States Army. By Major G.L. +Willard, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 18mo. pp. 80. 50 cts. + +A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery; compiled for the Use +of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy. By Captain J.G. +Benton, Ordnance Department, late Instructor of Ordnance and Science of +Gunnery, Military Academy, West Point; Principal Assistant to the Chief +of Ordnance, U.S.A. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. New York. D. +Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 550. $4.00. + +Seventh Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the State of +Massachusetts. January 1, 1862. Part I., Marine and Fire Insurance: +Part II., Life Insurance. Boston. William White, Printer to the State. +8vo. pp. xxxvi., 262; xl., 33; 15. + +Ballads of the War. By George Whitfield Hewes. New York. G.W. Garleton. +16mo. pp. 147. 50 cts. + +The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of the +Life of the Author and a Catalogue of his Writings. New York. William +Gowans. 12mo. pp. 311. $1.00. + +The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood, +Author of "East Lynne," etc. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. +8vo. paper, pp. 302. 50 cts. + +The Bay Path. A Tale of New England Colonial Life. By J.G. Holland, +Author of "Letters to the Young," "Lessons in Life," etc. New York. C. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 418. $1.25. + +The Church in the Army; or, The Four Centurions. By Rev. William A. +Scott, D.D., of San Francisco. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 443. +$1.25. + +Prison-Life in the Tobacco-Warehouse at Richmond. By a Ball's-Bluff +Prisoner, Lieutenant William C. Harris, of Colonel Baker's California +Regiment. Philadelphia. G.W. Childs. 16mo. pp. 175. 75 cts. + +Mount Vernon, and other Poems. By Harvey Rice. Columbus. Follett, +Foster, & Co. 16mo. pp. 221. $1.00. + +Last Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With a Memorial by Theodore +Tilton. New York. James Miller. 32mo. pp. 242. 75 cts. + +Manual for Engineer Troops. Consisting of, I., Ponton Drill; II., Rules +for Conducting a Siege; III., School of the Sap; IV., Military Mining; +V., Construction of Batteries. By Captain J.C. Duane, Corps of +Engineers, U.S. Army. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 275. $2.00. + +Our Flag. A Poem in Four Cantos. By F.H. Underwood. New York. G. W. +Carleton. 16mo. paper, pp. 41. 25 cts. + +A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial. By +Captain S.V. Benét, Ordnance Department, U.S. Army: late Assistant +Professor of Ethics, Law, etc. Military Academy, West Point. New York. +D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 377. $3.00. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, +July, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JULY 1862 *** + +***** This file should be named 9493-8.txt or 9493-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/9/9493/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9493-8.zip b/9493-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7520ee --- /dev/null +++ b/9493-8.zip diff --git a/9493.txt b/9493.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b1fb52 --- /dev/null +++ b/9493.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9148 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862, 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: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9493] +Release Date: December, 2005 +First Posted: October 5, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JULY 1862 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + + +VOL. X.--JULY, 1862.--NO. LVII. + + + +SOME SOLDIER-POETRY. + + +It is certain that since the time of Homer the deeds and circumstances +of war have not been felicitously sung. If any ideas have been the +subject of the strife, they seldom appear to advantage in the poems +which chronicle it, or in the verses devoted to the praise of heroes. +Remove the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," some English, Spanish, and +Northern ballads, two or three Old-Bohemian, the war-songs composed by +Ziska, and one or two Romaic, from the field of investigation, and one +is astonished at the scanty gleaning of battle-poetry, camp-songs, and +rhymes that have been scattered in the wake of great campaigns, and +many of the above-mentioned are more historical or mythological than +descriptive of war. The quantity of political songs and ballads, +serious and satirical, which were suggested by the great critical +moments of modern history, is immense. Every country has, or might +have, its own peculiar collections. In France the troubles of the +League gave an impulse to song-writing, and the productions of +Desportes and Bertaut are relics of that time. Historical and +revolutionary songs abound in all countries; but even the +"Marseillaise," the gay, ferocious "Carmagnole," and the "Ca Ira," +which somebody wrote upon a drum-head in the Champ de Mars, do not +belong to fighting-poetry. The actual business of following into the +field the men who represent the tendencies of any time, and of helping +to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, +seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the +same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; +the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; +even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and +suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the +gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when +wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be kissed, are +scarcely seen, or feebly hinted at. The horizon of the battle-field +itself is limited, and it is impossible to obtain a total impression +of the picturesque and terrible fact. After the smoke has rolled away, +the historian finds a position whence the scenes deliberately reveal to +him all their connection, and reenact their passion. He is the real +poet of these solemn passages in the life of man. [1] + +[Footnote 1: There is a little volume, called _Voices from the +Ranks_, in which numerous letters written by privates, corporals, +etc., in the Crimea, are collected and arranged. They are full of +incident and pathos. Suffering, daring, and humor, the love of home, +and the religious dependence of men capable of telling their own Iliad, +make this a very powerful book. In modern times the best literature of +a campaign will be found in private letters. We have some from Magenta +and Solferino, written by Frenchmen; the character stands very clear in +them. And here is one written by an English lad, who is describing a +landing from boats in Finland, when he shot his first man. The act +separated itself from the whole scene, and charged him with it. +Instinctively he walked up to the poor Finn; they met for the first +time. The wounded man quietly regarded him; he leaned on his musket, +and returned the fading look till it went out.] + +One would think that a poet in the ranks would sometimes exchange the +pike or musket for the pen in his knapsack, and let all the feelings +and landscapes of war distil through his fine fancy from it drop by +drop. But the knapsack makes too heavy a draught upon the nervous +power which the cerebellum supplies for marching orders; concentration +goes to waste in doing porter's work; his tent-lines are the only kind +a poet cares for. If he extemporizes a song or hymn, it is lucky if it +becomes a favorite of the camp. The great song which the soldier lifts +during his halt, or on the edge of battle, is generally written +beforehand by some pen unconscious that its glow would tip the points +of bayonets, and cheer hearts in suspense for the first cannon-shot of +the foe. If anybody undertakes to furnish songs for camps, he prospers +as one who resolves to write anthems for a prize-committee to sit on: +it is sutler's work, and falls a prey to the provost-marshal. + +Nor are poets any more successful, when they propose to make camp-life +and soldiers' feelings subjects for aesthetic consideration. Their +lines are smooth, their images are spirited; but as well might the +campaign itself have been conducted in the poet's study as its +situations be deliberately transferred there to verse. The +"Wallenstein's Camp" of Schiller is not poetry, but racy and sparkling +pamphleteering. Its rhyming does not prevent it from belonging to the +historical treatment of periods that are picturesque with many passions +and interests, that go clad in jaunty regimental costumes, and require +not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his +soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the +storming and marauding of the mediaeval _Lanzknecht;_ set to +music, it might be sung by fine _dilettanti_ tenors in garrison, +but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the +countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the +campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces +an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which +describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French. +But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to +give. The songs of Koerner are well known already in various English +dresses. [2] + +[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's _Midnight Review_, +of Follen's _Bluecher's Ball_, of Freihgrath's _Death of +Grabbe_, of Rueckert's _Patriot's Lament_, of Arndt's +_Field-Marshal Bluecher_, of Pfeffel's _Tobacco-Pipe_, of +Gleim's _War Song_, of Tegner's _Veteran_, (Swedish,) of +Rahbek's _Peter Colbjornsen_, (Danish,) _The Death-Song of +Regner Lodbrock_, (Norse,) and Koerner's _Sword-Song_, in Mr. +Longfellow's _Poets and Poetry of Europe_. See all of Koerner's +soldier songs well translated, the _Sword-Song_ admirably, by +Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in _Specimens of Foreign Literature_, Vol. +XIV. See, in Robinson's _Literature of Slavic Nations_, some +Russian and Servian martial poetry.] + +But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms +which were points in the welfare of nations--when, for instance, +Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges +of the barons--is more interesting than all the modern songs which +nicely depict soldiers' moods. Language itself was fighting for +recognition, as well as industrial and social rights. The verses mark +successive steps of a people into consciousness and civilization. Some +of this battle-poetry is worth preserving; a few camp-rhymes, also, +were famous enough in their day to justify translating. Here are some +relics, of pattern more or less antique, picked up from that field of +Europe where so many centuries have met in arms. [3] + +[Footnote 3: Among such songs is one by Bayard Taylor, entitled +_Annie Laurie_, which is of the very best kind.] + +The Northern war-poetry, before the introduction of Christianity, is +vigorous enough, but it abounds in disagreeable commonplaces: trunks +are cleft till each half falls sideways; limbs are carved for ravens, +who appear as invariably as the Valkyrs, and while the latter pounce +upon the souls that issue with the expiring breath, the former +banquet upon the remains. The celebration of a victory is an exulting +description of actual scenes of revelling, mead-drinking from mounted +skulls, division of the spoils, and half-drunken brags[4] of future +prowess. The sense of dependence upon an unseen Power is manifested +only in superstitious vows for luck and congratulations that the Strong +Ones have been upon the conquering side. There is no lifting up of the +heart which checks for a time the joy of victory. They are ferociously +glad that they have beaten. This prize-fighting imagery belongs also +to the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and is in marked contrast with the +commemorative poetry of Franks and Germans after the introduction of +Christianity. The allusions may be quite as conventional, but they show +that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the +fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure +establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon +an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. We speak only +of war-poetry. + +[Footnote 4: Braga was the name of the goblet over which the Norse +drinkers made their vows. Probably no Secessionist ever threatened more +pompously over his whiskey. The word goes back a great distance. +_Paruf_ is Sanscrit for rough, and _Ragh_, to be equal to. +In reading the Norse poetry, one can understand why _Braga_ was +the Apollo of the Asa gods, and why the present made to a favorite +Scald was called _Bragar-Laun_ (_Lohn_). _Bravo_ is also a +far-travelled form.] + +Here, for instance, is the difference plainly told. Hucbald, a monk of +the cloister St. Amand in Flanders, wrote "The Louis-Lay," to celebrate +the victory gained by the West-Frankish King Louis III. over the +Normans, in 881, near Saucourt. It is in the Old-High-German. A few +lines will suffice:-- + +The King rode boldly, sang a holy song, +And all together sang, Kyrie eleison. +The song was sung; the battle was begun; +Blood came to cheeks; thereat rejoiced the Franks; +Then fought each sword, but none so well as Ludwig, +So swift and bold, for 't was his inborn nature; +He struck down many, many a one pierced through, +And at his hands his enemies received +A bitter drink, woe to their life all day. +Praise to God's power, for Ludwig overcame; +And thanks to saints, the victor-fight was his. +Homeward again fared Ludwig, conquering king, +And harnessed as he ever is, wherever the need may be, +Our God above sustain him with His majesty! + +Earlier than this it was the custom for soldiers to sing just before +fighting. Tacitus alludes to a kind of measured warcry of the +Germans, which they made more sonorous and terrific by shouting it into +the hollow of their shields. He calls it _barditus_ by mistake, +borrowing a term from the custom of the Gauls, who sang before battle +by proxy,--that is, their bards chanted the national songs. But Norse +and German soldiers loved to sing. King Harald Sigurdson composes +verses just before battle; so do the Skalds before the Battle of +Stiklestad, which was fatal to the great King Olaf. The soldiers learn +the verses and sing them with the Skalds. They also recollect older +songs,--the "Biarkamal," for instance, which Biarke made before he +fought.[5] These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged +with threats of unlimited slaughter. The custom survived all the social +and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the +Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the +Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns: +they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the +time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of +St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, +and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the +"Lyra Germanica," p. 237. + +[Footnote 5: Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol. +III. p. 90.] + +William's minstrel, Taillefer, sang a song before the Battle of +Hastings: but the Normans loved the purely martial strain, and this +was a ballad of French composition, perhaps a fragment of the older +"Roland's Song." The "Roman de Rou," composed by Master Wace, or Gasse, +a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, who died in 1184, is very +minute in its description of the Battle of Val des Dunes, near Caen, +fought by Henry of France and William the Bastard against Guy, a Norman +noble in the Burgundian interest. The year of the battle was 1047. +There is a Latin narrative of the Battle of Hastings, in eight hundred +and thirty-five hexameters and pentameters. This was composed by Wido, +or Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075. + +The German knights on their way to Jerusalem sang a holy psalm, +beginning, "Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of the earth." This was +discovered not long ago in Westphalia; a translation of it, with the +music, can be found in Mr. Richard Willis's collection of hymns. + +One would expect to gather fragments of war-poetry from the early times +of the Hungarians, who held the outpost of Europe against the Turks, +and were also sometimes in arms against the imperial policy of Germany. +But De Gerando informs us that they set both victories and defeats to +music. The "Rakotzi" is a national air which bears the name of an +illustrious prince who was overcome by Leopold. "It is remarkable that +in Hungary great thoughts and deep popular feelings were expressed and +consecrated, not by poetry, but by national airs. The armed Diets which +were held upon the plain of Rakos were the symbol of ancient liberty to +the popular apprehension; there is the 'Air of Rakos,' also the 'Air of +Mohacs,' which recalls the fall of the old monarchy, and the 'Air of +Zrinyi,' which preserves the recollection of the heroic defence of +Szigeth."[6] These airs are not written; the first comer extemporized +their inartificial strains, which the feeling of the moment seized upon +and transmitted by tradition. Among the Servians, on the contrary, +the heroic ballad is full of fire and meaning, but the music amounts to +nothing. + +[Footnote 6: A. De Gerando, _La Transylvanie et ses Habitants_, +Tom. II. p. 265, et seq.] + +The first important production of the warlike kind, after Germany began +to struggle with its medieval restrictions, was composed after the +Battle of Sempach, where Arnold Struthalm of Winkelried opened a +passage for the Swiss peasants through the ranks of Austrian spears. It +is written in the Middle-High-German, by Halbsuter, a native of +Lucerne, who was in the fight. Here are specimens of it. There is a +paraphrase by Sir Walter Scott, but it is done at the expense of the +metre and _naive_ character of the original. + +In the thousand and three hundred and six and eightieth year +Did God in special manner His favor make appear: +Hei! the Federates, I say, +They get this special grace upon St. Cyril's day. + +That was July 9, 1386. The Swiss had been exasperated by the +establishment of new tolls by the nobility, who were upheld in it by +the Duke of Austria. The Federates (_Confederates_ can never again +be used in connection with a just fight) began to attack the castles +which sheltered the oppressive baronial power. The castle behind the +little town of Willisow is stormed and burned. Thereupon the nobles +swear to put these Swiss free peasants down and get them a master. The +poet tells all this, and proceeds to describe their excesses and +pride. Then,-- + +Ye Lowland lords are drawing hither to the +Oberland, +To what an entertainment ye do not understand: +Hei! 't were better for shrift to call, +For in the mountain-fields mischances may +befall. + +To which the nobles are imagined to reply,-- + +"Indeed! where sits the priest, then, to grant +this needful gift?" +In the Schweitz he is all ready,--he'll give +you hearty shrift: +Hei! he will give it to you sheer, +This blessing will he give it with sharp halberds +and such gear. + +The Duke's people are mowing in the fields near Sempach. A knight +insolently demands lunch for them from the Sempachers: a burgher +threatens to break his head and lunch them in a heavy fashion, for the +Federates are gathering, and will undoubtedly make him spill his +porridge. A cautious old knight, named Von Hasenburg, rides out to +reconnoitre, and he sees enough to warn the Duke that it is the most +serious business in which he ever engaged. + +Then spake a lord of Ochsenstein, "O Hasenburg, +hare-heart!" +Him answereth Von Hasenburg, "Thy words +bring me a smart: +Hei! I say to you faithfully, +Which of us is the coward this very day you'll see." + +So the old knight, not relishing being punned upon for his counsel, +dismounts. All the knights, anticipating an easy victory, dismount, +and send their horses to the rear, in the care of varlets who +subsequently saved themselves by riding them off. The solid ranks are +formed bristling with spears. There is a pause as the two parties +survey each other. The nobles pass the word along that it looks like a +paltry business:-- + +So spake they to each other: "Yon folk is +very small,-- +In case such boors should beat us, 't will bring +no fame at all: +'Hei! fine lords the boors have mauled!'" +Then the honest Federates on God in heaven +called. + +"Ah, dear Christ of Heaven, by Thy bitter +death we plead, +Help bring to us poor sinners in this our strait +and need; +Hei! and stand by us in the field, +And have our land and people beneath Thy +ward and shield." + +The shaggy bull (of Uri) was quite ready to meet the lion (Leopold), +and threw the dust up a little with its hoof. + +"Hei! will you fight with us who have beaten you before?" + +To this the lion replies,-- + +"Thank you for reminding me. I have many a knight and varlet here to +pay you off for Laupen, and for the ill turn you did me at Morgarten; +now you must wait here till I am even with you." + +Now drew the growling lion his tail in for a +spring: +Then spake the bull unto him, "Wilt have +your reckoning? +Hei! then nearer to us get, +That this green meadow may with blood be +growing wet." + +Then they began a-shooting against us in the +grove, +And their long lances toward the pious Federates +move: +Hei! the jest it was not sweet, +With branches from the lofty pines down rattling +at their feet. + +The nobles' front was fast, their order deep +and spread; +That vexed the pious mind; a Winkelried he +said, +"Hei! if you will keep from need +My pious wife and child, I'll do a hardy +deed. + +"Dear Federates and true, my life I give to +win: +They have their rank too firm, we cannot break +it in: +Hei! a breaking in I'll make. +The while that you my offspring to your protection +take." + +Herewith did he an armful of spears nimbly take; +His life had an end, for his friends a lane did make: +Hei! he had a lion's mood, +So manly, stoutly dying for the Four Cantons' good. + +And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began +With hewing and with sticking,--it was God's holy plan: +Hei! if this He had not done, +It would have cost the Federates many an honest one. + +The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, +enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or +comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners +which they leave behind. [7] + +[Footnote 7: It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made +in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the +ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle +which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed +before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that +Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is +furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, +there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" +villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced +to _deshabille_? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up +William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but +Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument +against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.] + +Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are +pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and +described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His +facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or +three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and +temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout +commences, he says,-- + +One hither fled, another there, +With good intent to disappear, + Some hid them in the bushes: +I never saw so great a pinch,-- +A crowd that had no thirst to quench + Into the water pushes. + +They waded in up to the chin, +Still we our shot kept pouring in, + As if for ducks a-fowling: +In boats we went and struck them dead, +The lake with all their blood was red,-- + What begging and what howling! + +Up in the trees did many hide, +There hoping not to be espied; + But like the crows we shot them: +The rest on spears did we impale, +Their feathers were of no avail, + The wind would not transport them. + +He will not vouch for the number of the killed, but gives it on hearsay +as twenty-six thousand drowned and slain; but he regrets that their +flight was so precipitate as to prevent him from recording a more +refreshing total. He is specially merry over the wealth and luxurious +habits of Charles, alludes to his vapor-baths, etc.:-- + +His game of chess was to his cost, +Of pawns has he a many lost, + And twice[8] his guard is broken; +His castles help him not a mite, +And see how lonesome stands his knight! +Checkmate's against him spoken. + +[Footnote 8: Once, the year before, at Granson.] + +The wars of the rich cities with the princes and bishops stimulated a +great many poems that are full of the traits of burgher-life. Seventeen +princes declared war against Nuremberg, and seventy-two cities made a +league with her. The Swiss sent a contingent of eight hundred men. This +war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success +for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, +in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenpluel, celebrated this in verses +like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic +street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of +Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All +these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do +not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discomfitures +in the field are the occasion of elaborate ridicule. + +The _Lanzknechts_ were foot-soldiers recruited from the roughs of +Germany, and derived their name from the long lance which they +carried;[9] but they were also armed subsequently with the arquebuse. +They were first organized into bodies of regular troops by George +Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a famous German captain, whose castle was +about twenty miles south-west of Augsburg. It was afterwards the centre +of a little principality which Joseph I. created for the Duke of +Marlborough,[10] as a present for the victory of Hochstaedt (Blenheim). +Frundsberg was a man of talent and character, one of the best soldiers +of Charles V. He saved the Imperial cause in the campaign of 1522 +against the French and Swiss. At Bicocco he beat the famous Swiss +infantry under Arnold of Winkelried, a descendant, doubtless, of one of +the children whom Arnold Struthabn left to the care of his comrades. At +Pavia a decisive charge of his turned the day against Francis I. And on +the march to Rome, his unexpected death so inflamed the +_Lanzknechts_ that the meditated retreat of Bourbon became +impossible, and the city was taken by assault. His favorite mottoes +were, _Kriegsrath mit der That_, "Plan and Action," and _Viel +Feinde, viel Ehre_, "The more foes, the greater honor." He was the +only man who could influence the mercenary lancers, who were as +terrible in peace as in war. + +[Footnote 9: It is sometimes spelled _landsknecht_, as if it meant +_country-fellows_, or recruits,--men raised at large. But that was +a popular misapprehension of the word, because some of them were +Suabian bumpkins.] + +[Footnote 10: The French soldier-song about Marlborough is known to +every one.] + +The _Lanzknecht's_ lance was eighteen feet long: he wore a helmet +and breastplate, and was taught to form suddenly and to preserve an +impenetrable square. Before him all light and heavy cavalry went down, +and that great arm of modern war did not recover from its disgrace and +neglect till the time of Frederic. But his character was very +indifferent: he went foraging when there was no campaign, and in time +of peace prepared for war by systematic billeting and plundering. It +was a matter of economy to get up a war in order to provide employment +for the _Lanzknecht_. + +Hans Sachs wrote a very amusing piece in 1558, entitled, "The Devil +won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one +evening, speaks of the _Lanzknecht_ as a new kind of man; he +describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire +to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a +tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a +stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's +Satan, and listens while the _Lanzknechts_ drink. They begin to +tell stories which make his hair stand on end, but they also God-bless +each other so often, at sneezing and hiccupping, that he cannot get a +chance at them. One of them, who had stolen a cock and hung it behind +the stove, asks the landlord to go and fetch the poor devil. Beelzebub, +soundly frightened, beats a hasty retreat, expressing his wonder that +the _Lanzknecht_ should know he was there. He apologizes to +Lucifer for being unable to enrich his cabinet, and assures him that it +would be impossible to live with them; the devils would be eaten out of +house and home, and their bishopric taken from them. Lucifer concludes +on the whole that it is discreet to limit himself to monks, nuns, +lawyers, and the ordinary sinner. + +The songs of the _Lanzknecht_ are cheerful, and make little of the +chances of the fight. Fasting and feasting are both welcome; he is as +gay as a Zouave.[11] To be maimed is a slight matter: if he loses an +arm, he bilks the Swiss of a glove; if his leg goes, he can creep, or a +wooden leg will serve his purpose:-- + +It harms me not a mite, +A wooden stump will make all right; +And when it is no longer good, +Some spital knave shall get the wood. + +But if a ball my bosom strikes, + On some wide field I lie, +They'll take me off upon their pikes,-- + A grave is always nigh; +Pumerlein Pum,--the drums shall say +Better than any priest,--Good day! + +[Footnote 11: Who besings himself thus, in a song from the Solferino +campaign:-- + +"Quand l'zouzou, coiffe de son fez, +A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l'nez, +L'tremblement s'met dans la cambuse; +Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups, +Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts, + Et gare dessous, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse! + Des coups, des coups, des coups, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse."] + +There is a very characteristic piece, without date or name of the +writer, but which, to judge from the German, was written after the time +of Luther. Nothing could better express the feeling of a people who +have been saved by martial and religious enthusiasm, and brought +through all the perils of history. It is the production of some +Meistersinger, who introduced it into a History of Henry the Fowler, +(fought the Huns, 919-935,) that was written by him in the form of a +comedy, and divided into acts. He brings in a minstrel who sings the +song before battle. The last verse, with adapted metre and music, is +now a soldier's song. + +Many a righteous cause on earth + To many a battle growing, +Of music God has thought them worth, + A gift of His bestowing. +It came through Jubal into life; + For Lamech's son inventing +The double sounds of drum and fife, + They both became consenting. + For music good + Wakes manly mood, + Intrepid goes + Against our foes. + Calls stoutly, "On! + Fall on! fall on! + Clear field and street + Of hostile feet, + Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, + Not one against you leave!" + +Elias prophecy would make + In thirsty Israel's passion: + "To me a minstrel bring," he spake, + "Who plays in David's fashion." +Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, + In words of help undoubted,-- +Great waters flowed the rainless land, + The foe was also routed. + + Drom, Druri, Drom, + Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Drumming and fifing good + Make hero-mood; + Prophets upspring, + Poets, too, sing; + Music is life + To peace and strife,-- + And men have ever heeded + What chief by them is needed. + +In Dorian mood when he would sing, + Timotheus the charmer, +'Tis said the famous lyre would bring + All listeners into armor: +It woke in Alexander rage + For war, and nought would slake it, +Unless he could the world engage, + And his by conquest make it. + Timotheus + Of Miletus + Could strongly sing + To rouse the King + Of Macedon, + Heroic one, + Till, in his ire + And manly fire, + For shield and weapon rising, + He went, the foe chastising. + +For what God drives, that ever goes,-- + So sang courageous Judith; +No one can such as He oppose; + There prospers what He broodeth. +Who has from God a martial mood, + Through all resistance breaking, +Can prove himself 'gainst heroes good, + On foes a vengeance taking. + Drums, when we droop; + Stand fast, my troop! + Let dart and sabre + The air belabor; + Give them no heed, + But be agreed + That flight be a breach of honor: + Of that be hearty scorner. + +Although a part, as haps alway, + Will faintly take to fleeing, +A lion's heart have I to-day + For Kaiser Henry's seeing. +The wheat springs forth, the chaff's behind;[12] + Strike harder, then, and braver; + +[Footnote 12: This was first said by Rudolph of Erlach at the Battle of +Laupen, in 1339, fought between citizens of Berne and the neighboring +lords. The great array of the nobles caused the rear ranks of the +Bernese to shrink. "Good!" cried Erlach, "the chaff is separated from +the wheat! Cowards will not share the victory of the brave." +--Zschokke's _History of Switzerland_, p. 48, Shaw's translation.] + +Perhaps they all will change their mind, + So, brothers, do not waver! + Kyrie eleison! + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Alarum beat, + There's no retreat; + Wilt soon be slashed, + Be pierced and gashed: + But none of these things heeding, + The foe, too, set a-bleeding. + +Many good surgeons have we here, + Again to heal us ready; +With God's help, then, be of good cheer, + The Pagans grow unsteady: +Let not thy courage sink before + A foe already flying; +Revenge itself shall give thee more, + And hearten it, if dying. + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Kyrie eleison! + Strike, thrust,--for we + Must victors be; + Let none fall out, + Keep order stout; + Close to my side, + Comrade, abide! + Be grace of God revealed now, + And help us hold the field now! + +God doth Himself encamp us round, + Himself the tight inspiring; +The foe no longer stands his ground, + On every side retiring; +Ye brothers, now set boldly on + The hostile ranks!--they waver,-- +They break before us and are gone,-- + Praise be to God the Saver! + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Come, brother, come! + Drums, make a noise! + My troops, rejoice! + Help now pursue + And thrust and hew; + Pillage restrain,-- + The spoils remain + In reach of every finger, + But not a foe wilt linger. + +Ye bold campaigners, praise the Lord, + And strifeful heroes, take now +The prize He doth to us accord, + Good cheer and pillage make now: +What each one finds that let him take, + But friendly share your booty, +For parents', wives', and children's sake, + For household use or beauty. + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Field-surge on come, + My gash to bind, + Am nearly blind,-- + The arrows stick, + Out pull them quick,-- + A bandage here, + To save my ear,-- + Come, bind me up, + And reach a cup,-- + Ho, here at hand, + I cannot stand,-- + Reach hither what you're drinking, + My heart is 'neath me sinking. + +War-comrades all, heart's-brothers good, + I spare no skill and labor, +For these your hurts in hero-mood + You got from hostile sabre. +Now well behave, keep up thy heart, + God's help itself will tend thee; +Although at present great the smart, + To dress the wound will mend thee; + Wash off the blood, + Time makes it good,-- + Reach me the shear,-- + A plaster here,-- + Hold out your arm, + 'T is no great harm,-- + Give drink to stay, + He limps away: + Thank God, their wounds all tended, + Be dart- and pike-hole mended! + +Three faces does a surgeon wear: + At first God is not higher; +And when with wounds they illy fare, + He comes in angel's tire; +But soon as word is said of pay, + How gracelessly they grieve him! +They bid his odious face away, + Or knavishly deceive him: + No thanks for it + Spoils benefit, + Ill to endure + For drugs that cure; + Pay and respect + Should he collect, + For at his art + Your woes depart; + God bids him speed + To you in need; + Therefore our dues be giving, + God wills us all a living. + +No death so blessed in the world + As his who, struck by foeman, +Upon the airy field is hurled, + Nor hears lament of woman; +From narrow beds death one by one + His pale recruits is calling, +But comrades here are not alone, + Like Whitsun blossoms falling. + 'T is no ill jest + To say that best + Of ways to die + Is thus to lie + In honor's sleep, + With none to weep: + Marched out of life + By drum and fife + To airy grave, + Thus heroes crave + A worthy fame,-- + Men say his name +Is _Fatherland's Befriender_, +By life and blood surrender. + +With the introduction of standing armies popular warlike poetry falls +away, and is succeeded by camp-songs, and artistic renderings of +martial subjects by professed poets. The people no longer do the +fighting; they foot the bills and write melancholy hymns. Weckerlin +(1584-1651) wrote some hearty and simple things; among others, +_Frisch auf, ihr tapfere Soldaten_, "Ye soldiers bold, be full of +cheer." Michael Altenburg, (1583-1640,) who served on the Protestant +side, wrote a hymn after the Battle of Leipsic, 1631, from the watch +word, "God with us," which was given to the troops that day. His hymn +was afterwards made famous by Gustavus Adolphus, who sang it at the +head of his soldiers before the Battle of Luetzen, November 16, 1632, +in which he fell. Here it is. (_Verzage nicht, du Haeuflein +klein_.) + +Be not cast down, thou little band, +Although the foe with purpose stand + To make thy ruin sure: +Because they seek thy overthrow, +Thou art right sorrowful and low: + It will not long endure. + +Be comforted that God will make +Thy cause His own, and vengeance take,-- + 'T is His, and let it reign: +He knoweth well His Gideon, +Through him already hath begun + Thee and His Word sustain. + +Sure word of God it is to fell +That Satan, world, and gates of hell, + And all their following, +Must come at last to misery: +God is with us,--with God are we,-- + He will the victory bring. + +Here is certainly a falling off from Luther's _Ein feste Burg_, +but his spirit was in the fight; and the hymn is wonderfully improved +when the great Swedish captain takes it to his death. + +Von Kleist (1715-1759) studied law at Koenigsberg, but later became an +officer in the Prussian service. He wrote, in 1759, an ode to the +Prussian army, was wounded at the Battle of Kuenersdorf, where Frederic +the Great lost his army and received a ball in his snuff-box. His +poetry is very poor stuff. The weight of the enemy crushes down the +hills and makes the planet tremble; agony and eternal night impend; and +where the Austrian horses drink, the water fails. But his verses were +full of good advice to the soldiers, to spare, in the progress of their +great achievements, the poor peasant who is not their foe, to help his +need, and to leave pillage to Croats and cowards. The advice was less +palatable to Frederic's troops than the verses. + +But there were two famous soldier's songs, of unknown origin, the pets +of every camp, which piqued all the poets into writing war-verses as +soon as the genius of Frederic kindled such enthusiasm among +Prussians. The first was an old one about Prince Eugene, who was +another hero, loved in camps, and besung with ardor around every +watchfire. It is a genuine soldier's song. + +Prince Eugene, the noble captain, +For the Kaiser would recover + Town and fortress of Belgrade; +So he put a bridge together +To transport his army thither, + And before the town parade. + +When the floating bridge was ready, +So that guns and wagons steady + Could pass o'er the Danube stream, +By Semlin a camp collected. +That the Turks might be ejected, + To their great chagrin and shame. + +Twenty-first of August was it, +When a spy in stormy weather + Came, and told the Prince and swore +That the Turks they all amounted, +Near, at least, as could be counted, + To three hundred thousand men, or more. + +Prince Eugenius never trembled +At the news, but straight assembled + All his generals to know: +Them he carefully instructed +How the troops should be conducted + Smartly to attack the foe. + +With the watchword he commanded +They should wait till twelve was sounded + At the middle of the night; +Mounting then upon their horses, +For a skirmish with the forces, + Go in earnest at the fight. + +Straightway all to horseback getting, +Weapons handy, forth were setting + Silently from the redoubt: +Musketeers, dragooners also, +Bravely fought and made them fall so,-- + Led them such a dance about. + +And our cannoneers advancing +Furnished music for the dancing, + With their pieces great and small; +Great and small upon them playing, +Heathen were averse to staying, + Ran, and did not stay at all. + +Prince Eugenius on the right wing +Like a lion did his fighting, + So he did field-marshal's part: +Prince Ludwig rode from one to th' other, +Cried, "Keep firm, each German brother, + Hurt the foe with all your heart!" + +Prince Ludwig, struck by bullet leaden, +With his youthful life did redden, + And his soul did then resign: +Badly Prince Eugene wept o'er him, +For the love he always bore him,-- + Had him brought to Peterwardein. + +The music is peculiar,--one flat, 3/4 time,--a very rare measure, and +giving plenty of opportunity for a quaint camp-style of singing. + +The other song appeared during Frederic's Silesian War. It contains +some choice reminiscences of his favorite rhetoric. + +Fridericus Rex, our master and king, +His soldiers altogether to the field would bring, +Battalions two hundred, and a thousand squadrons clear, +And cartridges sixty to every grenadier. + +"Cursed fellows, ye!"--his Majesty began,-- +"For me stand in battle, each man to man; +Silesia and County Glatz to me they will not grant, +Nor the hundred millions either which I want. + +"The Empress and the French have gone to be allied, +And the Roman kingdom has revolted from my side, +And the Russians are bringing into Prussia war;-- +Up, let us show them that we Prussians are! + +"My General Schwerin, and Field-Marshal Von Keith, +And Von Ziethen, Major-General, are ready for a fight; +Turban-spitting Element! Cross and Lightning get +Who has not found Fritz and his soldiers out yet! + +"Now adieu, Louisa![13]--Louisa, dry your eyes! +There's not a soldier's life for every ball that flies; +For if all the bullets singly hit their men, +Where could our Majesties get soldiers then? + +"Now the hole a musket-bullet makes is small,-- +'T is a larger hole made by a cannon-ball; +But the bullets all are of iron and of lead, +And many a bullet goes for many overhead. + +"'T is a right heavy calibre to our artillery, +And never goes a Prussian over to the enemy, +For 't is cursed bad money that the Swedes have to pay; +Is there any better coin of the Austrian?--who can say? + +"The French are paid off in pomade by their king, +But each week in pennies we get our reckoning; +Sacrament of Cross and Lightning! Turbans, spit away! +Who draws so promptly as the Prussian his pay?" + +With a laurel-wreath adorned, Fridericus my King, +If you had only oftener permitted plundering, +Fredericus Rex, king and hero of the fight, +We would drive the Devil for thee out of sight! + +[Footnote 13: His queen] + +Among the songs which the military ardor of this period stimulated, the +best are those by Gleim, (1719-1803) called "Songs of a Prussian +Grenadier." All the literary men, Lessing not excepted, were seized +with the Prussian enthusiasm; the pen ravaged the domain of sentiment +to collect trophies for Father Friedrich. The desolation it produced in +the attempt to write the word Glory could be matched only by the +sword. But Gleim was a man of spirit and considerable power. The shock +of Frederic's military successes made him suddenly drop the pen with +which he had been inditing Anacreontics, and weak, rhymeless Horatian +moods. His grenadier-songs, though often meagre and inflated, and +marked with the literary vices of the time, do still account for the +great fame which they acquired, as they went marching with the finest +army that Europe ever saw. Here is a specimen:-- + +VICTORY-SONG AFTER THE BATTLE NEAR PRAGUE. + +Victoria! with us is God; + There lies the haughty foe! +He falls, for righteous is our God; + Victoria! he lies low. + +'T is true our father[14] is no more, + Yet hero-like be went, +And now the conquering host looks o'er + From high and starry tent. + +The noble man, he led the way + For God and Fatherland, +And scarce was his old head so gray + As valiant his hand. + +With fire of youth and hero-craft + A banner snatching, he +Held it aloft upon its shaft + For all of us to see; + +And said,--"My children, now attack,-- + Take each redoubt and gun!" +And swifter than the lightning track + We followed, every one. + +Alas, the flag that led the strife + Falls with him ere we win! +It was a glorious end of life: + O fortunate Schwerin! + +And when thy Frederic saw thee low, + From out his sobbing breath +His orders hurled us on the foe + In vengeance for thy death. + +Thou, Henry,[15] wert a soldier true, + Thou foughtest royally! +From deed to deed our glances flew, + Thou lion-youth, with thee! + +A Prussian heart with valor quick, + Right Christian was his mood: +Red grew his sword, and flowing thick + His steps with Pandourt[16]-blood. + +Full seven earth-works did we clear, + The bear-skins broke and fled; +Then, Frederic, went thy grenadier + High over heaps of dead: + +Remembered, in the murderous fight, + God, Fatherland, and thee,-- +Turned, from the deep and smoky night, + His Frederic to see, + +And trembled,--with a flush of fear + His visage mounted high; +He trembled, not that death was near, + But lest thou, too, shouldst die: + +Despised the balls like scattered seed, + The cannon's thunder-tone, +Fought fiercely, did a hero's deed, + Till all thy foes had flown. + +Now thanks he God for all His might, + And sings, Victoria! +And all the blood from out this fight + Flows to Theresia. + +And if she will not stay the plague, + Nor peace to thee concede, +Storm with us, Frederic, first her Prague, + Then, to Vienna lead! + +[Footnote 14: Marshal Schwerin, seventy years of age, who was killed at +the head of a regiment, with its colors in his hand, just as it crossed +through the fire to the enemy's intrenchments.] + +[Footnote 15: The King's brother.] + +[Footnote 16: A corps of foot-soldiers in the Austrian service, +eventually incorporated in the army. They were composed of Servians, +Croats, etc., inhabitants of the military frontier, and were named +originally from the village of Pandur in Lower Hungary, where probably +the first recruits were gathered.] + +The love which the soldiers had for Frederic survived in the army after +all the veterans of his wars had passed away. It is well preserved in +this camp-song:-- + +THE INVALIDES AT FATHER FREDERIC'S GRAVE. + +Here stump we round upon our crutches, round our Father's grave we go, +And from our eyelids down our grizzled beards the bitter tears will +flow. + +'T was long ago, with Frederic living, that we + got our lawful gains: +A meagre ration now they serve us,--life's no + longer worth the pains. + +Here stump we round, deserted orphans, and + with tears each other see,-- +Are waiting for our marching orders hence, + to be again with thee. + +Yes, Father, only could we buy thee, with our + blood, by Heaven, yes,-- +We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight + through death would storming press! + +When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for +Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of +Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and +anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation. +Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the +cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon +expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of +this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of +verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly +expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the +Battle of Leipsic:-- + +Can there no song + Roar with a might + Loud as the fight +Leipsic's region along? + +Three days and three nights, + No moment of rest, + And not for a jest, +Went thundering the fights. + +Three days and three nights + Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured + There with an iron yardstick were measured, +Bringing the reckoning with them to rights. + +Three days and all night + A battue of larks the Leipsicker make; + Every haul a hundred he takes, +A thousand each flight. + +Ha! it is good, + Now that the Russian can boast no longer + He alone of us is stronger +To slake his steppes with hostile blood. + +Not in the frosty North alone, + But here in Meissen, + Here at Leipsic on the Pleissen, +Can the French be overthrown. + +Shallow Pleissen deep is flowing; + Plains upheaving, + The dead receiving, +Seem to mountains for us growing. + +They will be our mountains never, + But this fame + Shall be our claim +On the rolls of earth forever. + +What all this amounted to, when the German people began to send in +their constitutional _cartes-blanches_, is nicely taken off by +Hoffman von Fallersleben, in this mock war-song, published in 1842:-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the beating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man. +Rouse, rouse +From earth and house! +Ye women and children, good night! +Forth we hasten, we hasten to the fight, +With God for our King and Fatherland. + +_A night-patrol of 1813 sings_. + +O God! and why, and why, +For princes' whim, renown, and might, + To the fight? +For court-flies and other crows, + To blows? +For the nonage of our folk, + Into smoke? +For must-war-meal and class-tax, + To thwacks? +For privilege and censordom-- + Hum-- +Into battle without winking? + But--I was thinking-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the heating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man: +In battle's roar +The time is o'er +To ask for reasons,--hear, the drum +Again is calling,--tum--tum--tum,-- +With God for King and Fatherland. + +Or to put it in two stanzas of his, written on a visit to the Valhalla, +or Hall of German Worthies, at Regensburg:-- + +I salute thee, sacred Hall, + Chronicle of German glory! +I salute ye, heroes all + Of the new time and the hoary! + +Patriot heroes, from your sleep + Into being could ye pass! +No, a king would rather keep + Patriots in stone and brass. + +The Danish sea-songs, like those of the English, are far better than +the land-songs of the soldiers: but here is one with a true and +temperate sentiment, which the present war will readily help us to +appreciate. It is found in a book of Danish popular songs. [17] + +[Footnote 17: _Sange til Brug for blandede Selskaber_, samlade af +FREDERIK SCHALDEMOSE. 1816. Songs for Use in Social Meetings, etc.] +(_Herlig er Krigerens Faerd_.) + +Good is the soldier's trade, +For envy well made: +The lightning-blade + Over force-men he swingeth; + A loved one shall prize + The honor he bringeth; +Is there a duty? +That's soldier's booty,-- +To have it he dies. + +True for his king and land +The Northman will stand; +An oath is a band,-- + He never can rend it; + The dear coast, 't is right + A son should defend it; +For battle he burneth, +Death's smile he returneth, + And bleeds with delight. + +Scars well set off his face,-- +Each one is a grace; +His profit they trace,-- + No labor shines brighter: + A wreath is the scar + On the brow of a fighter; +His maid thinks him fairer, +His ornament rarer + Than coat with a star. + +Reaches the king his hand, +That makes his soul grand, +And fast loyal band + Round his heart it is slinging; + From Fatherland's good +The motion was springing: +His deeds so requited, +Is gratefully lighted + A man's highest mood. + +Bravery's holy fire, +Beam nobler and higher, +And light our desire + A path out of madness! + By courage and deed + We conquer peace-gladness: +We suffer for that thing, +We strike but for that thing, + And gladly we bleed. + +But our material threatens the space we have at command. Four more +specimens must suffice for the present. They are all favorite +soldier-songs. The first is by Chamisso, known popularly as the author +of "Peter Schlemihl's Shadow," and depicts the mood of a soldier who +has been detailed to assist in a military execution:-- + +The muffled drums to our marching play. +How distant the spot, and how long the way! +Oh, were I at rest, and the bitterness through! +Methinks it will break my heart in two! + +Him only I loved of all below,-- +Him only who yet to death must go; +At the rolling music we parade, +And of me too, me, the choice is made! + +Once more, and the last, he looks upon +The cheering light of heaven's sun; +But now his eyes they are binding tight: +God grant to him rest and other light! + +Nine muskets are lifted to the eye, +Eight bullets have gone whistling by; +They trembled all with comrades' smart,-- +But I--I hit him in his heart! + +The next is by Von Holtei:-- + +THE VETERAN TO HIS CLOAK. + +Full thirty years art thou of age, hast many a + storm lived through, + Brother-like hast round me tightened, + And whenever cannons lightened, +Both of us no terror knew. + +Wet soaking to the skin we lay for many a + blessed night, + Thou alone hast warmth imparted, + And if I was heavy-hearted, +Telling thee would make me light. + +My secrets thou hast never spoke, wert ever still and true; + Every tatter did befriend me, + Therefore I'll no longer mend thee, +Lest, old chap, 't would make thee new. + +And dearer still art thou to ma when jests about thee roll; + For where the rags below are dropping, + There went through the bullets popping,-- +Every bullet makes a hole. + +And when the final bullet comes to stop a German heart, + Then, old cloak, a grave provide me, + Weather-beaten friend, still hide me, +As I sleep in thee apart. + +There lie we till the roll-call together in the grave: + For the roll I shall be heedful, + Therefore it will then be needful +For me an old cloak to have. + +The next one is taken from a student-song book, and was probably +written in 1814:-- + +THE CANTEEN. + +Just help me, Lottie, as I spring; + My arm is feeble, see,-- +I still must have it in a sling; + Be softly now with me! +But do not let the canteen slip,-- + Here, take it first, I pray,-- +For when that's broken from my lip, + All joys will flow away. + +"And why for that so anxious?--pshaw! + It is not worth a pin: +The common glass, the bit of straw, + And not a drop within!" +No matter, Lottie, take it out,-- + 'T is past your reckoning: +Yes, look it round and round about,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +By Leipsic near, if you must know,-- + 'T was just no children's play,-- +A ball hit me a grievous blow, + And in the crowd I lay; +Nigh death, they bore me from the scene, + My garments off they fling, +Yet held I fast by my canteen,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +For once our ranks in passing through + He paused,--we saw his face; +Around us keen the volleys flew, + He calmly kept his place. +He thirsted,--I could see it plain, + And courage took to bring +My old canteen for him to drain,-- + He drank from it--my King! + +He touched me on the shoulder here, + And said, "I thank thee, friend, +Thy liquor gives me timely cheer,-- + Thou didst right well intend." +O'erjoyed at this, I cried aloud, + "O comrades, who can bring +Canteen like this to make him proud?-- + There drank from it--my King!" + +That old canteen shall no one have, + The best of treasures mine; +Put it at last upon my grave, + And under it this line: +"He fought at Leipsic, whom this green + Is softly covering; +Best household good was his canteen,-- + There drank from it--his King!" + +And finally, a song for all the campaigns of life:-- + +Morning-red! morning-red! +Lightest me towards the dead! +Soon the trumpets will be blowing, +Then from life must I be going, + I, and comrades many a one. + +Soon as thought, soon as thought, +Pleasure to an end is brought; +Yesterday upon proud horses,-- +Shot to-day, our quiet corses + Are to-morrow in the grave. + +And how soon, and how soon, +Vanish shape and beauty's noon! +Of thy cheeks a moment vaunting, +Like the milk and purple haunting,-- + Ah, the roses fade away! + +And what, then, and what, then, +Is the joy and lust of men? +Ever caring, ever getting, +From the early morn-light fretting + Till the day is past and gone. + +Therefore still, therefore still +I content me, as God will: +Fighting stoutly, nought shall shake me: +For should death itself o'ertake me, + Then a gallant soldier dies. + + + + +FROUDE'S HENRY THE EIGHTH. + + +The spirit of historical criticism in the present age is on the whole a +charitable spirit. Many public characters have been heard through their +advocates at the bar of history, and the judgments long since passed +upon them and their deeds, and deferentially accepted for centuries, +have been set aside, and others of a widely different character +pronounced. Julius Caesar, who was wont to stand as the model usurper, +and was regarded as having wantonly destroyed Roman liberty in order to +gratify his towering ambition, is now regarded as a political reformer +of the very highest and best class,--as the man who alone thoroughly +understood his age and his country, and who was Heaven's own instrument +to rescue unnumbered millions from the misrule of an oligarchy whose +members looked upon mankind as their proper prey. He did not overthrow +the freedom of Rome, but he took from Romans the power to destroy the +personal freedom of all the races by them subdued. He identified the +interests of the conquered peoples with those of the central +government, so far as that work was possible,--thus proceeding in the +spirit of the early Roman conquerors, who sought to comprehend even the +victims of their wars in the benefits which proceeded from those wars. +This view of his career is a sounder one than that which so long +prevailed, and which enabled orators to round periods with references +to the Rubicon. It is not thirty years since one of the first of +American statesmen told the national Senate that "Julius Caesar struck +down Roman liberty at Pharsalia," and probably there was not one man in +his audience who supposed that he was uttering anything beyond a +truism, though they must have been puzzled to discover any resemblance +between "the mighty Julius" and Mr. Martin Van Buren, the gentleman +whom the orator was cutting up, and who was actually in the chair while +Mr. Calhoun was seeking to kill him, in a political sense, by +quotations from Plutarch's Lives. We have learnt something since 1834 +concerning Rome and Caesar as well as of our own country and its +chiefs, and the man who should now bring forward the conqueror of Gaul +as a vulgar usurper would be almost as much laughed at as would be that +man who should insist that General Jackson destroyed American liberty +when he removed the deposits from the national bank. The facts and +fears of one generation often furnish material for nothing but jests +and jeers to that generation's successors; and we who behold a million +of men in arms, fighting for or against the American Union, and all +calling themselves Americans, are astonished when we read or remember +that our immediate predecessors in the political world went to the +verge of madness on the Currency question. Perhaps the men of 1889 may +be equally astonished, when they shall turn to files of newspapers that +were published in 1862, and read therein the details of those events +that now excite so painful an interest in hundreds of thousands of +families. Nothing is so easy as to condemn the past, except the +misjudging of the present, and the failure to comprehend the future. + +Men of a very different stamp from the first of the Romans have been +allowed the benefits that come from a rehearing of their causes. +Robespierre, whose deeds are within the memory of many yet living, has +found champions, and it is now admitted by all who can effect that +greatest of conquests, the subjugation of their prejudices, that he was +an honest fanatic, a man of iron will, but of small intellect, who had +the misfortune, the greatest that can fall to the lot of humanity, to +be placed by the force of circumstances in a position which would have +tried the soundest of heads, even had that head been united with the +purest of hearts. But the apologists of "the sea-green incorruptible," +it must be admitted, have not been very successful, as the sence of +mankind revolts at indiscriminate murder, even when the murderer's +hands have no other stain than that which comes from blood,--for that +is a stain which will not "out"; not even printer's ink can erase or +cover it; and the attorney of Arras must remain the Raw-Head and +Bloody-Bones of history. Benedict Arnold has found no direct defender +or apologist; but those readers who are unable to see how forcibly +recent writers have dwelt upon the better points of his character and +career, while they have not been insensible to the provocations he +received, must have read very carelessly and uncritically indeed. Mr. +Paget has all but whitewashed Marlborough, and has shaken many men's +faith in the justice of Lord Macauley's judgement and in the accuracy +of his assertions. Richard III., by all who can look through the clouds +raised by Shakespeare over English history of the fifteenth century, is +admitted to have been a much better man and ruler than were the average +of British monarchs from the Conquest to the Revolution, thanks to the +labors of Horace Walpole and Caroline Halsted, who, however, have only +followed in the path struck out by Sir George Buck at a much earlier +period. The case of Mary Stuart still remains unsettled, and bids fair +to be the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of history; but this is owing to +the circumstance that that unfortunate queen is so closely associated +with the origin of our modern parties that justice where her reputation +is concerned is scarcely to be looked for. Little has been said for +King John; and Mr. Woolryche's kind attempt to reconcile men to the +name of Jeffreys has proved a total failure. Strafford has about as +many admirers as enemies among those who know his history, but this is +due more to the manner of his death than to any love of his life: of so +much more importance is it that men should die well than live well, so +far as the judgement of posterity is concerned with their actions. + +Strafford's master, who so scandalously abandoned him to the headsman, +owes the existence of the party that still upholds his conduct to the +dignified manner in which he faced death, a death at which the whole +world "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has +found no formal defender, but the Catilinarian Conspiracy is now +generally admitted to have been the Popish Plot of antiquity, with an +ounce of truth to a pound of falsehood in the narratives of it that +have come down to us from Rome's revolutionary age, in political +pamphlets and party orations. Cicero's craze on the subject, and that +tendency which all men have to overrate the value of their own actions, +have made of the business in his lively pages a much more consequential +affair than it really was. The fleas in the microscope, and there it +will ever remain, to be mistaken for a monster. Truly, the Tullian +gibbeted the gentleman of the Sergian _gens_. It must be confessed +that Catiline was a proper rascal. How could he have been anything +else, and be one of Sulla's men? And a proper rascal is an improper +character of the very worst kind. Still, we should like to have had his +marginal "notes" on Cicero's speeches, and on Sallust's job pamphlet. +They would have been mighty interesting reading,--as full of lies, +probably, as the matter commented on, but not the less attractive on +that account. What dull affairs libraries would be, if they contained +nothing but books full of truth! The Greek tyrants have found +defenders, and it has been satisfactorily made out that they were the +cleverest men of their time, and that, if they did occasionally bear +rather hard upon individuals, it was only because those individuals +were so unreasonable as not to submit to be robbed or killed in a quiet +and decorous manner. Mr. Grote's rehabilitation of the Greek sophists +is a miracle of ingenuity and sense, and does as much honor to the man +who wrote it as justice to the men of whom it is written. + +Of the doubtful characters of history, royal families have furnished +not a few, some of whom have stood in as bad positions as those which +have been assigned to Robespierre and his immediate associates. +Catharine de' Medici and Mary I. of England, the "Bloody Mary" of +anti-Catholic localities, are supposed to be models of evil, to be in +crinoline; but if you can believe Eugenio Alberi, Catharine was not the +harlot, the tyrant, the poisoner, the bigot, and the son-killer that +she passes for in the common estimation, and he has made out a capital +defence for the dead woman whom he selected as his client. The Massacre +of St. Bartholomew was not an "Italian crime," but a French _coup +d'etat_, and was as rough and coarse as some similar transactions +seen by our grandfathers, say the September prison-business at Paris in +1792. As to Mary Tudor, she was an excellent woman, but a bigot; and if +she did turn Mrs. Rogers and her eleven children out to the untender +mercies of a cold world, by sending Mr. Rogers into a hot fire, it was +only that souls might be saved from a hotter and a huger fire,--a sort +of argument the force of which we always have been unable to +appreciate, no doubt because we are of the heretics, and never believed +that persons belonging to our determination ought to be roasted. The +incense of the stake, that was so sweet in ecclesiastical nostrils +three hundred years ago, and also in vulgar nostrils wherever the +vulgar happened to be of the orthodox persuasion, has become an +insufferable stench to the more refined noses of the nineteenth +century, which, nevertheless, are rather partial to the odor of the +gallows. Miss Strickland and other clever historians may dwell upon the +excellence of Mary Tudor's private character with as much force as they +can make, or with much greater force they may show that Gardiner and +other reactionary leaders were the real fire-raisers of her reign; but +the common mind will ever, and with great justice, associate those +loathsome murders with the name and memory of the sovereign in whose +reign they were perpetrated. + +The father of Mary I. stands much more in need of defence and apology +than does his daughter. No monarch occupies so strange a position in +history as Henry VIII. A sincere Catholic, so far as doctrine went, and +winning from the Pope himself the title of Defender of the Faith +because of his writing against the grand heresiarch of the age, he +nevertheless became the chief instrument of the Reformation, the man +and the sovereign without whose aid the reform movement of the +sixteenth century would have failed as deplorably as the reform +movements of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries had failed. A +legitimate king, though the heir of a successful usurpation, and +holding the royal prerogative as high as any man who ever grasped the +sceptre, he was the tool of the mightiest of revolutionists, and poured +out more royal and noble blood than ever flowed at the command of all +the Jacobins and Democrats that have warred against thrones and +dynasties and aristocracies. He is abhorred of Catholics, and +Protestants do not love him; for he pulled down the old religious +fabric of his kingdom, and furnished to the Reformers a permanent +standing-place from which to move the world, while at the same time he +slaughtered Protestants as ruthlessly as ever they were disposed of by +any ruler of the Houses of Austria and Valois. Reeking with blood, and +apparently insensible to anything like a humane feeling, he was yet +popular with the masses of his subjects, and no small share of that +popularity has descended to our time, in which he is admired by the +unreflecting because of the boldness and dash of his actions and on +account of the consequences of those actions, so that he is commonly +known as "bluff King Hal," a title that speaks more as to the general +estimate of his character than would a whole volume of professed +personal panegyric, or of elaborate defence of his policy and his +deeds. But this is not sufficient for those persons who would have +reasons for their historical belief, and who seek to have a solid +foundation for the faith they feel in the real greatness of the second +Tudor king of England. Men of ability have occasionally sought to +create an intelligible Henry VIII., and to cause us to respect one +whose doings have so potently affected human affairs through ten +generations, and the force of whose labors, whether those labors were +blindly or rationally wrought, is apparently as unspent as it was on +that day on which, having provided for the butchery of the noblest of +his servants, he fell into his final sleep. At the head of these +philosophic writers, and so far ahead of them as to leave them all out +of sight, is Mr. James Anthony Froude, whose "History of England from +the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" has been brought down to +the death of Mary I., in six volumes,--another proof of the grand scale +on which history is now written, in order that it may be read on the +small scale; for it is not given to many men to have the time for study +which even a moderate modern course of history requires in these active +days. Mr. Froude is a very different writer from Dr. Nares, but the +suggestions made to the heavy Doctor by Macaulay might be borne in mind +by the lively historian. He should remember that "the life of man is +now threescore years and ten," and not "demand from us so large a +portion of so short an existence" as must necessarily be required for +the perusal of a history which gives an octavo volume for every five +years of the annals of a small, though influential monarchy. + +Mr. Froude did not commence his work in a state of blind admiration of +his royal hero,--the tone of his first volume being quite calm, and on +the whole as impartial as could reasonably have been expected from an +Englishman writing of the great men of a great period in his country's +history; but so natural is it for a man who has assumed the part of an +advocate to identify himself with the cause of his client, that our +author rapidly passes from the character of a mere advocate to that of +a partisan, and by the time that he has brought his work down to the +execution of Thomas Cromwell, Henry has risen to the rank of a saint, +with a more than royal inability to do any wrong. That "the king can do +no wrong" is an English constitutional maxim, which, however sound it +may be in its proper place, is not to be introduced into history, +unless we are desirous of seeing that become a mere party-record. The +practice of publishing books in an incomplete state is one that by no +means tends to render them impartial, when they relate to matters that +are in dispute. Mr. Froude's first and second volumes, which bring the +work down to the murder of Anne Boleyn, afforded the most desirable +material for the critics, many of whom most pointedly dissented from +his views, and some of whom severely attacked his positions, and not +always unsuccessfully. They were, naturally, not disposed to think that +an act bad in itself changed its character when it became the act of +Henry VIII. It was contrary to all human experience to suppose that +Henry was in all cases in the right, while his opponents and his +victims were as invariably in the wrong. If there ever had lived and +reigned a man who could not do wrong, it was preposterous to look for +him in one who had been a wife-killer, a persecutor, the slayer of the +nobility of his kingdom, the exterminator of the last remnants of an +old royal race, the patron of fagots and ropes and axes, and a +hard-hearted and selfish voluptuary, who seems never to have been open +to one kind or generous feeling. Most of those tyrants that have been +hung up on high, by way of warning to despots, have had their +"uncorrupted hours," in which they vindicated their claim to humanity +by the performance of some good deeds. Gratitude for some such acts is +supposed to have caused even the tomb of Nero to be adorned with +garlands. But Henry VIII. never had a kind moment. He was the same +moral monster at eighteen, when he succeeded to his sordid, selfish +father, that he was at fifty-six, when he, a dying man, employed the +feeble remnants of his once Herculean strength to stamp the +death-warrants of innocent men. No wonder that Mr. Froude's critics +failed to accept his estimate of Henry, or that they arrayed anew the +long list of his shocking misdeeds, and dwelt with unction on his total +want of sympathy with ordinary humanity. As little surprising is it +that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be +increased by the course of the critics. That is the usual course. The +biographer comes to love the man whom at first he had only endured. To +endurance, according to the old notion, succeeds pity, and then comes +the embrace. And that embrace is all the warmer because others have +denounced the party to whom it is extended. It is fortunate that no man +of talent has ever ventured to write the biography of Satan. Assuredly, +had any such person done so, there would have been one sincere, +enthusiastic, open, devout Devil-worshipper on earth, which would have +been a novel, but not altogether a moral, spectacle for the eyes of +men. A most clear, luminous and unsatisfactory account of the conduct +of Satan in Eden would have been furnished, and it would have been +logically made out that all the fault of the first recorded son was +with Eve, who had been the temptress, not the tempted, and who had +taken advantage of the Devil's unsophisticated nature to impose upon +his innocence and simplicity, and then had gone about among "the +neighbors" to scandalize his character at tea-tables and +quilting-parties. + +Mr. Froude is too able a man to seek to pass crude eulogy of Henry +VIII. upon the world. He knows that the reason why this or that or the +other thing was done is what his readers will demand, and he does his +best to meet their requirements. Very plausible, and very well +sustained by numerous facts, as well as by philosophical theory, is the +position which he assumes in reference to Henry's conduct. Henry, +according to the Froudean theory, was troubled about the succession to +the throne. His great purpose was to prevent the renewal of civil war +in England, a war for the succession. When he divorced Catharine of +Aragon, when he married Anne Boleyn, when he libelled and murdered Anne +Boleyn, when he wedded Jane Seymour, when he became disgusted with and +divorced Anne of Cleves, when he married and when he beheaded Catharine +Howard, when he patronized, used, and rewarded Cromwell, and when he +sent Cromwell to the scaffold and refused to listen to his plaintive +plea for mercy, when he caused Plantagenet and Neville blood to flow +like water from the veins of old women as well as from those of young +men, when he hanged Catholics and burned Protestants, when he caused +Surrey to lose the finest head in England,--in short, no matter what he +did, he always had his eye steadily fixed across that boiling sea of +blood that he had created upon one grand point, namely, the +preservation of the internal peace of England, not only while he +himself should live, but after his death. His son, or whoso should be +his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should +be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most +of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet. +Church-yards were to be filled in order that all England might be +reduced to the condition of a church-yard. That _Red Spectre_ +which has so often frightened even sensible men since 1789, and caused +some remarkably humiliating displays of human weakness during our +generation and its immediate predecessor, was, it should seem, ever +present to the eyes of Henry VIII. He saw Anarchy perpetually +struggling to get free from those bonds in which Henry VIII. had +confined that monster, and he cut off nearly every man or woman in +whose name a plea for the crown could be set up as against a Tudor +prince or princess. Like his father, to use Mr. Froude's admirable +expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and +he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously +disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would +naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually +striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by +ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a +failing business at the best. Men and women, patrician and plebeian, +might play at rebellion, if they liked it, but they should be made to +find that they were playing the losing game. + +Now, this succession-question theory has the merit of meeting the very +difficulty that besets us when we study the history of Henry's reign, +and it is justified by many things that belong to English history for a +period of more than two centuries,--that is to say, from the deposition +of Richard II., in 1399, to the death of Elizabeth, in 1603. It is a +strangely suggestive satire on the alleged excellence of hereditary +monarchy as a mode of government that promotes the existence of order +beyond any other, that England should not have been free from trouble +for two hundred years, because her people could not agree upon the +question of the right to the crown, and so long as that question was +left unsettled, there could be no such thing as permanent peace for +the castle or the cottage or the city. Town and country, citizen, +baron, and peasant, were alike dependent upon the ambition of aspiring +princes and king-makers for the condition of their existence. The folly +of Richard II. enabled Henry of Bolingbroke to convert his ducal +coronet into a royal crown, and to bring about that object which his +father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, seems to have ever had at +heart. Henry IV. was a usurper, in spite of his Parliamentary title, +according to all ideas of hereditary right; for, failing heirs of the +body to Richard II., the crown belonged to the House of Mortimer, in +virtue of the descent of its chief from the Duke of Clarence, third +son of Edward III, the Duke of Lancaster being fourth son of that +monarch. Henry IV. felt the force of the objection that existed to his +title, and he sought to evade it by pretending to found his claim to +the crown on descent from Edmund of Lancaster, whom he assumed to have +been the _elder_ brother of Edward I.; but no weight was attached +to this plea by his contemporaries, who saw in him a monarch created +by conquest and by Parliamentary action. The struggle that then began +endured until both Plantagenets and Tudors had become extinct, and +the English crown had passed to the House of Stuart, in the person of +James I., who was descended in the female line from the Duke of +Clarence, through Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., and +wife of Henry VII. Intrigues, insurrections, executions, and finally +great civil wars, grew out of the usurpation of the throne by the line +of Lancaster. We find the War of the Roses spoken of by nearly all +writers on it as beginning in 1455, when the first battle of St. Albans +was fought, but in fact the contest of which that war was but the +extreme utterance began nearly sixty years earlier than the day of the +Battle of St. Albans, its commencement dating from the time that Henry +IV. became King. A variety of circumstances prevented it from assuming +its severest development until long after all the actors in its early +stages had gone to their graves. Henry IV. was a man of superior +ability, which enabled him, though not without struggling hard for it, +to triumph over all his enemies; and his early death prevented a +renewal of the wars that had been waged against him. His son, the +overrated Henry V., who was far inferior to his father as a statesman, +entered upon a war with France, and so distracted English attention +from English affairs; and had he lived to complete his successes, all +objection to his title would have disappeared. Indeed, England herself +would have disappeared as a nation, becoming a mere French province, a +dependency of the House of Plantagenet reigning at Paris. But the +victor of Agincourt, like all the sovereigns of his line, died young, +comparatively speaking, and left his dominions to a child who was not a +year old, the ill-fated Henry VI. Then would have broken out the +quarrel that came to a head at the beginning of the next generation, +but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were +able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that +foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal +troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer +party had no leader. + +There is a strange episode in the history of Henry V., which shows how +unstable was the foundation of that monarch's throne. While he was +preparing, at Southampton, for the invasion of France, a conspiracy was +discovered to have been formed to take the throne from him. The chief +actor in it was the Earl of Cambridge, who was speedily tried, +convicted, and beheaded, sharing the fate of his associates. Cambridge +was a son of the Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III., and he had +married Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger Earl of March; and the +intention of the conspirators was to have raised that lady's brother, +Edmund Earl of March, to Henry's place. March was a feeble character, +and Cambridge is believed to have looked to his own wife's becoming +Queen-Regnant of England. The plot, according to one account, was +betrayed by March to the King, and the latter soon got rid of one whose +daring character and ambitious purpose showed that he must be dangerous +as an opposition chief. Henry's enemies were thus left without a head, +in consequence of their leader's having lost his head; and the French +war rapidly absorbing men's attention, all doubts as to Henry's title +were lost sight of in the blaze of glory that came from the field of +Agincourt. The spirit of opposition, however, revived as soon as the +anti-Lancastrians obtained a leader, and public discontent had been +created by domestic misrule and failure in France. That leader was the +Duke of York, son of that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for +his part in the Southampton conspiracy, which conspiracy has been +called by an eminent authority the first spark of the flame which in +the course of time consumed the two Houses of York and Lancaster. Left +an infant of three years, it was long before York became a +party-leader, and probably he never would have disputed the succession +but for the weakness of Henry VI, which amounted to imbecility, and the +urging of stronger-minded men than himself. As it was, the open +struggle began in 1455, and did not end until the defeat and capture of +the person called Perkin Warbeck, in 1497. The greatest battles of +English history took place in the course of these campaigns, and the +greater part of the royal family and most of the old nobility perished +in them, or by assassination, or on the scaffold. + +But the Yorkist party, though vanquished, was far from extinguished by +the military and political successes of Henry VII. It testifies +emphatically to the original strength of that party, and to the extent +and the depth of its influence, that it should be found a powerful +faction as late as the last quarter of Henry VIII.'s reign, fifty years +after the Battle of Stoke. "The elements of the old factions were +dormant," says Mr. Froude, "but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's +reign a White-Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open +success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but +formidable in a high degree, if opportunity to strike should offer +itself. Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been +killed at Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than +weakened it, for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his +personal character was without energy; while he made place for the +leadership of a far more powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered +Earl of Warwick, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. +This lady had inherited, in no common degree, the fierce nature of the +Plantagenets; born to command, she had rallied round her the +Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful kindred of Richard the +King-Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent was purer than the +King's; and on his death, without a male child, half England was likely +to declare either for one of her sons, or for the Marquis of Exeter, +the grandson of Edward IV." Of the general condition of the English +mind at about the date of the fall of Wolsey Mr. Froude gives us a very +accurate picture. "The country," he says, "had collected itself; the +feuds of the families had been chastened, if they had not been subdued; +while the increase of wealth and material prosperity had brought out +into obvious prominence those advantages of peace which a hot-spirited +people, antecedent to experience, had not anticipated, and had not been +able to appreciate. They were better fed, better cared for, more justly +governed, than they had ever been before; and though, abundance of +unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of the nation, looking +back from their new vantage-ground, were able to recognize the past in +its true hatefulness. Henceforward a war of succession was the +predominating terror with English statesmen, and the safe establishment +of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which it is possible +that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the determining +principle of their action. It was therefore with no little anxiety that +the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their +hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within +a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When +the Queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further +offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising +aspect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was +precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, +her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not +live, and the King had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. +At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an immediate and +simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal family; the +crown would descend with even more facility than the property of an +intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been +recognized, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next +heir in blood was James of Scotland; and gravely as statesmen desired +the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the +very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a +king of Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the +Parliament itself declared in formal language that they would resist +any attempt on the part of the Scotch king 'to the uttermost of their +power.'" + +There can be no doubt that Mr. Froude has made out his case, and that +"the predominating terror," not only of English statesmen, but of the +English people and their King, was a war of succession. If we were not +convinced by what the historian says, we should only have to look over +the reign of Elizabeth, and observe how anxious the statesmen of that +time were to have the succession question settled, and how singular was +the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on +the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and +the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by +Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not +simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth +century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed +throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of +a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of +material prosperity and moral excellence as had been the Wars of the +Roses,--a fear which the existence of the contest between Catholicism +and Protestantism was well calculated to exaggerate to a very alarming +extent. The coquetry and affectation of the Queen, which have been held +to detract largely from her claim to be considered a woman of sense and +capacity, become natural in her and intelligible to us when we consider +them in connection with the succession question. She could not +positively declare that she would under no circumstances become a +wife, but at the same time she was firm in her heart never to have a +husband. So she followed the politician's common plan: she compromised. +She allowed her hand to be sought by every empty-handed and +empty-headed and hollow-hearted prince or noble in Europe, determined +that each in his turn should go empty away; and so she played off +princes against her own people, until the course of years had left no +doubt that she had become, and must ever remain, indeed "a barren +stock." Her conduct, which is generally regarded as having been +ridiculous, and which may have been so in its details, and looked upon +only from its feminine side, throws considerable light upon the entire +field of English politics under the Tudor dynasty. + +If it could be established that the conduct of Henry VIII. toward his +people, his church, his nobles, and his wives was regulated solely with +reference to the succession question, and by his desire to preserve +the peace of his kingdom, we believe that few men would be disposed to +condemn most of those of his acts that have been long admitted to +blacken his memory, and which have placed him almost at the very head +of the long roll of heartless tyrants. That the end justifies the +means is a doctrine which everybody condemns by word of mouth, but the +practice founded upon which almost all men approve in their hearts, +whenever it applies to their own schemes, or to schemes the success of +which promises to benefit them, either individually or in the mass. As +the apologists of the French Jacobins have argued that their favorites +were cruel as the grave against Frenchmen only that they might +preserve France from destruction, so might the admirers of Henry plead +that he was vindictively cruel only that the English masses might live +in peace, and be protected in quietly tilling their fields, manuring +them after their own fashion, and not having them turned up and +fertilized after the fashion of Bosworth and Towton and Barnet. Surely +Henry Tudor, second of that name, is entitled to the same grace that is +extended to Maximilien Robespierre, supposing the facts to be in his +favor. + +But are the facts, when fairly stated, in his favor? They are not. His +advocates must find themselves terribly puzzled to reconcile his +practice with their theory. They prove beyond all dispute that the +succession question was the grand thought of England in Henry's time; +but they do not prove, because they cannot prove, that the King's +action was such as to show that he was ready, we will not say to make +important sacrifices to lessen the probabilities of the occurrence of a +succession war, but to do anything in that way that required him to +control any one of the gross passions or grosser appetites of which he +was throughout his loathsome life the slave and the victim. He seems to +have passed the last twenty years of his reign in doing deeds that give +flat contradiction to the theory set up by his good-natured admirers of +after-times, that he was the victim of circumstances, and that, though +one of the mildest and most merciful of men in fact, those villanous +circumstances did compel him to become a tyrant, a murderer, a +repudiator of sacramental and pecuniary and diplomatic obligations, a +savage on a throne, and a Nebuchadnezzar for pride and arrogance, only +that, unfortunately for his subjects in general, and for his wives in +particular, he was not turned out to grass. A beast in fact, he did not +become a beast in form. Scarcely one of his acts, after the divorce of +Catharine of Aragon, was of a character to favor the continuance of +peace in England, while many of them were admirably calculated to +bring about a war for the regal succession. Grant that he was justified +in putting away his Spanish wife,--a most excellent and eminently +disagreeable woman, a combination of qualities by no means +uncommon,--where was the necessity of his taking Anne Boleyn to wife? +Why could he not have given his hand to some foreign princess, and so +have atoned to his subjects for breaking up the Spanish alliance, in +the continuance of which the English people had no common political +interest, and an extraordinary commercial interest? Why could he not +have sent to Germany for some fair-haired princess, as he did years +later, and got Anne of Cleves for his pains, whose ugly face cost poor +Cromwell his head, which was giving the wisest head in England for +the worst one out of it? Henry, Mr. Froude would have us believe, +divorced Catharine of Aragon because he desired to have sons, as one +way to avoid the breaking out of a civil war; and yet it was a sure way +to bring Charles V. into an English dispute for the regal succession, +as the supporter of any pretender, to repudiate the aunt of that +powerful imperial and royal personage. The English nation, Mr. Froude +truly tells us, was at that time "sincerely attached to Spain. The +alliance with the House of Burgundy" (of which Charles V. was the head) +"was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was +enormous,--Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as +many as fifteen thousand Flemings were settled in London. Charles +himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the +late French war; and when, in his supposed character of leader of the +anti-Papal party in Europe, he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate +Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was +fomenting in the population." Was it not a strange way to proceed for +the preservation of peace in England to offend a foreign sovereign who +stood in so strong and influential a position to the English people? +Charles was not merely displeased because of the divorce of his +relative, his mother's sister, a daughter of the renowned Isabella, who +had wrought such great things for Christendom,--promoting the discovery +of America, and conquering Granada,--but he was incensed at the mere +thought of preferring to her place a private gentlewoman, who would +never have been heard of, if Henry had not seen fit to raise her from +common life, first to the throne, and then to the scaffold. That was an +insult to the whole Austro-Burgundian family, whose dominions rivalled +those of the Roman Caesars, and whose chief had just held a King of +France captive and a Pope of Rome besieged. The Emperor might, perhaps, +have been sooted, had his relative's place been bestowed upon some lady +of corresponding blueness of blood; but it offended his pride, when he +reflected on her being supplanted by Mrs. Boleyn. The aristocratical +_morgue_ was too strong in him to bear such an insult with +fortitude. Yet none other than Mrs. Boleyn would Henry have, +notwithstanding the certainty of enraging Charles, and with the equal +certainty of disgusting a majority of his own subjects. If it had been +simply a wife that he desired, and if he was thinking merely of the +succession, and so sought only for an opportunity to beget legitimate +children, why did he so pertinaciously insist upon having no one but +"Mistress Anne" for the partner of his throne and bed? + +When he married Jane Seymour on the 20th of May, 1536, having had +Anne's head cut off on the 19th, Mr. Froude sees in that infamous +proceeding--a proceeding without parallel in the annals of villany, +and which would have disgraced the worst members of Sawney Bean's +unpromising family--nothing but a simple business-transaction. The +Privy Council and the peers, troubled about the succession, asked +Henry to marry again without any delay, when Anne had been prepared for +condemnation. The King was graciously pleased to comply with this +request, which was probably made in compliance with suggestions from +himself,--the marriage with Jane Seymour having been resolved upon +long before it took place, and the desire to effect it being the cause +of the legal assassination of Anne Boleyn, which could be brought about +only through the "cooking" of a series of charges that could have +originated nowhere out of her husband's vile mind, and which led to the +deaths of six innocent persons. "The indecent haste" of the King's +marriage with the Seymour, Mr. Froude says, "is usually considered a +proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin. To +myself the haste is an evidence of something very different. Henry, who +waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, was not without some control over +his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, +he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his +conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which +he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a +proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which +his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which +was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the +absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among +contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth another judgment was +passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an Act of Parliament must +be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture." +[Footnote: Mr. Froude mentions that a request that the King would +marry, similar to that which he received after the fall of Anne +Boleyn, was urged by the Council on the death of Jane Seymour; but, as +he allowed more than two years to elapse between the date of Jane's +death and the date of his marriage with Anne of Cleves, which marriage +he refused to consummate, is not the inference unavoidable that he +wedded Jane Seymour so hurriedly merely to gratify his desire to +possess her person, and that in 1537-39 he was singularly indifferent +to the claims of a question upon his attention?] + +We submit that the approving action of men who were partakers of +Henry's guilt is no proof of his innocence. Their conduct throughout +the Boleyn business simply proves that they were slaves, and that the +slaves were as brutal as their master. If Henry was so indifferent in +the matter of matrimony as to look upon all women with the same +feelings, if he married officially as the King, and not lovingly as a +man, how came it to pass that he was thrown into such an agony of rage, +when, being nearly fifty years old, ugly Anne of Cleves was provided +for him? His disappointment and mortification were then so great that +they hastened that political change which led to Cromwell's fall and +execution. When Henry first saw the German lady, he was as much +affected as George, Prince of Wales, was when he first saw Caroline of +Brunswick, but he behaved better than George in the lady's presence. +Much as he desired children, he never consummated his marriage with +Anne of Cleves, though he must have known that the world would be but +ill-peopled, if none but beautiful women were to be married. Had he +fulfilled the contract made with her, he might have had many sons and +daughters, and the House of Tudor might have been reigning over England +at this day. Both his fifth and sixth wives, Catharine Howard and +Catharine Parr, were fine women; and if he had lived long enough to get +rid of the latter, he would, beyond all question, have given her place +to the most beautiful woman whom he could have prevailed upon to risk +his perilous embraces preliminarily to those of the hangman. + +If Henry had married solely for the purpose of begetting children, he +never would have divorced and slaughtered Anne Boleyn. During her brief +connection with him, she gave birth to two children, one a still-born +son, and the other the future Queen Elizabeth, who lived to her +seventieth year, and whose enormous vitality and intellectual energy +speak well for the physical excellence of her mother. The miscarriage +that Anne experienced in February, 1536, was probably the occasion of +her repudiation and murder in the following May, as Henry was always +inclined to attribute disappointments of this kind to his wives, who +ever dwelt in the valley of the shadow of death.[Footnote: Henry +thought of divorcing Catharine of Aragon some years before she had +become too old to bear children. She was born in the last month of +1485, and the "King's secret matter," as the divorce question was +called, was in agitation as early as the first half of 1527, and +probably at an earlier period. Catharine was the mother of five +children, but one of whom lived, namely, the Princess Mary, afterward +Mary I.] The most charitable view that can be taken of Henry's +abominable treatment of his second wife is, that he was led by his +superstitious feelings, which _he_ called religion, to sacrifice +her to the manes of his first wife, whom Anne had badly treated, and +who died on the 7th of January, 1536. Henry, after his fashion, was +much moved by Catharine's death, and by perusal of the letter which she +wrote him from her dying bed; and so he resolved to make the only +atonement of which his savage nature was capable, and one, too, which +the bigoted Spanish woman would have been satisfied with, could she +have foreseen it. As the alliance between the royal houses of England +and Spain was sealed with the blood of the innocent Warwick, who was +sent to the scaffold by Henry VII. to satisfy Catharine's father, +Ferdinand of Aragon, so were the wrongs of Catharine to be acknowledged +by shedding the innocent blood of Anne Boleyn. The connection, as it +were, began with the butchery of a boy, reduced to idiocy by +ill-treatment, on Tower Hill, and it ended with the butchery of a +woman, who had been reduced almost to imbecility by cruelty, on the +Tower Green. Heaven's judgement would seem to have been openly +pronounced against that blood-cemented alliance, formed by two of the +greatest of those royal ruffians who figured in the fifteenth century, +and destined to lead to nothing but misery to all who were brought +together in consequence of it's having been made. If one were seeking +for proofs of the direct and immediate interposition of a Higher Power +in the ordering of human affairs, it would be no difficult matter to +discover them in the history of the royal houses of England during +the existence of the Lancastrian, the York, and the Tudor families. +Crime leads to crime therein in regular sequence, the guiltless +suffering with the guilty, and because of their connection with the +guilty, until the palaces of the Henries and the Edwards become as +haunted with horrors as were the halls of the Atridae. The "pale +nurslings that had perished by kindred hands," seen by Cassandra when +she passed the threshold of Agamemnon's abode, might have been +paralleled by similar "phantom dreams," had another Cassandra +accompanied Henry VII. when he came from Bosworth Field to take +possession of the royal abodes at London. She, too, might have spoken, +taking the Tower for her place of denunciation, of "that human +shamble-house, that bloody floor, that dwelling abhorred by Heaven, +privy to so many horrors against the most sacred ties." And she might +have seen in advance the yet greater horrors that were to come, and +that hung "over the inexpiable threshold; the curse passing from +generation to generation." + +Mr. Froude thinks that Catharine Howard, the fifth of Henry's wives, +was not only guilty of antenuptial slips, but of unfaithfulness to the +royal bed. It is so necessary to establish the fact of her infidelity, +in order to save the King's reputation,--for he could not with any +justice have punished her for the irregularities of her unmarried +life, and not even in this age, when we have organized divorce, could +such slips be brought forward against a wife of whom a husband had +become weary,--that we should be careful how we attach credit to what +is called the evidence against Catharine Howard; and her +contemporaries, who had means of weighing and criticizing that +evidence, did not agree in believing her guilty. Mr. Froude, who would, +to use a saying of Henry's time, find Abel guilty of murder of Cain, +were that necessary to support his royal favorite's hideous cause, not +only declares that the unhappy girl was guilty throughout, but lugs God +into the tragedy, and makes Him responsible for what was, perhaps, the +cruellest and most devilish of all the many murders perpetrated by +Henry VIII. The luckless lady was but a child at the time she was +devoured by "the jaws of darkness." At most she was but in her +twentieth year, and probably she was a year or two younger than that +age. Any other king than Henry would have pardoned her, if for no other +reason, then for this, that he had coupled her youth with his age, and +so placed her in an unnatural position, in which the temptation to +error was all the greater, and the less likely to be resisted, because +of the girl's evil training,--a training that could not have been +unknown to the King, and on the incidents of which the Protestant plot +for her ruin, and that of the political party of which she was the +instrument, had been founded. But of Henry VIII., far more truly than +of James II., could it have been said by any one of his innumerable +victims, that, though it was in his power to forgive an offender, it +was not in his nature to do so. + +No tyrant ever was preceded to the tomb by such an array of victims as +Henry VIII. If Shakspeare had chosen to bring the highest of those +victims around the last bed that Henry was to press on earth, after the +fashion in which he sent the real or supposed victims of Richard III. +to haunt the last earthly sleep of the last royal Plantagenet, he would +have had to bring them up by sections, and not individually, in +battalions, and not as single spies. Buckingham, Wolsey, More, Fisher, +Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Rocheford, Cromwell, Catharine +Howard, Exeter, Montague, Lambert, Aske, Lady Salisbury, +Surrey,--these, and hundreds of others, selected principally from the +patrician order, or from the officers of the old church, might have led +the ghostly array which should have told the monarch to die and to +despair of redemption; while an innumerable host of victims of lower +rank might have followed these more conspicuous sufferers from the +King's "jealous rage." Undoubtedly some of these persons had justly +incurred death, but it is beyond belief that they were all guilty of +the crimes laid to their charge; yet Mr. Froude can find as little +good in any of them as of evil in Henry's treatment of them. He would +have us believe that Henry was scrupulously observant of the law! and +that he allowed Cromwell to perish because he had violated the laws of +England, and sought to carry out that "higher law" which politicians +out of power are so fond of appealing to, but which politicians in +power seldom heed. And such stuff we are expected to receive as +historical criticism, and the philosophy of history! And pray, of what +breach of the law had the Countess of Salisbury been guilty, that she +should be sent to execution when she had arrived at so advanced an age +that she must soon have passed away in the course of Nature? She was +one of Cromwell's victims, and as he had been deemed unfit to live +because of his violations of the laws of the realm, it would follow +that one whose attainder had been procured through his devices could +not be fairly put to death. She suffered ten months after Cromwell, and +could have committed no fresh offence in the interval, as she was a +prisoner in the Tower at the time of her persecutor's fall, and so +remained until the day of her murder. The causes of her death, +however, are not far to seek: she was the daughter of George +Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Henry hated +every member of that royal race which the Tudors had supplanted; and +she was the mother of Reginald Pole, whom the King detested both for +his Plantagenet blood and for the expositions which he made of the +despot's crimes. + +One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch +even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered +up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all +redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so +assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are +few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard, +Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the +high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English +literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of +expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant, +who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped--for he could no +longer write--the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to +endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies +are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets +the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet +was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much +as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case +he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as +summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King. +Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, +his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, +and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of +patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey +upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a +dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were +all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial +murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated +above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of +snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then +alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both +Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey +most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there +could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had +been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head +ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political +offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr. +Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against +Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to +be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common +decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude +has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the +man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of +Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a +foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest +intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a +useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of +England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond, +whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died, +leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin +Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the +King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby +in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame +d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most +notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if +Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part +assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old +aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the +King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's +story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had +complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, +and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should +all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would +consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also +confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who, +'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is +the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at +first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the +witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid +in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious +a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,--the English +people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic +decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes. +Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of +the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be +guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support +it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's +brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that +brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had +perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to +have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far +the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is +room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the +charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt +which is his due. + +The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting +one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the +space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another +time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that +Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else--dreadful +alternative!--we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not +the just man made perfect on earth. + + + * * * * * + + + +WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED. + + +Bedded in stone, a toad lived well, + Cold and content as toad could be; +As safe from harm as monk in cell, + Almost as safe from good was he + +And "What is life?" he said, and dozed; + Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he: +"Each creature God in stone hath closed, + That each may have tranquillity. + +"And God Himself lies coiled in stone, + Nor wakes nor moves to any call; +Each lives unto himself alone, + And cold and night envelop all." + +He said, and slept. With curious ear + Close to the stone, a serpent lay. +"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer, + "For well I know God wakes alway. + +"And what is life but wakefulness, + To glide through snares, alert and wise,-- +With plans too deep for neighbors' guess, + And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes? + +"For all the earth is thronged with foes, + And dark with fraud, and set with toils: +Each lies in wait, on each to close, + And God is bribed with share of spoils." + +High in the boughs a small bird sang, + And marvelled such a creed should be. +"How strange and false!" his comment rang; + "For well I know that life is glee. + +"For all the plain is flushed with bloom, + And all the wood with music rings, +And in the air is scarcely room + To wave our myriad flashing wings. + +"And God, amid His angels high, + Spreads over all in brooding joy; +On great wings borne, entranced they lie, + And all is bliss without alloy." + +"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?" + Thus mused a man, the trees among: +"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know + That life must not be spent in song. + +"For what is life, but toil of brain, + And toil of hand, and strife of will,-- +To dig and forge, with loss and pain, + The truth from lies, the good from ill,-- + +"And ever out of self to rise + Toward love and law and constancy? +But with sweet love comes sacrifice, + And with great law comes penalty. + +"And God, who asks a constant soul, + His creatures tries both sore and long: +Steep is the way, and far the goal, + And time is small to waste in song." + +He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned: + With equal love his glances fell +Upon the man with soul upturned, + Upon the toad within its cell. + +And, strange! upon that wondrous face + Shone pure all natures, well allied: +There subtlety was turned to grace, + And slow content was glorified; + +And labor, love, and constancy + Put off their dross and mortal guise, +And with the look that is to be + They looked from those immortal eyes. + +To the faint man the angel strong + Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain: +The one in tears, the one in song, + The cross was borne betwixt them twain. + +He sang the careless bliss that lies + In wood-bird's heart, without alloy; +He sang the joy of sacrifice; + And still he sang, "_All_ life is joy." + +But how, while yet he clasped the pain, + Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled, +I know not, with my human brain, + Nor how the two he reconciled. + + + * * * * * + + +PRESENCE. + + +It was a long and terrible conflict,--I will not say where, because +that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no +match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought +with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as +they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against +oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people +against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great +principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more +enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the +sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in +execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether +blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed +down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or +stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three +hundred. + +Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the +death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time, +though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the +quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the +brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery +ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified +interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend +Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of +brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom +beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now +compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy +eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable +fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other +mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in +a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of +mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and +spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding +minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a +brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the +fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now +imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed +positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with +marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible _coup-de-main_, and +all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no +choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless +inspiration. + +After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on +his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued +with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of +his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was +abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact. + +Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our +relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively, +even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and +position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high +mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that +the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were +all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular +indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more +interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable +reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained. +He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife +was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another +soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my +friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its +solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his +mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat +the story because it is literally _true_, and because some of its +incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form +the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all +departments of human knowledge. + +During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our +interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country +home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his +still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his +face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same +deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest +things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity +of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman +self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that +"are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines +which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the +veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,--the "soft, guileless +consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other +incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon +the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening +hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found +a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the +heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its +inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious +thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting +shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts +warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness, +or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,--that +veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but +souls,--that causes the letters in which loved names are written to +appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on _fire_, while day, in +their cloudy traces, they but _smoke_?" + +Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of +psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and +illusion hold contested sway,--where the relations between spirit and +matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can +only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words +created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would +a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle. + +"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long +rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the +ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea +implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet +would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more +unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the +thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be +found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no +mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of +palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to +crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental +phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or +creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern +lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before +the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the +battalions into a stream of electricity." + +"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know +it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means +incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it +may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the +actual power which one human being may exert over another without the +intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted +scientists concede even more than this." + +"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent +grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed +to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between +soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort +to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night +bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' +I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or +to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood." + +"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the +later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of +modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind +to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical +impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and +perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of +the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by +fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but +which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical +clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and +generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both +assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the +soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the +jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through +the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs +of hope and gladness." + +His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a +pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the +starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the +battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his +frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint +smile of recognition brightened his features. + +"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery +of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a +mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can +touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not +necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case +are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our +entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in +absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, +in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the +barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the +individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We +are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other +hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring +the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being, +infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and +imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then, +those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though +they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why +may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more +subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness +in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of +spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I +refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the +brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher +faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a +chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and +obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be +filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing." + +"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is +based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess +that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a +point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than +the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever +persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material +intervention." + +"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason +about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. +But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid +abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, +there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim +of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the +Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is +commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no +testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I +have received. + +"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second +time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are +a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?" + +"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the +pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from +the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others +from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that +theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves +the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative +interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will +have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain +how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears +to you unphilosophical, if not absurd." + +"I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel +the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation." + +Vilalba smiled slightly. + +"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, +myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am +about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy. + +"It happened to me many years ago,--how flatteringly that little +phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!--when I had just +entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to +New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of +friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French +families of that _quasi_ Parisian city, and in the reception of +their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a +stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I +had health, friends, education, position,--youth, as well, which then +seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of +years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it +not, I am telling you, to-night, this story. + +"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an +aristocratic subject of the old French _regime_. I did not know +the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the +invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the +messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may +be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After +greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my +attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly +veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely, +living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal +light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious, +the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of +graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the +coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful +according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the +same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and +blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of +what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,--that they were +enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life +multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was +mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the +significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering +the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller +revelation. + +"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced, +and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my +host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened +romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium +to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world +began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision; +their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or +harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those +whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's +optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the +first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the +gift rarely accorded to us here,--the fulfilment of a promise hidden +in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing +self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had +been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay +triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when +in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice +inspired, that new birth of + + 'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,' + +had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher +and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be +forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest +and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom +we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures +which precedes reason and asks no leave of the understanding, is not a +gradual and cautious attraction, like the growth of a coral reef, but +sudden and magnetic as the coalescence of two drops of mercury. + +"During several following weeks we met many times, and yet, in looking +back to that dream of heaven, I cannot tell how often, nor for how +long. Time is merely the measure given to past emotions, and those +emotions flowed over me in a tidal sweep which merged all details in +one continuous memory. The lone hemisphere of my life was rounded into +completeness, and its feverish unrest changed to deep tranquillity, as +if a faint, tremulous star were transmuted into a calm, full-orbed +planet. Do you remember that story of Plato's--I recall the air-woven +subtilties of the delightful idealist, to illustrate, not to +prove--that story of the banquet where the ripe wines of the Aegean +Isles unchained the tongues of such talkers as Pausanias and Socrates +and others as witty and wise, until they fell into a discourse on the +origin of Love, and, whirling away on the sparkling eddies of fancy, +were borne to that preexistent sphere which, in Plato's opinion, +furnished the key to all the enigmas of this? There they beheld the +complete and original souls, the compound of male and female, dual and +yet one, so happy and so haughty in their perfection of beauty and of +power that Jupiter could not tolerate his godlike rivals, and therefore +cut them asunder, sending the dissevered halves tumbling down to earth, +bewildered and melancholy enough, until some good fortune might restore +to each the _alter ego_ which constituted the divine unity. 'And +thus,' says Plato, 'whenever it happens that a man meets with his other +half, the very counterpart of himself, they are both smitten with +strong love; they recognize their ancient union; they are powerfully +attracted by the consciousness that they belong to each other; and they +are unwilling to be again parted, even for a short time. And if Vulcan +were to stand over them with his fire and forge, and offer to melt them +down and run them together, and of two to make them one again, they +would both say that this was just what they desired!' + +"I dare say you have read--unless your partiality for the soft Southern +tongues has chased away your Teutonic taste--that exquisite poem of +Schiller's, 'Das Geheimnitz der Reminiscenz,' the happiest possible +crystallization of the same theory. I recall a few lines from Bulwer's +fine translation:-- + +"'Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart? +Is it because its native home thou art? +Or were they brothers in the days of yore, +Twin-bound both souls, and in the links they bore +Sigh to be bound once more? + +"'Were once our beings blent and intertwining, +And therefore still my heart for thine is pining? +Knew we the light of some extinguished sun,-- +The joys remote of some bright realm undone, +Where once our souls were ONE? + +"'Yes, it is so! And thou wert bound to me +In the long-vanished eld eternally! +In the dark troubled tablets which enroll +The past my Muse beheld this blessed scroll,-- +'One with thy love, my soul'!" + +"Now the Athenian dreamer builded better than he knew. That phantom +which perpetually attends and perpetually evades us,--the inevitable +guest whose silence maddens and whose sweetness consoles,--whose filmy +radiance eclipses all beauty,--whose voiceless eloquence subdues all +sound,--ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and +unchanging,--this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, +because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response in a +living form, its rapturous welcome ignores the old imperfect being, and +the union only is recognized as Self indeed, complete and undivided. +And that fulness of human love becomes a faint type and interpreter of +the Infinite, as through it we glide into grander harmonies and +enlarged relations with the Universe, urged on forever by insatiable +desires and far-reaching aspirations which testify our celestial +origin and intimate our immortal destiny. + +"'Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade, +From the rude Mongol to the starry Greek, +everywhere we seek +Union and bond, till in one sea sublime +Of love be merged all measure and all time!" + +"I never disclosed in words my love to Blanche. Through the lucid +transparency of Presence, I believed that she knew all and +comprehended all, without the aid of those blundering symbols. We never +even spoke of the future; for all time, past and to come, seemed to +converge and centre and repose in that radiant present. In the +enchantment of my new life, I feared lest a breath should disturb the +spell, and send me back to darkness and solitude. + +"Of course, this could not last forever. There came a time when I found +that my affairs would compel me to leave New Orleans for a year, or +perhaps a little longer. With the discovery my dream was broken. The +golden web which had been woven around me shrank beneath the iron hand +of necessity, and fell in fragments at my feet. I knew that it was +useless to speak to Blanch of marriage, for her father, a stern and +exacting man in his domestic relations, had often declared that he +would never give his daughter to a husband who had no fortune. If I +sought his permission to address her now, my fate was fixed. There was +no alternative, therefore, but to wait until my return, when I hoped to +have secured, in sufficient measure, the material passport to his +favor. Our parting was necessarily sudden, and, strange as it may seem, +some fatal repression sealed my lips, and withheld me from uttering the +few words which would have made the future wholly ours, and sculptured +my dream of love in monumental permanance. Ah! with what narrow and +trembling planks do we bridge the abyss of misery and despair! But be +patient while I linger for a moment here. The evening before my +departure, I went to take leave of her. There were other guests in the +drawing-room, the atmosphere was heated and oppressive, and after a +little time I proposed to her to retreat with me, for a few moments, to +the fragrant coolness of the garden. We walked slowly along through +clustering flowers and under arching orange-trees, which infolded us +tenderly within their shining arms, as in tremulous silence we waited +for words that should say enough and yet not too much. The glories of +all summer evenings seemed concentred in this one. The moon now +silvered leaf and blossom, and then suddenly fled behind a shadowing +cloud, while the stars shone out with gladness brief and bright as the +promises of my heart. Skilful artists in the music-room thrilled the +air with some of those exquisite compositions of Mendelssohn which +dissolve the soul in sweetness or ravish it with delight, until it +seems as if all past emotions of joy were melted in one rapid and +comprehensive reexperience, and all future inheritance gleamed in +promise before our enraptured vision, and we are hurried on with +electric speed to hitherto unsealed heights of feeling, whence we catch +faint glimpses of the unutterable mysteries of our being, and +foreshadowings of a far-off, glorified existence. The eloquence of +earth and sky and air breathed more than language could have uttered, +and, as my eyes met the eyes of Blanche, the question of my heart was +asked and answered, once for all. I recognized the treasured ideal of +my restless, vagrant heart, and I seemed to hear it murmuring gently, +as if to a long-lost mate, _'Where hast thou stayed so long?'_ I +felt that henceforth there was for us no real parting. Our material +forms might be severed, but our spirits were one and inseparate. + +"'On the fountains of our life a seal was set +To keep their waters clear and bright +Forever.' + +"And thus, with scarce a word beside, I said the 'God be with you!' and +went out into the world alone, yet henceforth not alone. + +"Two years passed away. They had been years of success in my worldly +affairs, and were blessed by memories and hopes which grew brighter +with each day. I had not heard of Blanche, save indirectly through a +friend in New Orleans, but I never doubted that the past was as sacred, +the future as secure, in her eyes as in my own. I was now ready to +return, and to repeat in words the vows which my heart had sworn long +before. I fixed the time, and wrote to my friend to herald my coming. +Before that letter reached him, there came tidings which, like a storm +of desolation, swept me to the dust. Blanche was in France, and +married,--how or when or to whom, I knew not, cared not. The +relentless fact was sufficient. The very foundations of the earth +seemed to tremble and slide from beneath me. The sounds of day +tortured, the silence of night maddened me. I sought forgetfulness in +travel, in wild adventure, in reckless dissipation. With that strange +fatality which often leads us to seek happiness or repose where we have +least chance of finding it, I, too, married. But I committed no +perjury. I offered friendship, and it sufficed. Love I never professed +to give, and the wife whom I merely esteemed had not the mental or the +magnetic ascendancy which might have triumphed for a time over the +image shrined in my inmost heart. I sought every avenue through which +I might fly from that and from myself. I tried mental occupation, and +explored literature and science, with feverish ardor and some reward. I +think it is Coleridge who recommends to those who are suffering from +extreme sorrow the study of a new language. But to a mind of deep +feeling diversion is not relief. If we fly from memory, we are pursued +and overtaken like fugitive slaves, and punished with redoubled +tortures. The only sure remedy for grief is self-evolved. We must +accept sorrow as a guest, not shun it as a foe, and, receiving it into +close companionship, let the mournful face haunt our daily paths, even +though it shut out all friends and dim the light of earth and heaven. +And when we have learned the lesson which it came to teach, the fearful +phantom brightens into beauty, and reveals an 'angel unawares,' who +gently leads us to heights of purer atmosphere and more extended +vision, and strengthens us for the battle which demands unfaltering +heart and hope. + +"Do you remember the remark of the child Goethe, when his young reason +was perplexed by attempting to reconcile the terrible earthquake at +Lisbon with the idea of infinite goodness? 'God knows very well that an +immortal soul cannot suffer from mortal accident.' With similar faith +there came to me tranquil restoration. The deluge of passion rolled +back, and from the wreck of my Eden arose a new and more spiritual +creation. But forgetfulness was never possible. In the maddening +turbulence of my grief and the ghastly stillness of its reaction, the +lovely spirit which had become a part of my life seemed to have fled to +the inner temple of my soul, breaking the solitude with glimmering +ray and faint melodious murmur. And when I could bear to look and +listen, it grew brighter and more palpable, until at last it attended +me omnipresently, consoling, cheering, and stimulating to nobler +thought and action. + +"Nor was it a ghost summoned by memory, or the airy creation of fancy. +One evening an incident occurred which will test your credulity, or +make you doubt my sanity. I sat alone, and reading,--nothing more +exciting, however, than a daily newspaper. My health was perfect, my +mind unperturbed. Suddenly my eye was arrested by a cloud passing +slowly back and forth several times before me, not projected upon the +wall, but floating in the atmosphere. I looked around for the cause, +but the doors and windows were closed, and nothing stirred in the +apartment. Then I saw a point of light, small as a star at first, but +gradually enlarging into a luminous cloud which filled the centre of +the room. I shivered with strange coldness, and every nerve tingled as +if touched by a galvanic battery. From the tremulous waves of the cloud +arose, like figures in a dissolving view, the form and features of my +lost love,--not radiant as when I last looked upon them, but pale and +anguish-stricken, with clasped hands and tearful eyes; and upon my ears +fell, like arrows of fire, the words, _You have been the cause of all +this; oh, why did you not'_--The question was unfinished, and from +my riveted gaze, half terror, half delight, the vision faded, and I was +alone. + +"Of course you will pronounce this mere nervous excitement, but, I pray +you, await the sequel. Those burning words told the story of that +mistake which had draped in despair our earthly lives. They were no +reflection from my own mind. In the self-concentration of my +disappointment, I had never dreamed that I alone was in fault,--that I +should have anchored my hope on somewhat more defined than the +voiceless intelligence of sympathy. But the very reproach of the +mysterious visitor brought with it a conviction, positive and +indubitable, that the spiritual portion of our being possesses the +power to act upon the material perception of another, without aid from +material elements. From time to time I have known, beyond the +possibility of deception, that the kindred spirit was still my +companion, my own inalienable possession, in spite of all factitious +ties, of all physical intervention. + +"Have you heard that among certain tribes of the North-American Indians +are men who possess an art which enables them to endure torture and +actual death without apparent suffering or even consciousness? I once +chanced to fall in with one of these tribes, then living in Louisiana, +now removed to the far West, and was permitted to witness some +fantastic rites, half warlike, half religious, in which, however, +there was nothing noticeable except this trance-like condition, which +some of the warriors seemed to command at pleasure, manifested by a +tense rigidity of the features and muscles, and a mental exaltation +which proved to be both clairvoyant and clairoyant: a state analogous +to that of hypnotism, or the artificial sleep produced by gazing +fixedly on a near, bright object, and differing only in degree from +the nervous or imaginative control which has been known to arrest and +cure disease, which chained St. Simeon Stylites to his pillar, and +sustains the Hindoo fakirs in their apparently superhuman vigils. These +children of Nature had probed with direct simplicity some of the deep +secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous +devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a +concentrative energy of the will, which riveted the faculties upon a +single purpose or idea, and held every nerve and sense in absolute +abeyance. We are so little accustomed to test the potency of the will +out of the ordinary plane of its operation, that we have little +conception how mighty a lever it may be made, or to what new exercise +it may be directed; and yet we are all conscious of periods in our +lives when, like a vast rock in ocean, it has suddenly loomed up firm +and defiant amid our petty purposes and fretful indecisions, waxing +grander and stronger under opposition, a something apart from, yet a +conscious portion of ourselves,--a master, though a slave,--another +revelation of the divinity within. + +"I will confess that curiosity led me long ago to slight experiments in +the direction in which you say the diabolic lies, but my mind was +never concentrated on any one idea of sufficient interest to command +success, until, in some periods of mingled peril and excitement, the +memory of Blanche, and the conscious, even startling nearness of that +sweet presence, have lent to my will unwonted energy and inspiration. + +"Twenty years passed slowly away. It is common to speak of the +_flight_ of time. For me, time has no wings. The days and years +are faltering and tardy-footed, laden with the experiences of the +outer and the problems of the inner world, which seem perpetually +multiplied by reflection, like figures in a room mirrored on all +sides. Meanwhile, my wife had died. I have never since sought women +beyond the formal pale of the drawing-room: not from insensibility to +loveliness, but because the memory, 'dearer far than bliss,' of one +irretrievable affection shut out all inferior approach,--like a +solitary planet, admitting no dance of satellites within its orbit. + +"At last the long silence was broken. I heard that Blanche was free, +and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The +ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved +a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a +glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was in +Louisiana, and in the very dwelling and at the same hour which had +witnessed our parting. Again was it a soft summer evening. The same +faint golden rays painted the sun's farewell, and the same silver moon +looked eloquent response, as on the evening breeze floated sweet +remembered odors of jessamine and orange. Again the ideal beauty of the +lovely portrait met my gaze and seemed to melt into my heart; and +once more, softly, lightly, fell a footstep, and the Presence by which +I had never been forsaken, which I could never forsake, stood before me +in 'palpable array of sense.' It was indeed the living Blanche, calm +and stately as of old,--no longer radiant with the flush of youth, but +serene in tenderest grace and sweet reserve, and beautiful through the +lustre of the inner light of soul. She uttered a faint cry of joy, and +placing her trembling hand in mine, we stood transfixed and silent, +with riveted gaze, reading in each other's eyes feelings too sacred for +speech, too deep for smiles or tears. In that long, burning look, it +seemed as if the emotions of each were imparted to the other, not in +slow succession as through words and sentences, but daguerreotyped or +electrotyped in perfected form upon the conscious understanding. No +language could have made so clear and comprehensible the revelation of +that all-centring, unconquerable love which thrilled our inmost being, +and pervaded the atmosphere around us with subtile and tremulous +vibrations. In that moment all time was fused and forgotten. There was +for us no Past, no Future; there was only the long-waited, +all-embracing Now. I could willingly have died then and there, for I +knew that all life could bring but one such moment. My heart spoke +truly. A change passed over the countenance of Blanche,--an expression +of unutterable grief, like Eve's retrospective look at Eden. Quivering +with strange tremor, again she stood before me, with clasped hands and +tearful eyes, in the very attitude of that memorable apparition, and +again fell upon my ears the mysterious plaint and the uncompleted +question,--_'You have been the cause of all this; oh, why did you +not'_-- + +"Now, my friend, can your philosophy explain this startling +verification, this reflex action of the vision, or the fantasy, or +whatever else you may please to term it, whose prophetic shadow fell +upon my astonished senses long years before? In all the intervening +time, we were separated by great distance, no word or sign passed +between us, nor did we even hear of each other except indefinitely and +through chance. Is there, then, any explanation of that vision more +rational than that the spirit thus closely affined with my own was +enabled, through its innate potencies, or through some agency of which +we are ignorant, to impress upon my bodily perceptions its +uncontrollable emotions? That this manifestation was made through what +physiologists call the unconscious or involuntary action of the mind +was proved by the incredulity and surprise of Blanche when I told her +of the wonderful coincidence. + +"I need not relate, even if I could do so, the outpouring of long-pent +emotions which relieved the yearning love and haunting memories of sad, +silent, lingering years. It is enough to tell you briefly of the +story which was repeated in fragments through many hours of unfamiliar +bliss. Soon after my departure from New Orleans, the father of Blanche, +with the stern authority which many parents exercise over the +matrimonial affairs of their daughters, insisted upon her forming an +alliance to which the opposition of her own heart was the only +objection. So trifling an impediment was decisively put aside by him, +and Blanche, having delayed the marriage as long as possible, until the +time fixed for my return was past, and unable to plead any open +acknowledgment on my part which could justify her refusal, had no +alternative but to obey. 'I confess,' said she, in faltering tones, +'that, after my fate was fixed, and I was parted from you, as I +believed for life, I tried to believe that the love which had given so +slight witness in words to its truth and fervor must have faded +entirely away, and that I was forgotten, and perhaps supplanted. And +therefore, in the varied pursuits and pleasures of my new sphere, and +in the indulgence and kindness which ministered to the outer, but, +alas! never to the inner life, I sought happiness, and I, too, like +yourself, strove to forget. Ah! that art of forgetting, which the +Athenian coveted as the best of boons,--when was it ever found through +effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the +allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still +turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its +master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for +expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the +material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, +sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I +was lost to sights and sounds around me, with a sense of having been +in your actual presence. I was aware of an effect rather than of an +immediate consciousness,--as if the magnetism of your touch had swept +over me, cooling the fever of my brain, and charming to deep +tranquillity my troubled heart. And thus I learned, through similar +experience, the same belief as yours. I have felt the continuous +nearness, the inseparable union of our spirits, as plainly as I feel +it now, with my hand clasped in yours, and reading in your eyes the +unutterable things which we can never hope to speak, because they are +foreshadowings of another existence. + +"What I possess I see afar off lying, +And what I lost is real and undying." + +The material presence is indeed very dear, but I believe that it is not +essential to the perpetuity of that love which is nurtured through +mutual and perfect understanding.' + +"'It is not essential,' I replied, 'but it is, as you say, very, very +dear, because it is an exponent and participant of the hidden life +which it was designed to aid and to enframe. Blanche, it was you who +first wakened my soul to the glorious revelation, the heavenly +heritage of love. It was you who opened to me the world which lies +beyond the mere external, who gently allured me from the coarse and +clouding elements of sense, and infolded me in the holy purity of that +marriage of kindred natures which alone is hallowed by the laws of +God, and which no accidents of time or place can rend asunder. Apart +from the bitterness of this long separation, the lesson might not have +been learned; but now that it is ineffaceably engraven on both our +hearts, and confirmed in the assurance of this blessed reunion, may I +not hope that for the remainder of our earthly lives we may study +together in visible companionship such further lessons as may be held +in reserve for us?' + +"Her face glowed with a soft crimson flush, and again her eyes were +suffused with tears, through which beamed a look of sweet, heavenly +sorrow,--such as might have shone in the orbs of the angel who enforced +upon Adam the sentence of expulsion from Paradise, and who, while +sharing the exile's grief, beheld in the remote horizon, far beyond the +tangled wilderness of Earth, another gate, wide opening to welcome him +to the Immortal Land. She was silent for a little time, and then she +murmured, lingering gently on the words, 'No, it must not be. We are, +indeed, inalienably one, in a nearer and dearer sense than can be +expressed by any transient symbol. Let us not seek to quit the +spiritual sphere in which we have long dwelt and communed together, for +one liable to discord and misinterpretation. I have an irresistible +impression that my life here will be very brief. While I remain, come +to me when you will, let me be the Egeria of your hours of leisure, and +a consoler in your cares,--but let us await, for another and a higher +life, the more perfect consummation of our love. For, oh, believe, as I +believe, faith is no mockery, nor is the heart's prophecy a lie. We +were not born to be the dupes of dreams or the sport of chance. The +voice which whispered to me long ago the promise fulfilled in this hour +tells me that in a bright Hereafter we shall find compensation for +every sorrow, reality for every ideal, and that there at last shall be +resolved in luminous perception the veiled and troubled mystery of +PRESENCE!'" + + + * * * * * + +CHIEFLY ABOUT WAR-MATTERS. + +BY A PEACEABLE MAN. + + +There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically sealed +seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the +disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the +general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, +and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain +fantasies, to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring +to give a sufficiently life-like aspect to admit of their figuring in a +romance. As I make no pretensions to state-craft or soldiership, and +could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed, +at first, a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial +business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was +to be substituted for it. But I magnanimously considered that there is +a kind of treason in insulating one's self from the universal fear and +sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil +war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better +deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way +thither on the score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I +remembered the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that +rural squire the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's +ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and +constitution of England were to be set at stake. So I gave myself up to +reading newspapers and listening to the click of the telegraph, like +other people; until, after a great many months of such pastime, it grew +so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely +at matters with my own eyes. + +Accordingly we set out--a friend and myself--towards Washington, while +it was still the long, dreary January of our Northern year, though +March in name; nor were we unwilling to clip a little margin off the +five months' winter, during which there is nothing genial in New +England save the fireside. It was a clear, frosty morning, when we +started. The sun shone brightly on snow-covered hills in the +neighborhood of Boston, and burnished the surface of frozen ponds; and +the wintry weather kept along with us while we trundled through +Worcester and Springfield, and all those old, familiar towns, and +through the village-cities of Connecticut. In New York the streets were +afloat with liquid mud and slosh. Over New Jersey there was still a +thin covering of snow, with the face of Nature visible through the +rents in her white shroud, though with little or no symptom of reviving +life. But when we reached Philadelphia, the air was mild and balmy; +there was but a patch or two of dingy winter here and there, and the +bare, brown fields about the city were ready to be green. We had met +the Spring half-way, in her slow progress from the South; and if we +kept onward at the same pace, and could get through the Rebel lines, we +should soon come to fresh grass, fruit-blossoms, green peas, +strawberries, and all such delights of early summer. + +On our way, we heard many rumors of the war, but saw few signs of it. +The people were staid and decorous, according to their ordinary +fashion; and business seemed about as brisk as usual,--though, I +suppose, it was considerably diverted from its customary channels into +warlike ones. In the cities, especially in New York, there was a rather +prominent display of military goods at the shopwindows,--such as +swords with gilded scabbards and trappings, epaulets, carabines, +revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon at the edge of the +pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there, +while hurrying to the field. As railway-companions, we had now and then +a volunteer in his French-gray great-coat, returning from furlough, or +a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment, in his new-made +uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had +about him,--but proud of his eagle-buttons, and likely enough to do +them honor before the gilt should be wholly dimmed. The country, in +short, so far as bustle and movement went, was more quiet than in +ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements +had been drawn towards the seat of conflict. But the air was full of a +vague disturbance. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a +solitude as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and +indefinable presentiments, since I had not lived, like other men, in +an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily +expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither +side of the river, all of us were looking towards the mysterious and +terrible Manassas, with the idea that somewhere in its neighborhood +lay a ghastly battlefield, yet to be fought, but foredoomed of old to +be bloodier than the one where we had reaped such shame. Of all haunted +places, methinks such a destined field should be thickest thronged with +ugly phantoms, ominous of mischief through ages beforehand. + +Beyond Philadelphia there was a much greater abundance of military +people. Between Baltimore and Washington a guard seemed to hold every +station along the railroad; and frequently, on the hill-sides, we saw a +collection of weather-beaten tents, the peaks of which, blackened with +smoke, indicated that they had been made comfortable by stove-heat +throughout the winter. At several commanding positions we saw +fortifications, with the muzzles of cannon protruding from the +ramparts, the slopes of which were made of the yellow earth of that +region, and still unsodded; whereas, till these troublous times, there +have been no forts but what were grass-grown with the lapse of at least +a lifetime of peace. Our stopping-places were thronged with soldiers, +some of whom came through the cars, asking for newspapers that +contained accounts of the battle between the Merrimack and Monitor, +which had been fought the day before. A railway-train met us, conveying +a regiment out of Washington to some unknown point; and reaching the +capital, we filed out of the station between lines of soldiers, with +shouldered muskets, putting us in mind of similar spectacles at the +gates of European cities. It was not without sorrow that we saw the +free circulation of the nation's life-blood (at the very heart, +moreover) clogged with such strictures as these, which have caused +chronic diseases in almost all countries save our own. Will the time +ever come again, in America, when we may live half a score of years +without once seeing the likeness of a soldier, except it be in the +festal march of a company on its summer tour? Not in this generation, +I fear, nor in the next, nor till the Millennium; and even that blessed +epoch, as the prophecies seem to intimate, will advance to the sound +of the trumpet. + +One terrible idea occurs, in reference to this matter. Even supposing +the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the +population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will +there be of military titles and pretensions for at least half a century +to come! Every country-neighborhood will have its general or two, its +three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without +end,--besides non-commissioned officers and privates, more than the +recruiting-offices ever knew of,--all with their campaign-stories, +which will become the staple of fireside-talk forevermore. Military +merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military +notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction. One +bullet-headed general will succeed another in the Presidential chair; +and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in +Congress and the State legislatures, and fill all the avenues of public +life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, +it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many +shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public +regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects +in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late. + +We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of +our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march +towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia +mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, +before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite +away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a +gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered +to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously +swollen bladder. There are instances of a similar character in old +romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of +necromancers, who build airy towers and battlements, and muster +warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming +impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes +forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him +melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the +march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole business, though +connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of +the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material,--the +majestic patience and docility with which the people waited through +those weary and dreary months,--the martial skill, courage, and +caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,--and, at last, +the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against +nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, +but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, +when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel +artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect. + +The troops being gone, we had the better leisure and opportunity to +look into other matters. It is natural enough to suppose that the +centre and heart of Washington is the Capitol; and certainly, in its +outward aspect, the world has not many statelier or more beautiful +edifices, nor any, I should suppose, more skilfully adapted to +legislative purposes, and to all accompanying needs. But, etc., etc. +[Footnote: We omit several paragraphs here, in which the author speaks +of some prominent Members of Congress with a freedom that seems to have +been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he +admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly +recognize his qualification to estimate these gentlemen, in their +legislative and oratorical capacities.] + + * * * * * + +We found one man, however, at the Capitol, who was satisfactorily +adequate to the business which brought him thither. In quest of him, we +went through halls, galleries, and corridors, and ascended a noble +staircase, balustraded with a dark and beautifully variegated marble +from Tennessee, the richness of which is quite a sufficient cause for +objecting to the secession of that State. At last we came to a barrier +of pine boards, built right across the stairs. Knocking at a rough, +temporary door, we thrust a card beneath; and in a minute or two it was +opened by a person in his shirt-sleeves, a middle-aged figure, neither +tall nor short, of Teutonic build and aspect, with an ample beard of a +ruddy tinge and chestnut hair. He looked at us, in the first place, +with keen and somewhat guarded eyes, as if it were not his practice to +vouchsafe any great warmth of greeting, except upon sure ground of +observation. Soon, however, his look grew kindly and genial, (not that +it had ever been in the least degree repulsive, but only reserved,) and +Leutze allowed us to gaze at the cartoon of his great fresco, and +talked about it unaffectedly, as only a man of true genius can speak +of his own works. Meanwhile the noble design spoke for itself upon the +wall. A sketch in color, which we saw afterwards, helped us to form +some distant and flickering notion of what the picture will be, a few +months hence, when these bare outlines, already so rich in thought and +suggestiveness, shall glow with a fire of their own,--a fire which, I +truly believe, will consume every other pictorial decoration of the +Capitol, or, at least, will compel us to banish those stiff and +respectable productions to some less conspicuous gallery. The work +will be emphatically original and American, embracing characteristics +that neither art nor literature have yet dealt with, and producing new +forms of artistic beauty from the natural features of the +Rocky-Mountain region, which Leutze seems to have studied broadly and +minutely. The garb of the hunters and wanderers of those deserts, too, +under his free and natural management, is shown as the most +picturesque of costumes. But it would be doing this admirable painter +no kind office to overlay his picture with any more of my colorless +and uncertain words; so I shall merely add that it looked full of +energy, hope, progress, irrepressible movement onward, all represented +in a momentary pause of triumph; and it was most cheering to feel its +good augury at this dismal time, when our country might seem to have +arrived at such a deadly stand-still. + +It was an absolute comfort, indeed, to find Leutze so quietly busy at +this great national work, which is destined to glow for centuries on +the walls of the Capitol, if that edifice shall stand, or must share +its fate, if treason shall succeed in subverting it with the Union +which it represents. It was delightful to see him so calmly +elaborating his design, while other men doubted and feared, or hoped +treacherously, and whispered to one another that the nation would +exist only a little longer, or that, if a remnant still held together, +its centre and seat of government would be far northward and westward +of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, +drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and +idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have +an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest +truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what +with Leutze's undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly +encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries to weigh against a +sinister omen that was pointed out to me in another part of the +Capitol. The freestone walls of the central edifice are pervaded with +great cracks, and threaten to come thundering down, under the immense +weight of the iron dome,--an appropriate catastrophe enough, if it +should occur on the day when we drop the Southern stars out of our +flag. + +Everybody seems to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth +of imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are +half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, +wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn +round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,--a +pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided +originality of gait and aspect, and a cigar in his mouth,--etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are again compelled to interfere with our friend's +license of personal description and criticism. Even Cabinet Ministers +(to whom the next few pages of the article were devoted) have their +private immunities, which ought to be conscientiously observed,--unless, +indeed, the writer chanced to have some very piquant motives for +violating them.] + + * * * * * + +Of course, there was one other personage, in the class of statesmen, +whom I should have been truly mortified to leave Washington without +seeing; since (temporarily, at least, and by force of circumstances) +he was the man of men. But a private grief had built up a barrier about +him, impeding the customary free intercourse of Americans with their +chief magistrate; so that I might have come away without a glimpse of +his very remarkable physiognomy, save for a semi-official opportunity +of which I was glad to take advantage. The fact is, we were invited to +annex ourselves, as supernumeraries, to a deputation that was about to +wait upon the President, from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with a +present of a splendid whip. + +Our immediate party consisted only of four or five, (including Major +Ben Perley Poore, with his note-book and pencil.) but we were joined +by several other persons, who seemed to have been lounging about the +precincts of the White House, under the spacious porch, or within the +hall, and who swarmed in with us to take the chances of a presentation. +Nine o'clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the +deputation, and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the +President, who sent us word that he was eating his breakfast, and would +come as soon as he could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must +have been a pretty fair one; for we waited about half an hour in one of +the antechambers, and then were ushered into a reception-room, in one +corner of which sat the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, +expecting, like ourselves, the termination of the Presidential +breakfast. During this interval there were several new additions to +our group, one or two of whom were in a working-garb, so that we formed +a very miscellaneous collection of people, mostly unknown to each +other, and without any common sponsor, but all with an equal right to +look our head-servant in the face. By-and-by there was a little stir on +the staircase and in the passageway, etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the +author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal +appearance and deportment of the President. The sketch appears to have +been written in a benign spirit, and perhaps conveys a not inaccurate +impression of its august subject; but it lacks _reverence_, and it +pains us to see a gentleman of ripe age, and who has spent years under +the corrective influence of foreign institutions, falling into the +characteristic and most ominous fault of Young America.] + + * * * * * + +Good Heavens! what liberties have I been taking with one of the +potentates of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important +consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of +the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a +liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above +allusions to President Lincoln's little peculiarities (already well +known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem +it proper to say a word or two, in regard to him, of unfeigned respect +and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties, +and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to +his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never +deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a +considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he +adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, +at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume +there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to +himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his +own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the +good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development +of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such +designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a +year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, +capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies +and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to +Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself +into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime-minister. + +Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the +neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a +little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves and docks, +resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the +respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it +no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness; but it was +now thronged with the Northern soldiery, whose stir and bustle +contrasted strikingly with the many closed warehouses, the absence of +citizens from their customary haunts, and the lack of any symptom of +healthy activity, while army-wagons trundled heavily over the +pavements, and sentinels paced the sidewalks, and mounted dragoons +dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very +disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town +of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at +the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the +sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with +rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human +life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from +their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly, +thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive persons have +joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal for the cause, but because, +between two conflicting loyalties, they chose that which necessarily +lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other Government against +which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by such plausible +arguments as against that of the United States. The anomaly of two +allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's +feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General +Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no +symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; +for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to +themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad +cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast +extent of our country,--too vast by far to be taken into one small +human heart,--we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, +to our own section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which +renders an Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the +dignity and well-being of his little island, that one hostile foot, +treading anywhere upon it, would make a bruise on each individual +breast. If a man loves his own State, therefore, and is content to be +ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an +honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not +thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, +but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency +impolitic in the present stage of our national difficulties.] + +In Alexandria, we visited the tavern in which Colonel Ellsworth was +killed, and saw the spot where he fell, and the stairs below, whence +Jackson fired the fatal shot, and where he himself was slain a moment +afterwards; so that the assassin and his victim must have met on the +threshold of the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better +understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. +Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like +that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters +have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with +their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well +as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the +walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having +been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a +metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists. + +Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to +inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a +very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church where +Washington used sometimes to attend service,--a pre-Revolutionary +edifice, with ivy growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly. +Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of +the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were +raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a +log-hut, or driven vertically into the soil in a circle,--thus forming +a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the +pyramidal shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the +occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: +some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the +open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by +gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; +and many were cleaning their arms and accoutrements,--the more +carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the +Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while +their comrades cut their hair,--it being a soldierly fashion (and for +excellent reasons) to crop it within an inch of the skull; others, +finally, lay asleep in breast-high tents, with their legs protruding +into the open air. + +We paid a visit to Fort Ellsworth, and from its ramparts (which have +been heaped up out of the muddy soil within the last few months, and +will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a +beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the +surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this +region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will +remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of +an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country +dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to +root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where +blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old +ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century +hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a +worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with +our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the +past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: +so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in +sacrificing good institutions to passionate impulses and impracticable +theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, may be found in the old +footprints of the war. + +Even in an aesthetic point of view, however, the war has done a great +deal of enduring mischief, by causing the devastation of great tracts +of woodland scenery, in which this part of Virginia would appear to +have been very rich. Around all the encampments, and everywhere along +the road, we saw the bare sites of what had evidently been tracts of +hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps of well-grown +trees, not smoothly felled by regular axe-men, but hacked, haggled, and +unevenly amputated, as by a sword, or other miserable tool, in an +unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army +destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for +the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like +those of the squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is +allowed to grow. As to other symptoms of devastation and obstruction, +such as deserted houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of +nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of +neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even +upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have +spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The +carcasses of horses were scattered along the way-side. + +One very pregnant token of a social system thoroughly disturbed was +presented by a party of contrabands, escaping out of the mysterious +depths of Secessia; and its strangeness consisted in the leisurely +delay with which they trudged forward, as dreading no pursuer, and +encountering nobody to turn them back. They were unlike the specimens +of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my +judgment, were far more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,--as if +their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,--so picturesquely natural +in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity, (which is +quite polished away from the Northern black man,) that they seemed a +kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite +as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I +wonder whether I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this. It is no +great matter. At all events, I felt most kindly towards these poor +fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in +the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent +in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt +almost as reluctant, on their own account, to hasten them forward to +the stranger's land; and I think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever +may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present +generation of negroes, the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, +and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world, on very +unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope +that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties. + +There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the +children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia, in a very +singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from +the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth +a brood of Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, +spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,--a monstrous birth, but with +which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an +irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood +and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little +by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark +one,--and two such portents never sprang from an identical source +before. + +While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly +into the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; +so he rode along by our side, and we pestered him with queries and +observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He +was on General McClellan's staff, and a gallant cavalier, high-booted, +with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which +trotted hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed +seat. His face had a healthy hue of exposure and an expression of +careless hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the +war had brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none +beside; since they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and +handle a sword, instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, +occupations, pleasures--all tedious alike--to which the artificial +state of society limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the +camp and the smoke of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the +hardy virtues flourish in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted weed. +The enervating effects of centuries of civilization vanish at once, +and leave these young men to enjoy a life of hardship, and the +exhilarating sense of danger,--to kill men blamelessly, or to be +killed gloriously,--and to be happy in following out their native +instincts of destruction, precisely in the spirit of Homer's heroes, +only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes +not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, +with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter one +another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as +in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no +wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's skull. Indeed, +if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that +old-fashioned kind of goblet has again come into use, at the expense of +our Northern head-pieces,--a costly drinking-cup to him that furnishes +it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!--only, +it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find +ourselves just here! [Footnote: We hardly expected this outbreak in +favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justice of our cause +makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in our outward life. We +have heard of twenty Quakers in a single company of a Pennsylvania +regiment.] + +We now approached General McClellan's head-quarters, which, at that +time, were established at Fairfield Seminary. The edifice was situated +on a gentle elevation, amid very agreeable scenery, and, at a +distance, looked like a gentleman's seat. Preparations were going +forward for reviewing a division of ten or twelve thousand men, the +various regiments composing which had begun to array themselves on an +extensive plain, where, methought, there was a more convenient place +for a battle than is usually found in this broken and difficult +country. Two thousand cavalry made a portion of the troops to be +reviewed. By-and-by we saw a pretty numerous troop of mounted officers, +who were congregated on a distant part of the plain, and whom we +finally ascertained to be the Commander-in-Chief's staff, with +McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself +in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we +had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, +with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss +nor pretension beyond what his character and rank inevitably gave him. + +Now, at that juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there +was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and +low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, +cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his +ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was +this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a +general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an +enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own +troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, +whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer +itself in the very asking. Nevertheless, being most profoundly +ignorant of the art of war, like the majority of the General's critics, +and, on the other hand, having some considerable impressibility by +men's characters, I was glad of the opportunity to look him in the +face, and to feel whatever influence might reach me from his sphere. So +I stared at him, as the phrase goes, with all the eyes I had; and the +reader shall have the benefit of what I saw,--to which he is the more +welcome, because, in writing this article, I feel disposed to be +singularly frank, and can scarcely restrain myself from telling truths +the utterance of which I should get slender thanks for. + +The General was dressed in a simple, dark-blue uniform, without +epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, +at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of +particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age +and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very +compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical +vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,--he and Beauregard having +been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. +His complexion is dark and sanguine, with dark hair. He has a strong, +bold, soldierly face, full of decision; a Roman nose, by no means a +thin prominence, but very thick and firm; and if he follows it, (which +I should think likely,) it may be pretty confidently trusted to guide +him aright. His profile would make a more effective likeness than the +full face, which, however, is much better in the real man than in any +photograph that I have seen. His forehead is not remarkably large, but +comes forward at the eyebrows; it is not the brow nor countenance of a +prominently intellectual man, (not a natural student, I mean, or +abstract thinker,) but of one whose office it is to handle things +practically and to bring about tangible results. His face looked +capable of being very stern, but wore, in its repose, when I saw it, an +aspect pleasant and dignified; it is not, in its character, an American +face, nor an English one. The man on whom he fixes his eye is conscious +of him. In his natural disposition, he seems calm and self-possessed, +sustaining his great responsibilities cheerfully, without shrinking, +or weariness, or spasmodic effort, or damage to his health, but all +with quiet, deep-drawn breaths; just as his broad shoulders would bear +up a heavy burden without aching beneath it. + +After we had had sufficient time to peruse the man, (so far as it could +be done with one pair of very attentive eyes,) the General rode off, +followed by his cavalcade, and was lost to sight among the troops. They +received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar of which--now near, +now in the centre, now on the outskirts of the division, and now +sweeping back towards us in a great volume of sound--we could trace his +progress through the ranks. If he is a coward, or a traitor, or a +humbug, or anything less than a brave, true, and able man, that mass of +intelligent soldiers, whose lives and honor he had in charge, were +utterly deceived, and so was this present writer; for they believed in +him, and so did I; and had I stood in the ranks, I should have shouted +with the lustiest of them. Of course I may be mistaken; my opinion on +such a point is worth nothing, although my impression may be worth a +little more; neither do I consider the General's antecedents as +bearing very decided testimony to his practical soldiership. A +thorough knowledge of the science of war seems to be conceded to him; +he is allowed to be a good military critic; but all this is possible +without his possessing any positive qualities of a great general, just +as a literary critic may show the profoundest acquaintance with the +principles of epic poetry without being able to produce a single +stanza of an epic poem. Nevertheless, I shall not give up my faith in +General McClellan's soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his +courage and integrity even then. + +Another of our excursions was to Harper's Ferry,--the Directors of the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad having kindly invited us to accompany +them on the first trip over the newly laid track, after its breaking up +by the Rebels. It began to rain, in the early morning, pretty soon +after we left Washington, and continued to pour a cataract throughout +the day; so that the aspect of the country was dreary, where it would +otherwise have been delightful, as we entered among the hill-scenery +that is formed by the subsiding swells of the Alleghanies. The latter +part of our journey lay along the shore of the Potomac, in its upper +course, where the margin of that noble river is bordered by gray, +overhanging crags, beneath which--and sometimes right through them--the +railroad takes its way. In one place the Rebels had attempted to arrest +a train by precipitating an immense mass of rock down upon the track, +by the side of which it still lay, deeply imbedded in the ground, and +looking as if it might have lain there since the Deluge. The scenery +grew even more picturesque as we proceeded, the bluffs becoming very +bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper's Ferry, +presents as striking a vista among the hills as a painter could desire +to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown +away amid discomfort; and when we alighted into the tenacious mud and +almost fathomless puddle, on the hither side of the Ferry, (the +ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge +had been destroyed by the Rebels,) I cannot remember that any very +rapturous emotions were awakened by the scenery. + +We paddled and floundered over the ruins of the track, and, scrambling +down an embankment, crossed the Potomac by a pontoon-bridge, a thousand +feet in length, over the narrow line of which--level with the river, +and rising and subsiding with it--General Banks had recently led his +whole army, with its ponderous artillery and heavily laden wagons. Yet +our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a +little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers, in the +rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which the Rebels had +precipitated there. + +As we passed over, we looked towards the Virginia shore, and beheld the +little town of Harper's Ferry, gathered about the base of a round hill +and climbing up its steep acclivity; so that it somewhat resembled the +Etruscan cities which I have seen among the Apennines, rushing, as it +were, down an apparently break-neck height. About midway of the ascent +stood a shabby brick church, towards which a difficult path went +scrambling up the precipice, indicating, one would say, a very fervent +aspiration on the part of the worshippers, unless there was some easier +mode of access in another direction. Immediately on the shore of the +Potomac, and extending back towards the town, lay the dismal ruins of +the United States arsenal and armory, consisting of piles of broken +bricks and a waste of shapeless demolition, amid which we saw +gun-barrels in heaps of hundreds together. They were the relics of the +conflagration, bent with the heat of the fire, and rusted with the +wintry rain to which they had since been exposed. The brightest +sunshine could not have made the scene cheerful, nor have taken away +the gloom from the dilapidated town; for, besides the natural +shabbiness, and decayed, unthrifty look of a Virginian village, it has +an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and +its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less +striking contrast between Southern and New-England villages, if the +former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is +prodigiously efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter. + +There was one small shop, which appeared to have nothing for sale. A +single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except +the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts +regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house +stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base +were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities, +to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly +sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown +seized upon as his fortress, and which, after it was stormed by the +United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old +engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man's hands in +this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a +short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the +pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each +side of the door, are two or three ragged loop-holes which John Brown +perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as +to give himself and his garrison a sight over their rifles. Through +these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief +among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting +against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not +pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy +with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect +ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose +happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that +saying, (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source,) that the +death of this blood-stained fanatic has "made the Gallows as venerable +as the Cross!" Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his +martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded, (such +was his natural integrity,) would have acknowledged that Virginia had a +right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would +have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could +generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its +enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at +the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual +satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his +preposterous miscalculation of possibilities. [Footnote: Can it be a +son of old Massachusetts who utters this abominable sentiment? For +shame!] + +But, coolly as I seem to say these things, my Yankee heart stirred +triumphantly when I saw the use to which John Brown's fortress and +prison-house has now been put. What right have I to complain of any +other man's foolish impulses, when I cannot possibly control my own? +The engine-house is now a place of confinement for Rebel prisoners. + +A Massachusetts soldier stood on guard, but readily permitted our whole +party to enter. It was a wretched place. A room of perhaps twenty-five +feet square occupied the whole interior of the building, having an +iron stove in its centre, whence a rusty funnel ascended towards a hole +in the roof, which served the purposes of ventilation, as well as for +the exit of smoke. We found ourselves right in the midst of the Rebels, +some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving +no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, +huddled close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the +visitors; two were astride of some planks, playing with the dirtiest +pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in +the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,--a man with +a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, +which he had contrived to arrange with a degree of soldierly smartness, +though it had evidently borne the brunt of a very filthy campaign. He +stood erect, and talked freely with those who addressed him, telling +them his place of residence, the number of his regiment, the +circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their +Northern inquisitiveness prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness of +his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the +slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious, but bore himself as +if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the +battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon in +his hand. + +Neither could I detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, +words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were +simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces +singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of +men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, +although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They +were peasants, and of a very low order: a class of people with whom our +Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were +exceedingly respectful,--more so than a rustic New-Englander ever +dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had +they worn any hats, they would probably have been self-constrained to +take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to +hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a +single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had +the remotest comprehension of what they had been fighting for, or how +they had deserved to be shut up in that dreary hole; nor, possibly, did +they care to inquire into this latter mystery, but took it as a godsend +to be suffered to lie here in a heap of unwashed human bodies, well +warmed and well foddered to-day, and without the necessity of bothering +themselves about the possible hunger and cold of to-morrow. Their dark +prison-life may have seemed to them the sunshine of all their lifetime. + +There was one poor wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with +greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one +of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been +capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular +individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or +skirmish, a wounded Union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his +feet, and besought his assistance,--not dreaming that any creature in +human shape, in the Christian land where they had so recently been +brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you prefer to +call him so, though I would not advise it) flung a bitter curse at the +poor Northerner, and absolutely trampled the soul out of his body, as +he lay writhing beneath his feet. The fellow's face was horribly ugly; +but I am not quite sure that I should have noticed it, if I had not +known his story. He spoke not a word, and met nobody's eye, but kept +staring upward into the smoky vacancy towards the ceiling, where, it +might be, he beheld a continual portraiture of his victim's +horror-stricken agonies. I rather fancy, however, that his moral sense +was yet too torpid to trouble him with such remorseful visions, and +that, for his own part, he might have had very agreeable reminiscences +of the soldier's death, if other eyes had not been bent reproachfully +upon him and warned him that something was amiss. It was this reproach +in other men's eyes that made him look aside. He was a wild-beast, as I +began with saying,--an unsophisticated wild-beast,--while the rest of +us are partially tamed, though still the scent of blood excites some of +the savage instincts of our nature. What this wretch needed, in order +to make him capable of the degree of mercy and benevolence that exists +in us, was simply such a measure of moral and intellectual development +as we have received; and, in my mind, the present war is so well +justified by no other consideration as by the probability that it will +free this class of Southern whites from a thraldom in which they +scarcely begin to be responsible beings. So far as the education of the +heart is concerned, the negroes have apparently the advantage of them; +and as to other schooling, it is practically unattainable by black or +white. + +Looking round at these poor prisoners, therefore, it struck me as an +immense absurdity that they should fancy us their enemies; since, +whether we intend it so or no, they have a far greater stake on our +success than we can possibly have. For ourselves, the balance of +advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, +all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for +thence would come the regeneration of a people,--the removal of a foul +scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps them in a state of +disease and decrepitude, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, +the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine +themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has +ever yet resulted according to the purpose of its projectors. The +advantages are always incidental. Man's accidents are God's purposes. +We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for. +[Footnote: The author seems to imagine that he has compressed a great +deal of meaning into these little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic +wisdom. We disagree with him. The counsels of wise and good men are +often coincident with the purposes of Providence; and the present war +promises to illustrate our remark.] + +Our Government evidently knows when and where to lay its finger upon +its most available citizens; for, quite unexpectedly, we were joined +with some other gentlemen, scarcely less competent than ourselves, in +a commission to proceed to Fortress Monroe and examine into things in +general. Of course, official propriety compels us to be extremely +guarded in our description of the interesting objects which this +expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in +stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a +kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a +humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent peculiarities, yet +of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin old gentleman, set off by a +large pair of brilliant epaulets,--the only pair, so far as my +observation went, that adorn the shoulders of any officer in the Union +army. Either for our inspection, or because the matter had already +been arranged, he drew out a regiment of Zouaves that formed the +principal part of his garrison, and appeared at their head, sitting on +horseback with rigid perpendicularity, and affording us a vivid idea +of the disciplinarian of Baron Steuben's school. + +There can be no question of the General's military qualities; he must +have been especially useful in converting raw recruits into trained and +efficient soldiers. But valor and martial skill are of so evanescent a +character, (hardly less fleeting than a woman's beauty,) that +Government has perhaps taken the safer course in assigning to this +gallant officer, though distinguished in former wars, no more active +duty than the guardianship of an apparently impregnable fortress. The +ideas of military men solidify and fossilize so fast, while military +science makes such rapid advances, that even here there might be a +difficulty. An active, diversified, and therefore a youthful, +ingenuity is required by the quick exigencies of this singular war. +Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its +ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence +that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is +now pronounced absolutely incapable of resisting the novel modes of +assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the +flexible talent of a young man that will evolve a new efficiency out of +its obsolete strength. + +It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their +incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous +tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent +disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial +atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human +existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right +to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their +juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. In case of +death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative +sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of +a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood +in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit +to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such +a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the +opportunity to be exhaled! If I had the ordering of these matters, +fifty should be the tenderest age at which a recruit might be accepted +for training; at fifty-five or sixty, I would consider him eligible for +most kinds of military duty and exposure, excluding that of a forlorn +hope, which no soldier should be permitted to volunteer upon, short of +the ripe age of seventy. As a general rule, these venerable combatants +should have the preference for all dangerous and honorable service in +the order of their seniority, with a distinction in favor of those +whose infirmities might render their lives less worth the keeping. +Methinks there would be no more Bull Runs; a warrior with gout in his +toe, or rheumatism in his joints, or with one foot in the grave, would +make a sorry fugitive! + +On this admirable system, the productive part of the population would +be undisturbed even by the bloodiest war; and, best of all, those +thousands upon thousands of our Northern girls, whose proper mates will +perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid +their doom of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be +pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be +more disastrous than the one on which we began the war, when a young +army was struck with paralysis through the age of its commander. + +The waters around Fortress Monroe were thronged with a gallant array of +ships of war and transports, wearing the Union flag,--"Old Glory," as I +hear it called in these days. A little withdrawn from our national +fleet lay two French frigates, and, in another direction, an English +sloop, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red +portent in the air, wherever there is strife. In pursuance of our +official duty, (which had no ascertainable limits,) we went on board +the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her +depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful armament, her mighty +engines, and her furnaces, where the fires are always kept burning, as +well at midnight as at noon, so that it would require only five minutes +to put the vessel under full steam. This vigilance has been felt +necessary ever since the Merrimack made that terrible dash from +Norfolk. Splendid as she is, however, and provided with all but the +very latest improvements in naval armament, the Minnesota belongs to a +class of vessels that will be built no more, nor ever fight another +battle,--being as much a thing of the past as any of the ships of Queen +Elizabeth's time, which grappled with the galleons of the Spanish +Armada. + +On her quarter-deck, an elderly flag-officer was pacing to and fro, +with a self-conscious dignity to which a touch of the gout or +rheumatism perhaps contributed a little additional stiffness. He seemed +to be a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous school of +naval worthies, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette +which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are +somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of +nautical heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which +they fought valorously and strutted most intolerably. How can an +admiral condescend to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and +elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck dignity in the cramped lookout +of the Monitor, or even in the twenty-feet diameter of her cheese-box? +All the pomp and splendor of naval warfare are gone by. Henceforth +there must come up a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, +who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single +pair of eyes; and even heroism--so deadly a gripe is Science laying on +our noble possibilities--will become a quality of very minor +importance, when its possessor cannot break through the iron crust of +his own armament and give the world a glimpse of it. + +At no great distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking +craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with +the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse +of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular +structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no +great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a +machine,--and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed +in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it +looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable, suspicious, +evidently mischievous,--nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; +for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the +same breed, to annihilate whole navies and batter down old supremacies. +The wooden walls of Old England cease to exist, and a whole history of +naval renown reaches its period, now that the Monitor comes smoking +into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms +bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, +oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has +betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often +indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with +simply saying that she looked very queer. + +Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her +interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten +feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and +sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and +ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft, +(for it is impossible to tell stem from stern,) the crew are relatively +quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a +palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility, +the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most +satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in +the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they +see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man +whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages +them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made +by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron +tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost +imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior +surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may +not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in +impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being +sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but +stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in +this new craft. It was pleasant to see their benign exultation in her +powers of mischief, and the delight with which they exhibited the +circumvolutory movement of the tower, the quick thrusting forth of the +immense guns to deliver their ponderous missiles, and then the +immediate recoil, and the security behind the closed port-holes. Yet +even this will not long be the last and most terrible improvement in +the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is +to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no +other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming, and gush of +smoke, and belch of smothered thunder out of the yeasty waves, there +shall be a deadly fight going on below,--and, by-and-by, a sucking +whirlpool, as one of the ships goes down. + +The Monitor was certainly an object of great interest; but on our way +to Newport News, whither we next went, we saw a spectacle that +affected us with far profounder emotion. It was the sight of the few +sticks that are left of the frigate Congress, stranded near the +shore,--and still more, the masts of the Cumberland rising midway out +of the water, with a tattered rag of a pennant fluttering from one of +them. The invisible hull of the latter ship seems to be careened over, +so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite +unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The +flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under +the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, +although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide, +instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man +the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface. + +That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of +Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he +heard that his son's ship was surrendered? "Then Joe's dead!" said he; +and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring +renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of +the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and +himself out of inevitable disaster and defeat. That last gun from the +Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem of +many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe, and our +own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights +became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave +countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that +includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners of England, and other +mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance. +There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and +manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is +certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from +the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of +machinery, which by-and-by will fight out our wars with only the clank +and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging +nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the +tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as +manhood retains any part of its pristine value, no country can afford +to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, any more than that +of the brave Worden, pass unhonored and unrewarded. If the Government +do nothing, let the people take the matter into their own hands, and +cities give him swords, gold boxes, festivals of triumph, and, if he +needs it, heaps of gold. Let poets brood upon the theme, and make +themselves sensible how much of the past and future is contained within +its compass, till its spirit shall flash forth in the lightning of a +song! + +From these various excursions, and a good many others, (including one +to Manassas,) we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; +but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and +parlors of Willard's Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if +we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of +interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly +called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, +the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. +It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the +country,--not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take +a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into +the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither +by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest +atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this +life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but +all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a +miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign +States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; +you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You +are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, +poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, +_attaches_ of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, +diplomatists, mail-contractors, railway-directors, until your own +identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you +have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a +thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure +than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal +habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a +gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the +conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I +had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all +these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A +constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, +and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk +more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke +in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring +about more valuable results. + +It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes +sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with +frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment +passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It +is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad. I see no way of +accounting for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety +of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have +disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of +the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated +and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are +not altogether extinguished in their ashes,--in their throats, I might +rather say;--for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such +a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be +loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where +these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many +remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and +forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken +by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement +put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the +matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces +than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an +extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the +rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an +interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come +hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of +finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in +its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to +not a few. + +We saw at Willard's many who had thus found out for themselves, that, +when Nature gives a young man no other utilizable faculty, she must be +understood as intending him for a soldier. The bulk of the army had +moved out of Washington before we reached the city; yet it seemed to +me that at least two-thirds of the guests and idlers at the hotel wore +one or another token of the military profession. Many of them, no +doubt, were self-commissioned officers, and had put on the buttons and +the shoulder-straps, and booted themselves to the knees, merely +because captain, in these days, is so good a travelling-name. The +majority, however, had been duly appointed by the President, but might +be none the better warriors for that. It was pleasant, occasionally, +to distinguish a grizzly veteran among this crowd of carpet-knights, +--the trained soldier of a lifetime, long ago from West Point, +who had spent his prime upon the frontier, and very likely could +show an Indian bullet-mark on his breast,--if such decorations, won in +an obscure warfare, were worth the showing now. + +The question often occurred to me,--and, to say the truth, it added an +indefinable piquancy to the scene,--what proportion of all these +people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, +and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies +and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. Traitors +there were among them,--no doubt of that,--civil servants of the +public, very reputable persons, who yet deserved to dangle from a cord; +or men who buttoned military coats over their breasts, hiding perilous +secrets there, which might bring the gallant officer to stand +pale-faced before a file of musketeers, with his open grave behind him. +But, without insisting upon such picturesque criminality and punishment +as this, an observer, who kept both his eyes and heart open, would find +it by no means difficult to discern that many residents and visitors of +Washington so far sided with the South as to desire nothing more nor +better than to see everything reestablished on a little worse than its +former basis. If the cabinet of Richmond were transferred to the +Federal city, and the North awfully snubbed, at least, and driven back +within its old political limits, they would deem it a happy day. It is +no wonder, and, if we look at the matter generously, no unpardonable +crime. Very excellent people hereabouts remember the many dynasties in +which the Southern character has been predominant, and contrast the +genial courtesy, the warm and graceful freedom of that region, with +what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity of +our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They +have a conscientious, though mistaken belief, that the South was +driven out of the Union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we +are responsible for having compelled true patriots to love only half +their country instead of the whole, and brave soldiers to draw their +swords against the Constitution which they would once have died +for,--to draw them, too, with a bitterness of animosity which is the +only symptom of brotherhood (since brothers hate each other best) that +any longer exists. They whisper these things with tears in their eyes, +and shake their heads, and stoop their poor old shoulders, at the +tidings of another and another Northern victory, which, in their +opinion, puts farther off the remote, the already impossible chance of +a reunion. + +I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. +Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on +winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another +generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the +present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo +the South "as the Lion wooes his bride"; it is a rough courtship, but +perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we +stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as +Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded +from its golden palaces,--and perhaps all the more heavenly, because +so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive hearts, had gone to plot +ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere. [Footnote: We regret the +innuendo in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to +terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We +hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it +by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally +within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily +efficacious. In truth, the work is already done. + +We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man's loyalty, but +he will allow us to say that we consider him premature in his kindly +feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author +himself says of John Brown, (and, so applied, we thought it an +atrociously cold-blooded _dictum_,) "any common-sensible man +would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it +only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." There +are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and +affect us like an intolerable crime,--which this Rebellion is, into +the bargain.] + + + + +THE MINUTE-GUNS. + + +I stood within the little cove, +Full of the morning's life and hope, +While heavily the eager waves +Charged thundering up the rocky slope. + +The splendid breakers! how they rushed, +All emerald green and flashing white, +Tumultuous in the morning sun, +With cheer, and sparkle, and delight! + +And freshly blew the fragrant wind, +The wild sea-wind, across their tops, +And caught the spray and flung it far, +In sweeping showers of glittering drops. + +Within the cove all flashed and foamed, +With many a fleeting rainbow hue; +Without, gleamed, bright against the sky, +A tender, wavering line of blue, + +Where tossed the distant waves, and far +Shone silver-white a quiet sail, +And overhead the soaring gulls +With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. + +And all my pulses thrilled with joy, +Watching the wind's and water's strife,-- +With sudden rapture,--and I cried, +"Oh, sweet is Life! Thank God for Life!" + +Sailed any cloud across the sky, +Marring this glory of the sun's? +Over the sea, from distant forts, +There came the boom of minute-guns! + +War-tidings! Many a brave soul fled, +And many a heart the message stuns!-- +I saw no more the joyous waves, +I only heard the minute-guns. + + + + +ORIGINALITY. + + +A great contemporary writer, so I am told, regards originality as much +rarer than is commonly supposed. But, on the contrary, is it not far +more frequent than is commonly supposed? For one should not identify +originality with mere primacy of conception or utterance, as if a +thought could be original but once. In truth, it may be so thousands or +millions of times; nay, from the beginning to the end of man's times +upon the earth, the same thoughts may continue rising from the same +fountains in his spirit. Of the central or stem thoughts of +consciousness, of the imperial presiding imaginations, this is actually +true. Ceaseless re-origination is the method of Nature. This alone +keeps history alive. For if every Mohammedan were but a passive +appendage to the dead Mohammed, if every disciple were but a copy in +plaster of his teacher, and if history were accordingly living and +original only in such degree as it is an unprecedented invention, the +laws of decay should at once be made welcome to the world. + +The fact is otherwise. As new growths upon the oldest cedar or baobab +do not merely spin themselves out of the wood already formed,--as they +thrive and constitute themselves only by original conversation with +sun, earth, and air,--that is, in the same way with any seed or +sapling,--so generations of Moslems, Parsees, or Calvinists, while +obeying the structural law of their system, yet quaff from the mystical +fountains of pure Life the sustenance by which they live. Merely out +of itself the tree can give nothing,--literally, nothing. True, if cut +down, it may, under favorable circumstances, continue for a time to +feed the growing shoots out of its own decay. Yet not even at the cost +of decay and speedy exhaustion could the old trunk accomplish this +little, but for the draft made upon it by the new growths. It is +_their_ life, it is the relationship which they assert with sun +and rain and all the elements, which is foremost in bringing about even +this result. So it is with the great old literatures, with the old +systems of philosophy and faith. They are simply avenues, or structural +forms, through which succeeding generations of souls come into +conversation with eternal Nature, and express their original life. + +Observe, again, that the tree lives only while new shoots are produced +upon it. The new twigs and leaves not only procure sustenance for +themselves, but even keep the trunk itself alive: so that the chief +order of support is just opposite what it seems; and the tree lives +from above, down,--as do men and all other creatures. So in history, it +requires a vast amount of original thought or sentiment to sustain the +old structural forms. This gigantic baobab of Catholicism, for example, +is kept alive by the conversion of Life into Belief, which takes place +age after age in the bosoms of women and men. The trunk was long ago in +extensive decay; every wind menaces it with overthrow; but the hearts +that bud and blossom upon it yearly send down to the earth and up to +the sky such a claim for resource as surrounds the dying trunk with +ever new layers of supporting growth. Equally are the thought, poetry, +rhetoric of by-gone times kept in significance by the perceiving, the +imagining, and the sense of a flowing symbolism in Nature, which our +own time brings to them. To make Homer alive to this age,--what an +expenditure of imagination, of pure feeling and penetration does it +demand! Let the Homeric heart or genius die out of mankind, and from +that moment the "Iliad" is but dissonance, the long melodious roll of +its echoes becomes a jarring chop of noises. What chiefly makes Homer +great is the vast ideal breadth of relationship in which he establishes +human beings. But he in whose narrow brain is no space for high +Olympus and deep Orcus,--he whose coarse fibre never felt the +shudder of the world at the shaking of the ambrosial locks, nor a +thrill in the air when a hero fails,--what can this grand stoop of the +ideal upon the actual world signify to him? To what but an ethical +genius in men can appeal for guest-rites be made by the noble +"Meditations" of Marcus Antoninus, or the exquisite, and perhaps +incomparable, "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Browne? +Appreciative genius is centrally the same with productive +genius; and it is the Shakspeare in men alone that prints Shakspeare +and reads him. So it is that the works of the masters are, as it were, +perpetually re-written and renewed in life by the genius of mankind. + +In saying that constant re-origination is the method of Nature, I do +not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. +This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. +By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and +traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the +matrix of the household; after infancy the glowing youth is held in +that of society; and processes kindred with those which bestowed +likeness to father and mother go on to assimilate him with a social +circle or an age. Complaint is made, and by good men, of that implicit +acquiescence which keeps in existence Islam, Catholicism, and the like, +long after their due time has come to die; yet, abolish the law of +imitation which causes this, and the immediate disintegration of +mankind will follow. Mortar is much in the way, when we wish to take +an old building to pieces and make other use of the bricks; do you +therefore advise its disuse? + +But imitation would preserve nothing, did not the law of re-origination +keep it company. We are not born from our parents alone, but from the +loins of eternal Nature no less. Was Orpheus the grandson of Zeus and +Mnemosyne,--of sovereign Unity and immortal Memory? Equally is +Shakspeare and every genuine bard. Could the heroes of old Greece +trace their derivation from the gods? + +Little of a hero is he, even in these times of ours, who is not of the +like lineage. And indeed, one and all, we have a father and mother +whose marriage-morn is of more ancient date than our calendars, and of +whose spousal solemnities this universe is the memorial. All life, +indeed, whatsoever be its form and rank, has, along with connections of +pedigree and lateral association, one tap-root that strikes straight +down into the eternal. + +Because Life is of this unsounded depth, it may well afford to repeat +the same forms forever, nor incurs thereby any danger of exhausting its +significance and becoming stale. Vital repetition, accordingly, goes +on in Nature in a way not doubtful and diffident, but frank, open, +sure, as if the game were one that could not be played out. It is now a +very long while that buds have burst and grass grown; yet Spring comes +forward still without bashfulness, fearing no charge of having +plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its +blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from +the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll +without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the +bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful +that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks +were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night +after night forever the stars, and age after age the eyes of women and +men, shine on without apology, or the least promise that this shall be +positively their last appearance. Life knows itself original always, +nor a whit the less so for any repetition of its elected and +significant forms. Youth and newness are, indeed, inseparable from it. +Death alone is senile; and we become physically aged only by the +presence and foothold of this dogged intruder in our bodies. The body +is a fortress for the possession of which Death is perpetually +contending; only the incessant activity of Life at every foot of the +rampart keeps him at bay; but, with, the advance of years, the +assailants gain, here and there a foothold, pressing the defenders +back; and just in proportion as this defeat take a place the man +becomes _old_. But Life sets out from the same basis of mystery to +build each new body, no matter how many myriads of such forms have been +built before; and forsaking it finally, is no less young, inscrutable, +enticing than before. + +Now Thought, as part of the supreme flowering of Life, follows its law. +It cannot be anticipated by any anticipation of its forms and results. +There were hazel-brown eyes in the world before my boy was born; but +the light that shines in these eyes comes direct from the soul +nevertheless. The light of true thought, in like manner, issues only +from an inward sun; and shining, it carries always its perfect +privilege, its charm and sacredness. Would you have purple or yellow +eyes, because the accustomed colors have been so often repeated? Black, +blue, brown, gray, forever! May the angels in heaven have no other! +Forever, too, and equally, the perpetual loves, thoughts, and melodies +of men! Let them come out of their own mystical, ineffable haunts,--let +them, that is, be _real_,--and we ask no more. + +The question of originality is, therefore, simply one of vitality. Does +the fruit really grow on the tree? does it indeed come by vital +process?--little more than this does it concern us to know. Truths +become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's +bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying +is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the +throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the +honors that are not theirs, the throne and government are disgraced. + +Truisms are corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every +stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an +impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step +nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude +me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does +he draw a film of eclipse over the sun, and cast a shadow on city and +field, but he throws over the salutation itself a more permanent +shadow; and were the words never to reach us save from such lips, they +would, in no long time, become terms of insult or of malediction. But +so often as the sweet greeting comes from wife, child, or friend, its +proper savors are restored. A jesting editor says that "You tell a +telegram" is the polite way of giving the lie; and it is quite possible +that his witticism only anticipates a serious use of language some +century hence. Terms and statements are perpetually saturated by the +uses made of them. Etymology and the dictionary resist effects in vain. +And as single words may thus be discharged of their lawful meaning, so +the total purport of words, that is, truths themselves, may in like +manner be disgraced. If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously +patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or +feeble pietist repeat the word _God_ or recite the raptures of +adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie +are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn +atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest +of morality aver that he writes for money alone. + +But Truth does not share the fortunes of her verbal body. The grand +ideas, the master-imaginations and moving faiths of men, run in the +blood of the race; and a given degree of pure human heat infallibly +brings them out. Not more surely does the rose appear on the rose-bush, +or the apple, pear, or peach upon the trees of the orchard, than these +fruits of the soul upon nations of powerful and thrifty spirit. For +want of vitality the shrub may fail to flower, the tree to bear fruit, +and man to bring forth his spiritual product; but if Thought be +attained, certain thoughts and imaginations will come of it. Let two +nations at opposite sides of the globe, and without intercommunication +arrive at equal stages of mental culture, and the language of the one +will, on the whole, be equivalent to that of the other, nay, the very +rhetoric, the very fancies of the one will, in a broad way of +comparison, be tantamount to those of the other. The nearer we get to +any past age, the more do we find that the totality of its conceptions +and imaginings is much the same with that of our own. There are +specific variation and generic unity; and he whom the former blinds to +the latter reads the old literatures without eyes, and knows neither +his own time nor any other. Owen, Agassiz, Carpenter explain the +homologies of anatomy and physiology; but a doctrine of the homologies +of thought is equally possible, and will sometime be set forth. + +The basis, then, of any sufficient doctrine of literature and literary +production is found in two statements:-- + +First, that the perfect truth of the universe issues, by vital +representation, into the personality of man. + +Secondly, that this truth _tends_ in every man, though often in +the obscurest way, toward intellectual and artistic expression. + +Now just so far as by any man's speech we feel ourselves brought into +direct relationship with this ever-issuing fact, so far the impressions +of originality are produced. That all his words were in the dictionary +before he used them,--that all his thoughts, under some form of +intimation, were in literature before he arrived at them,--matters not; +it is the verity, the vital process, the depth of relationship, which +concerns us. + +Nay, in one sense, the older his truth, the _more_ do the effects +of originality lie open to him. The simple, central, imperial elements +of human consciousness are first in order of expression, and continue +forever to be first in order of power and suggestion. The great +purposes, the great thoughts and melodies issue always from these. This +is the quarry which every masterly thinker or poet must work. Homer is +Homer because he is so simply true alike to earth and sky,--to the +perpetual experience and perpetual imagination of mankind. Had he gone +working around the edges, following the occasional _detours_ and +slips of consciousness, there would have been no "Iliad" or "Odyssey" +for mankind to love and for Pope to spoil. The great poets tell us +nothing new. They remind us. They bear speech deep into our being, and +to the heart of our heart lend a tongue. They have words that +correspond to facts in all men and women. But they are not newsmongers. + +Yesterday, I read in a prose translation of the "Odyssey" the exquisite +idyl of Nausicaa and her Maids, and the discovery of himself by +Ulysses. Perhaps the picture came out more clearly than ever before; at +any rate, it filled my whole day with delight, and to-day I seem to +have heard some sweetest good tidings, as if word had come from an old +playmate, dear and distant in memory, or a happy and wealthy letter had +arrived from a noble friend. Whence this enrichment? There was nothing +in this idyl, to which, even on a first reading, I could give the name +of "new truth." The secret is, that I _have_ indeed had tidings of +old playmates, dear and distant in memory,--of those bright-eyed, +brave, imaging playmates of all later ages, the inhabitants of Homer's +world. And little can one care for novelties of thought, in comparison +with these tones from the deeps of undying youth. Bring to our lips +these cups of the fresh wine of life, if you would do good. Bring us +these; for it is by perpetual rekindlings of the youth in us that our +life grows and unfolds. Each advancing epoch of the inward life is no +less than this,--a fresh efflux of adolescence from the immortal and +exhaustless heart. Everywhere the law is the same,--Become as a little +child, to reach the heavenly kingdoms. This, however, we become not by +any return to babyhood, but by an effusion or emergence from within of +pure life,--of life which takes from years only their wisdom and their +chastening, and gives them in payment its perfect renewal. + +This, then, is the proof of originality,--that one shall utter the pure +consciousness of man. If he live, and live humanly, in his speech, the +speech itself will live; for it will obtain hospitality in all wealthy +and true hearts. + +But if the most original speech be, as is here explained, of that which +is oldest and most familiar in the consciousness of man, it +nevertheless does not lack the charm of surprise and all effects of +newness. For, in truth, nothing is so strange to men as the very facts +they seem to confess every day of their lives. Truisms, I have said, +are the corpses of truths; and they are as far from the fact they are +taken to represent as the perished body from the risen soul. The +mystery of truth is hidden behind them; and when next it shall come +forth, it will bring astonishment, as at first. Every time the grand +old truths are livingly uttered, the world thinks it never heard them +before. The news of the day is hardly spoken before it is antiquated. +For this an hour too late is a century, is forever, too late. But truth +of life and the heart, the world-old imaginations, the root-thoughts of +human consciousness,--these never lose their privilege to surprise, and +at every fresh efflux are wellnigh sure to be persecuted by some as +unlawful impositions upon the credence of mankind. Nay, the same often +happens with the commonest truths of observation. Mr. Ruskin describes +leaves and clouds, objects that are daily before all eyes; and the very +artists cry, "Fie upon him!" as a propounder of childish novelties: +slowly they perceive that it was leaves and clouds which were novel. +Luther thunders in the ears of the Church its own creed; the Pope asks, +"Is it possible that he believes all this?" and the priesthood scream, +"To the stake with the heretic!" A poet prints in the "Atlantic +Monthly" a simple affirmation of the indestructibility of man's true +life; numbers of those who would have been shocked and exasperated to +hear questioned the Church dogma of immortality exclaim against this as +a ridiculous paradox. Once in a while there is grown a heart so +spacious that Nature finds in it room to chant aloud the word +_God_, and set its echoes rolling billowy through one man's being; +and he, lifting up his voice to repeat it among men from that inward +hearing, invariably astounds, and it may be infuriates his +contemporaries. The simple proposition, GOD IS, could it once be +_wholly_ received, would shake our sphere as no earthquake ever +did, and would leave not one stone upon another, I say not merely of +some city of Lisbon, but of entire kingdoms and systems of +civilization. The faintest inference from this cannot be vigorously +announced in modern senates without sending throbs of terror over half +a continent, and eliciting shrieks of remonstrance from the very +shrines of worship. + +The ancient perpetual truths prove, at each fresh enunciation, not only +surprising, but incredible. The reason is, that they overfill the +vessels of men's credence. If you pour the Atlantic Ocean into a pint +basin, what can the basin do but refuse to contain it, and so spill it +over? Universal truths are as spacious and profound as the universe +itself; and for the cerebral capacity of most of us the universe is +really somewhat large! + +But as the major numbers of mankind are too little self-reverent to +dispense with the services of self-conceit, they like to think +themselves equal, and very easily equal, to any truth, and habitually +assume their extempore, off-hand notion of its significance as a +perfect measure of the fact. As if a man hollowed his hand, and, +dipping it full out of Lake Superior, said, "Lake Superior just fills +my hand!" To how many are the words _God, Love, Immortality_ just +such complacent handfuls! And when some mariner of God seizes them with +loving mighty arms, and bears them in his bark beyond sight of their +wonted shores, what wonder that they perceive not the identity of this +sky-circled sea with their accustomed handful? Yet, despite egotism and +narrowness of brain and every other limitation, the spirit of man will +claim its privilege and assert its affinity with all truth; and in such +measure as one utters the pure heart of mankind, and states the real +relationships of human nature, is he sure of ultimate audience and +sufficing love. + + + + +ERICSSON AND HIS INVENTIONS. + + +No events of the present war will be longer remembered, or will hold a +more prominent place in History, than those which took place on the +eighth and ninth of March in Hampton Roads, when the Rebel steamer +Merrimack attacked the Federal fleet. We all know what havoc she made +in her first day's work. When the story of her triumphs flashed over +the wires, it fell like a thunderbolt upon all loyal hearts. + +The Cumberland, manned by as gallant a crew as ever fought under the +Stars and Stripes, had gone down helplessly before her. The Congress, +half-manned, but bravely defended, had been captured and burnt. +Sailing frigates, such as were deemed formidable in the days of Hull +and Decatur, and which some of our old sea-dogs still believed to be +the main stay of the navy, were found to be worse than useless against +this strange antagonist. Our finest steam-frigates, though +accidentally prevented from getting fairly into action, seemed likely, +however skilfully handled, to have proved almost as inefficient; for +all our batteries and broadsides had produced no effect on this +iron-clad monster. She had gone back to her lair uninjured. What was to +prevent her from coming out again to break the blockade, bombard our +seaports, sink and destroy everything that came in her way? + +But we had only seen the first act of the drama. The curtain was to +rise again, and a new character was to appear on the stage. The +champion of the Union, in complete armor, was about to enter the lists. +When the Merrimack steamed out defiantly on Sunday morning, the Monitor +was there to meet her. Then, for the first time in naval warfare, two +iron-clad vessels were pitted against each other. The Merrimack was +driven back disabled. We breathed freely again at this +_denouement_, and congratulated ourselves that the nation had +been saved from enormous damage and disgrace. We did not foresee that +the great Rebel monster, despairing of a successful encounter with her +antagonist, was to end her career by suicide. We thought only of the +vast injury which she might have done, and might yet be capable of +doing, to the Union cause, but from which we had so providentially +escaped. It was indeed a narrow escape. Nothing but the opportune +arrival of the Monitor saved us; and for this impregnable vessel we +are indebted to the genius of Ericsson. + +This distinguished engineer and inventor, although a foreigner by +birth, has long been a citizen of the United States. His first work in +this country--by which, as in the present instance, he added honor and +efficiency to the American navy--was the steam-frigate Princeton, a +vessel which in her day was almost as great a novelty as the Monitor is +now. The improvements in steam machinery and propulsion and in the arts +of naval warfare, which he introduced in her, formed the subject of a +lecture delivered before the Boston Lyceum by John O. Sargent, in 1844, +from which source we derive some interesting particulars concerning +Ericsson's early history. + +John Ericsson was born in 1803, in the Province of Vermeland, among the +iron mountains of Sweden. His father was a mining proprietor, so that +the youth had ample opportunities to watch the operation of the +various engines and machinery connected with the mines. These had been +erected by mechanicians of the highest scientific attainments, and +presented a fine study to a mind of mechanical tendencies. Under such +influences, his innate mechanical talent was early developed. At the +age of ten years, he had constructed with his own hands, and after his +own plans, a miniature sawmill, and had made numerous drawings of +complicated mechanical contrivances, with instruments of his own +invention and manufacture. + +In 1814 he attracted the attention of the celebrated Count Platen, who +had heard of his boyish efforts, and desired an interview with him. +After carefully examining various plans and drawings which the youth +exhibited, the Count handed them back to him, simply observing, in an +impressive manner, "Continue as you have commenced, and you will one +day produce something extraordinary." + +Count Platen was the intimate personal friend of Bernadotte, the King +of Sweden, and was regarded by him with a feeling little short of +veneration. It was Count Platen who undertook and carried through, in +opposition to the views of the Swedish nobility, and of nearly the +whole nation, that gigantic work, the Grand Ship Canal of Sweden, which +connects the North Sea with the Baltic. He died Viceroy of Norway, and +left behind him the reputation of one of the greatest men of the +century. The few words of kind encouragement which he spoke, on the +occasion to which we have referred, sank deeply into the mind of the +young mechanician, and confirmed him in the career on which he had +entered. + +Immediately after this interview young Ericsson was made a cadet in the +corps of engineers, and, after six months' tuition, at the age of +twelve years, was appointed _niveleur_ on the Grand Ship Canal +under Count Platen. In this capacity, in the year 1816, he was required +to set out the work for more than six hundred men. The canal was +constructed by soldiers. He was at that time not tall enough to look +through the levelling-instrument; and in using it, he was obliged to +mount upon a stool, carried by his attendants for that purpose. As the +discipline in the Swedish army required that the soldier should always +uncover the head in speaking to his superior, gray-headed men came, cap +in hand, to receive their instructions from this mere child. + +While thus employed in the summer months, he was constantly occupied +during the winter with his pencil and pen; and there are many +important works on the canal constructed after drawings made by +Ericsson at this early age. During his leisure hours, he measured up +and made working-drawings of every implement and piece of machinery +connected with this great enterprise; so that at the age of fifteen he +was in possession of accurate plans of the whole work, drawn by his own +hand. + +His associations with military men on the canal had given him an +inclination for military life; and at the age of seventeen he entered +the Swedish army as an ensign, without the knowledge of his friend and +patron, Count Platen. This step excited the indignation of the Count, +who tried to prevail upon him to change his resolution; but finding all +his arguments useless, he terminated an angry interview by bidding +the young ensign "go to the Devil." The affectionate regard which he +entertained for the Count, and gratitude for the interest taken by him +in his education, caused the circumstances of this interview to make a +deep impression upon Ericsson, but were not sufficient to shake his +determination. + +Soon after the young ensign had entered upon his regimental duties, an +affair occurred which threatened to obscure his hitherto bright +prospects. His Colonel, Baron Koskull, had been disgraced by the King, +about the time that he had recommended Ericsson for promotion. This +circumstance induced the King to reject the recommendation. The Colonel +was exceedingly annoyed by this rejection; and having in his possession +a military map made by the expectant ensign, he took it to his Royal +Highness the Crown Prince Oscar, and besought him to intercede for the +young man with the King. The Prince received the map very kindly, +expressing great admiration of its beautiful finish and execution, and +presented himself in person with it to the King, who yielded to the +joint persuasion of the Prince and the map, and promoted the young +ensign to the lieutenancy for which he had been recommended. + +About the time of this promotion, the Government had ordered the +northern part of Sweden to be accurately surveyed. It being the desire +of the King that officers of the army should be employed in this +service, Ericsson, whose regiment was stationed in the northern +highlands, proceeded to Stockholm, for the purpose of submitting +himself to the severe examination then a prerequisite to the +appointment of Government surveyor. + +The mathematical education which he had received under Count Platen now +proved very serviceable. He passed the examination with great +distinction, and in the course of it, to the surprise of the examiners, +showed that he could repeat Euclid _verbatim_,--not by the +exercise of the memory, which in Ericsson is not remarkably retentive, +but from his perfect mastery of geometrical science. There is no doubt +that it is this thorough knowledge of geometry to which he is indebted +for his clear conceptions on all mechanical subjects. + +Having returned to the highlands, he entered on his new vocation with +great assiduity; and, supported by an unusually strong constitution, he +mapped a larger extent of territory than any other of the numerous +surveyors employed on the work. There are yet in the archives of Sweden +detailed maps of upwards of fifty square miles made by his hand. + +Neither the great labors attending these surveys, nor his military +duties, could give sufficient employment to the energies of the young +officer. In connection with a German engineer, Major Pentz, he now +began the arduous task of compiling a work on Canals, to be illustrated +by sixty-four large plates, representing the various buildings, +machines, and instruments connected with the construction of such +works. The part assigned to him in this enterprise was nothing less +than that of making all the drawings, as well as of engraving the +numerous plates; and as all the plates were to be executed in the style +of what is called machine-engraving, he undertook to construct a +machine for the purpose, which he successfully accomplished. This work +he prosecuted with so much industry, in the midst of his other various +labors, that, within the first year of its commencement, he had +executed eighteen large plates, which were pronounced by judges of +machine-engraving to be of superior merit. + +While thus variously occupied, being on a visit to the house of his +Colonel, Ericsson on one occasion showed his host, by a very simple +experiment, how readily mechanical power may be produced, independently +of steam, by condensing flame. His friend was much struck by the beauty +and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give +more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The +young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, +and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a +steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from +the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively +small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once +bringing it out in England, the great field for all mechanical +inventions. + +Ericsson accordingly obtained, leave from the King to visit England, +where he arrived on the eighteenth of May, 1826. He there proceeded to +construct a working engine on the principle above mentioned, but soon +discovered that his _flame-engine_, when worked by the combustion +of mineral coals, was a different thing from the experimental model he +had tried in the highlands of Sweden, with fuel composed of the +splinters of fine pine wood. Not only did he fail to produce an +extended and vivid flame, but the intense heat so seriously affected +all the working parts of the machine as soon to cause its destruction. + +These experiments, it may well be supposed, were attended with no +trifling expenditure; and, to meet these demands upon him, our young +adventurer was compelled to draw on his mechanical resources. + +Invention now followed invention in rapid succession, until the records +of the Patent-Office in London were enriched with the drawings of the +remarkable steam-boiler on the principle of _artificial draught_; +to which principle we are mainly indebted for the benefits conferred on +civilization by the present rapid communication by railways. In +bringing this important invention before the public, Ericsson thought +it advisable to join some old and established mechanical house in +London; and accordingly he associated himself with John Braithwaite, a +name favorably known in the mechanical annals of England. This +invention was hardly developed, when an opportunity was presented for +testing it in practice. + +The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, before erecting +the stationary engines by which they had intended to draw their +passenger and freight carriages, determined to appeal to the mechanical +talent of the country, in the hope of securing some preferable form of +motor. A prize was accordingly offered, in the autumn of 1829, for the +best locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then +completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, +until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not +deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies +to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had +the whole machine constructed within the seven weeks. + +The day of trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the +prize,--namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by +Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the +railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of +spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for +inanimate matter was to be put in motion, and that moves only in +accordance with immutable laws. The signal was given for the start. +Instead of the application of whip and spur, the gentle touch of the +steam-valve gave life and motion to the novel machine. + +Up to that period, the greatest speed at which man had been carried +along the ground was that of the race-horse; and no one of the +multitude present on this occasion expected to see that speed +surpassed. It was the general belief that the maximum attainable by the +locomotive engine would not much exceed ten miles. To the surprise and +admiration of the crowd, however, the Novelty steam-carriage, the +_fastest_ engine started, guided by its inventor Ericsson, +assisted by John Braithwaite, darted along the track at the rate of +upwards of fifty miles an hour! + +The breathless silence of the multitude was now broken by thunders of +hurras, that drowned the hiss of the escaping steam and the rolling of +the engine-wheels. To reduce the surprise and delight excited on this +occasion to the universal standard, and as an illustration of the +extent to which the value of property is sometimes enhanced by the +success of a mechanical invention, it may be stated, that, when the +Novelty had run her two miles and returned, the shares of the Liverpool +and Manchester Railway had risen _ten per cent_. + +But how easily may the just expectations of an inventor be +disappointed! Although the principle of _artificial draught_--the +principle which gave to the Novelty such decided superiority in +speed--is yet retained in all locomotive engines, the mode of producing +this draught in our present engines is far different from that +introduced by Ericsson, and was discovered by the merest accident; and +so soon was this discovery made, after the successful display of the +Novelty engine, that Ericsson had no time to derive the least advantage +from its introduction. To him, however, belongs the credit of having +disproved the correctness of the once established theory, that it was +absolutely necessary that a certain _extensive_ amount of +_surface_ should be exposed to the fire, to generate a given +quantity of steam. + +The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by +Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it +had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the +steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. +Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, and which excited so +much interest in London at the time the Argyle Rooms were on fire. A +similar engine of greater power was subsequently constructed by +Ericsson and Braithwaite for the King of Prussia, which was mainly +instrumental in saving several valuable buildings at a great fire in +Berlin. For this invention Ericsson received, in 1842, the large gold +medal offered by the Mechanics' Institute of New York for the best plan +of a steam fire-engine. + +In the year 1833 Ericsson brought before the scientific world in London +his invention of the Caloric-Engine, which had been a favorite subject +of speculation and reflection with him for many years. From the +earliest period of his mechanical labors, he had been in the habit of +regarding heat as an agent, _which, whilst it exerts mechanical +force, undergoes no change._ The steam in the cylinder of a +steam-engine, after having lifted the weight of the piston, contains +just as much heat as it did before leaving the boiler,--minus only the +loss by radiation. Yet in the low-pressure engine we turn the steam, +after having performed its office, into a condensing-apparatus, where +the heat is in a manner annihilated; and in the high-pressure engine we +throw it away into the atmosphere. + +The acting medium employed in the Caloric-Engine is atmospheric air; +and the leading peculiarity of the machine, as originally designed by +Ericsson, is, that by means of an apparatus styled the Regenerator the +heat contained in the air which escapes from the working cylinder is +taken up by the air which enters it at each stroke of the piston and +used over and over again. + +The machine constructed by Ericsson in London was a working engine of +five-horse power, the performance of which was witnessed by many +gentlemen of scientific pretensions in that metropolis. Among others, +the popular author, Sir Richard Phillips, examined it; and in his +"Dictionary of the Arts of Life and of Civilization," he thus notices +the result of this experiment:--"The author has, with inexpressible +delight, seen the first model machine of five-horse power at work. With +a handful of fuel, applied to the very sensible medium of atmospheric +air, and a most ingenious disposition of its differential powers, he +beheld a resulting action in narrow compass, capable of extension to as +great forces as ever can be wielded or used by man." Dr. Andrew Ure +went so far as to say that the invention would "throw the name of his +great countryman, James Watt, into the shade." Professor Faraday gave +it an earnest approval. But, with these and some other eminent +exceptions, the scientific men of the day condemned the principle on +which the invention was based as unsound and untenable. + +The interest which the subject excited did not escape the British +Government. Before many days had elapsed, the Secretary of the Home +Department, accompanied by Mr. Brunel, the constructor of the Thames +Tunnel, made his appearance in the engine-room where the new motive +power was in operation. Mr. Brunel, who was at that time somewhat +advanced in years, conceived at the outset an erroneous notion of the +nature of the new power, which he would not suffer to be corrected by +explanations. A discussion sprang up between him and the inventor, +which was followed by a long correspondence. The result was, that an +unfavorable impression of the invention was communicated to the British +Government. + +The invention fared little better at the hands of Professor Faraday, +from whose efficient advocacy the most favorable results might have +been anticipated. This gentleman had announced that he would deliver a +lecture on the subject in London, in the spacious theatre of the Royal +Institution. The novelty of the invention, combined with the +reputation of the lecturer, had attracted a very large audience, +including many individuals of eminent scientific attainments. Just +half an hour, however, before he was expected to enlighten this +distinguished assembly, the celebrated lecturer discovered that he had +mistaken the expansive principle which is the very life of the +machine. Although he had spent many hours in studying the +Caloric-Engine in actual operation, and in testing its absolute force +by repeated experiments, Professor Faraday was compelled to inform his +hearers, at the very outset, that he did not know why the engine worked +at all. He was obliged to confine himself, therefore, to the +explanation of the Regenerator, and the process by which the heat is +continually returned to the cylinder, and re-employed in the +production of force. To this part of the invention he rendered ample +justice, and explained it in that felicitous style to which he is +indebted for the reputation he deservedly enjoys, as the most agreeable +and successful lecturer in England. + +Other causes than the misconception of a Brunel and a Faraday operated +to retard the practical success of this beautiful invention. The high +temperature which it was necessary to keep up in the circulating medium +of the engine, and the consequent oxidation, soon destroyed the +pistons, valves, and other working parts. These difficulties the +inventor endeavored to remedy, in an engine, which he subsequently +constructed, of much larger powers, but without success. His failure in +this respect, however, did not deter him from prosecuting his +invention. He continued his experiments from time to time, as +opportunity permitted, confident that he was gradually, but surely, +approaching the realization of his great scheme. + +Meanwhile he applied himself with his accustomed energy to the +practical working out of another favorite idea. The principle of the +Ericsson propeller was first suggested to the inventor by a study of +the means employed to propel the inhabitants of the air and deep. He +satisfied himself that all such propulsion in Nature is produced by +oblique action; though, in common with all practical men, he at first +supposed that it was inseparably attended by a loss of power. But when +he reflected that this was the principle invariably adopted by the +Great Mechanician of the Universe, in enabling the birds, insects, and +fishes to move through their respective elements, he knew that he must +be in error. This he was soon able to demonstrate, and he became +convinced, by a strict application of the laws which govern matter and +motion, that no loss of power whatever attends the oblique action of +the propelling surfaces applied to Nature's locomotives. After +having satisfied himself on the theory of the subject, the first step +of the inventor was the construction of a small model, which he tried +in the circular basin of a bath in London. To his great delight, so +perfectly was his theory borne out in practice, that this model, though +less than two feet long, performed its voyage about the basin at the +rate of three English miles an hour. + +The next step in the invention was the construction of a boat forty +feet long, eight feet beam, and three feet draught of water, with two +propellers, each of five feet three inches in diameter. So successful +was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the +boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without +a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she +attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was +found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons' +burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and +the American packet-ship Toronto was towed in the river Thames by this +miniature steamer at the rate of more than five English miles an hour. +This feat excited no little interest among the boatmen of the Thames, +who were astonished at the sight of this novel craft moving against +wind and tide without any visible agency of propulsion, and, ascribing +to it some supernatural origin, united in giving it the name of the +_Flying Devil_. But the engineers of London Hoarded the +experiment with silent neglect; and the subject, when laid before the +Lords of the British Admiralty, failed to attract any favorable notice +from that august body. + +Perceiving its peculiar and admirable fitness for ships of war, +Ericsson was confident that their Lordships would at once order the +construction of a war-steamer on the new principle. He invited them, +therefore, to take an excursion in tow of his experimental boat. +Accordingly, the gorgeous and gilt Admiralty Barge was ordered up to +Somerset House, and the little steamer was lashed along-side. The barge +contained Sir Charles Adam, Senior Lord of the Admiralty,--Sir William +Simonds, Chief Constructor of the British Navy,--Sir Edward Parry, the +celebrated Arctic navigator,--Captain Beaufort, the Chief of the +Topographical Department of the British Admiralty,--and others of +scientific and naval distinction. + +In the anticipation of a severe scrutiny from so distinguished a +personage as the Chief Constructor of the British Navy, the inventor +had carefully prepared plans of his new mode of propulsion, which were +spread on the damask cloth of the magnificent barge. To his utter +astonishment, as we may well imagine, this scientific gentleman did not +appear to take the slightest interest in his explanations. On the +contrary, with those expressive shrugs of the shoulder and shakes of +the head which convey so much to the bystander without absolutely +committing the actor,--with an occasional sly, mysterious, undertone +remark to his colleagues,--he indicated very plainly, that, though his +humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause for so much +unhappiness, yet that "he could, an if he would," demonstrate by a +single word the utter futility of the whole invention. + +Meanwhile the little steamer, with her precious charge, proceeded at a +steady progress of ten miles an hour, through the arches of the lofty +Southwark and London bridges, towards Limehouse, and the steam-engine +manufactory of the Messrs. Seaward. Their Lordships having landed, and +inspected the huge piles of ill-shaped cast-iron, misdenominated marine +engines, intended for some of His Majesty's steamers, with a look at +their favorite propelling--apparatus, the Morgan paddle-wheel, they +reembarked, and were safely returned to Somerset House by the +disregarded, noiseless, and unseen propeller of the new steamer. + +On parting, Sir Charles Adam, with a sympathizing air, shook the +inventor cordially by the hand, and thanked him for the trouble he had +been at in showing him and his friends this _interesting_ +experiment, adding that he feared he had put himself to too great an +expense and trouble on the occasion. Notwithstanding this somewhat +ominous _finale_ of the day's excursion, Ericsson felt confident +that their Lordships could not fail to perceive the great importance of +the invention. To his surprise, however, a few days afterwards, a +friend put into his hands a letter written by Captain Beaufort, at the +suggestion, probably, of the Lords of the Admiralty, in which that +gentleman, who had himself witnessed the experiment, expressed regret +to state that their Lordships had certainly been very much disappointed +at its result. The reason for the disappointment was altogether +inexplicable to the inventor; for the speed attained at this trial far +exceeded anything that had ever been accomplished by any paddle-wheel +steamer on so small a scale. + +An accident soon relieved his astonishment, and explained the +mysterious givings-out of Sir William Simonds on the day of the +excursion. The subject having been started at a dinner-table where a +friend of Ericsson's was present, Sir William ingeniously and +ingenuously remarked, that, "even if the propeller had the power of +propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, +_because_, the power being applied in the _stern_, it would +be _absolutely impossible_ to make the vessel steer." It may not +be obvious to every one how our naval philosopher derived his +conclusion from his premises; but his hearers doubtless readily +acquiesced in the oracular proposition, and were much amused at the +idea of undertaking to steer a vessel when the power was applied in her +stern. + +But we may well excuse the Lords of the British Admiralty for +exhibiting no interest in the invention, when we reflect that the +engineering corps of the empire were arrayed in opposition to +it,--alleging that it was constructed upon erroneous principles, and +full of practical defects, and regarding its failure as too certain to +authorize any speculations even as to its success. The plan was +specially submitted to many distinguished engineers, and was publicly +discussed in the scientific journals; and there was no one but the +inventor who refused to acquiesce in the truth of the numerous +demonstrations proving the vast loss of mechanical power which must +attend this proposed substitute for the old-fashioned paddle-wheel. + +While opposed by such a powerful array of English scientific wisdom, +the inventor had the satisfaction of submitting his plan to a citizen +of the New World, Mr. Francis B. Ogden,--for many years Consul of the +United States at Liverpool,--who was able to understand its philosophy +and appreciate its importance. Though not an engineer by profession, +Mr. Ogden was distinguished for his eminent attainments in mechanical +science, and is entitled to the honor of having first applied the +important principle of the expansive power of steam, and of having +originated the idea of employing right-angular cranks in marine +engines. His practical experience and long study of the subject--for he +was the first to stem the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam alone--enabled him at +once to perceive the truth of the inventor's demonstrations. And not +only did he admit their truth, but he also joined Ericsson in +constructing the experimental boat to which we have alluded, and +which the inventor launched into the Thames with the name of the +"Francis B. Ogden," as a token of respect to his Transatlantic friend. + +Other circumstances soon occurred which consoled the inventor for his +disappointment in the rejection of the propeller by the British +Admiralty. The subject had been brought to the notice of an officer of +the United States navy. Captain Robert F. Stockton, who was at that +time on a visit to London, and who was induced to accompany him in one +of his experimental excursions on the Thames. Captain Stockton is +entitled to the credit of being the first naval officer who heard, +understood, and dared to act upon the suggestions of Ericsson, as to +the application of the propeller to ships of war. At the first glance, +he saw the important bearings of the invention; and his acute judgment +enabled him at once to predict that it was destined to work a +revolution in naval warfare. After making a single trip in the +experimental steamboat, from London Bridge to Greenwich, he ordered +the inventor to build for him forthwith two iron boats for the United +States, with steam-machinery and propeller on the plan of this rejected +invention. "I do not want," said Stockton, "the opinions of your +scientific men; what I have seen this day satisfies me." He at once +brought the subject before the Government of the United States, and +caused numerous plans and models to be made, at his own expense, +explaining the peculiar fitness of the invention for ships of war. So +completely persuaded was he of its great importance in this aspect, +and so determined that his views should be carried out, that he boldly +assured the inventor that the Government of the United States would +test the propeller on a large scale; and so confident was Ericsson +that the perseverance and energy of Captain Stockton would sooner or +later accomplish what he promised, that he at once abandoned his +professional engagements in England, and came to the United States, +where he fixed his residence in the city of New York. This was in the +year 1839. + +Circumstances delayed, for some two years, the execution of their plan. +With the change of the Federal Administration, Stockton was first able +to obtain a favorable hearing; and having at length received the +necessary authority, the Princeton was built under his superintendence, +from the designs of Ericsson. She was completed and ready for sea +early in 1844, when she was pronounced by Stockton "the cheapest, +fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world." + +In this vessel, in addition to the propeller, Ericsson introduced his +semicylindrical steam-engine, a beautiful invention, so compact that +it occupied only one-eighth of the bulk of the British marine engine +of corresponding power, and was placed more than four feet below the +water-line. The boilers were also below the water-line, having a +peculiar heating-apparatus attached which effected a great saving of +fuel, and with their furnaces and flues so constructed as to burn +anthracite as well as bituminous coal. Instead of the ordinary tall +smoke-pipe,--an insuperable objection to a steamer as a ship of +war,--he constructed a smoke-pipe upon the principle of the telescope, +which could be elevated or depressed at pleasure; and in order to +provide a draught independent of the height of the smoke-pipe, he +placed centrifugal blowers in the bottom of the vessel, which were +worked by separate small engines,--an arrangement originally applied +by him to marine engines in the steam-packet Corsair in 1831. Thus the +steam-machinery of the Princeton fulfilled the most important +requisites for a war-steamer, combining lightness, compactness, +simplicity, and efficiency, and being placed wholly out of reach of the +enemy's fire. + +The armament of the ship also exhibited many peculiarities. "By the +application of the various arts to the purposes of war on board of the +Princeton," says Captain Stockton, in his report to the Navy +Department, "it is believed that the art of gunnery for sea-service +has, for the first time, been reduced to something like mathematical +certainty. The distance to which the guns can throw their shot at every +necessary angle of elevation has been ascertained by a series of +careful experiments. The distance from the ship to any object is +readily ascertained with an instrument on board, contrived for that +purpose, by an observation which it requires but an instant to make, +and by inspection without calculation. By self-acting locks, the guns +can be fired accurately at the necessary elevation,--no matter what +the motion of the ship may be." The instruments here referred to, +namely, the Distance-Instrument and the Self-Acting Gun-Lock, and also +the wrought-iron gun-carriage, by means of which Captain Stockton's +enormous guns were readily handled and directed, all were the +productions of Ericsson's fertile mechanical genius. + +A committee of the American Institute, by whom this remarkable vessel +was examined, thus concluded their report:--"Your Committee take leave +to present the Princeton as every way worthy the highest honors of the +Institute. She is a sublime conception, most successfully +realized,--an effort of genius skilfully executed,--a grand +_unique_ combination, honorable to the country, as creditable to +all engaged upon her. Nothing in the history of mechanics surpasses the +inventive genius of Captain Ericsson, unless it be the moral daring of +Captain Stockton, in the adoption of so many novelties at one time." We +may add that in the Princeton was exhibited the first successful +application of screw-propulsion to a ship of war, and that she was the +first steamship ever built with the machinery below the water-line and +out of the reach of shot. + +Ericsson spent the best part of two years in his labors upon the +Princeton. Besides furnishing the general plan of the ship and +supplying her in every department with his patented improvements, he +prepared, with his own hand, the working-drawings for every part of +the steam-machinery, propelling-apparatus, and steering-apparatus in +detail, and superintended their whole construction and arrangement, +giving careful and exact instructions as to the most minute +particulars. In so doing, he was compelled to make frequent journeys +from New York to Sandy Hook and Philadelphia, involving no small amount +of trouble and expense. For the use of his patent rights in the engine +and propeller, he had, at the suggestion of Captain Stockton, refrained +from charging the usual fees, consenting to accept, as full +satisfaction, whatever the Government, after testing the inventions, +should see fit to pay. He never imagined, however, that his laborious +services as engineer were to go unrequited, or that his numerous +inventions and improvements, unconnected with the engine and propeller, +were to be furnished gratuitously. Yet, when, after the Princeton, as +we have seen, had been pronounced on all hands a splendid success, +Ericsson presented his bill to the Navy Department,--not for the +patent-fees in question, but for the bare repayment of his +expenditures, and compensation for his time and labor in the service +of the United States,--he was informed that his claim could not be +allowed; it could not be recognized as a "legal claim." It was not +denied that the services alleged had been rendered,--that the work for +which compensation was asked had been done by Ericsson, and well +done,--nor that the United States were in the enjoyment of the unpaid +results of his labor and invention. A claim based upon such +considerations might, it would seem, have been brought within the +definition of a legal claim. But if not admissible under the strict +rules of the Navy Department, it was certainly an equitable demand +against the United States; and Ericsson could not believe that the +representatives of the great American people would stand upon +technicalities. He accordingly made a direct appeal to them in a +Memorial to Congress. + +We may as well here give the further history of this claim. It met with +the usual delays and obstructions that private claims, having nothing +but their intrinsic merits to support them, are compelled to +encounter. It called forth the usual amount of legislative +pettifogging. Session after session passed away, and still it hung +between the two Houses of Congress, until the very time which had +elapsed since it was first presented began to be brought up as an +argument against it. At length, when Congress established the Court of +Claims, a prospect opened of bringing it to a fair hearing and a +final decision. It was submitted to that tribunal six years ago. The +Court decided in its favor,--the three judges (Gilchrist, Scarborough, +and Blackford) being unanimous in their judgment. A bill directing its +payment was reported to the Senate,--and there it is still. Although +favorably reported upon by two committees at different sessions, and +once passed by the Senate, without a vote recorded against it, it has +never yet got through both Houses of Congress. For furnishing this +Government with the magnificent war-steamer which was pronounced by +Captain Stockton "the cheapest, fastest, and most certain ship of war +in the world," Ericsson has never been paid a dollar. It remains to be +seen whether the present Congress will permit this stain upon the +national good faith to continue. If it does, its "votes of thanks" are +little better than a mockery. + +The efficiency and utility of the propeller having been established +beyond a doubt, it went at once into extensive use. But the inventor +was again disappointed in his just expectation of reaping an adequate +pecuniary benefit from his exertions. Upon the strength of some +attempts at screw-propulsion,--made and abandoned by various +experimenters,--which had never resulted, and probably never would +have resulted, in any practical application, rival machines, which +conflicted with Ericsson's patent, soon made their appearance. A long +litigation followed, during which all attempts to collect patent-fees +were necessarily suspended; and the result was, that the invention was +virtually abandoned to the public. But no one can take from Ericsson +the honor of having first introduced the screw-propeller into actual +use, and demonstrated its value,--an honor which is now freely +accorded to him by the highest scientific authorities at home and +abroad. + +Although the first five years of his American experience had been less +profitable, in a pecuniary sense, than he had anticipated, he +continued to reside in the city of New York, where he found an ample +field for the exercise of his great powers in the line of his +profession. He planned the war-steamer Pomone, the first screw-vessel +introduced into the French navy. He planned revenue-cutters for the +United States Government, taking care always to have his contracts so +distinctly made that no question could again arise as to his "legal +claim." He invented a useful apparatus for supplying the boilers of +sea-going steamers with fresh water. He invented various modifications +of the steam-engine. + +In the American division of the London Industrial Exhibition of all +Nations in 1851, he exhibited the Distance-Instrument, for measuring +distances at sea,--the Hydrostatic Gauge, for measuring the volume of +fluids under pressure,--the Reciprocating Fluid-Metre, for measuring +the quantity of water which passes through pipes during definite +periods,--the Alarm-Barometer,--the Pyrometer, intended as a standard +measure of temperature, from the freezing-point of water up to the +melting-point of iron,--a Rotary Fluid-Metre, the principle of which +is the measurement of fluids by the velocity with which they pass +through apertures of different dimensions,--and a Sea-Lead, contrived +for taking soundings at sea without rounding the vessel to the wind, +and independently of the length of the lead-line. For these inventions +he received the prize-medal of the Exhibition. + +But while thus continually occupied with new enterprises and objects, +he did not lose sight of his great idea, the Caloric-Engine. All his +spare hours and spare funds were devoted to experiments with the view +of overcoming the practical difficulties which stood in the way of its +success. Towards the end of the year 1851 he seemed to be on the point +of realizing his hopes, having constructed a large stationary engine, +which was applied with great success, at the Phoenix Foundry in New +York, to the actual work of pumping water. Soon after, through the +liberality of Mr. John B. Kitching, a well-known merchant of New +York, he was enabled to test the invention on a magnificent scale. A +ship of two thousand tons, propelled by the power of caloric-engines, +was planned and constructed by him in the short space of seven months, +and in honor of the inventor received the name of the "Ericsson." + +Every one will remember the interest which this caloric-ship excited +throughout the country. She made a trip from New York to Alexandria on +the Potomac, in very rough weather, in the latter part of February, +1853. On this trip the engines were in operation for seventy-three +hours without being stopped for a moment, and without requiring the +slightest adjustment, the consumption of fuel being only five tons in +twenty-four hours. At Alexandria she was visited by the President and +President elect, the heads of the departments, a large number of naval +officers, and many members of both Houses of Congress, and +subsequently by the foreign ministers in a body, and by the Legislature +of Virginia, then in session. Ericsson was invited by a committee of +the Legislature to visit Richmond, as the guest of the State. The +Secretary of the Navy recommended, in a special communication to +Congress, the passage of a resolution authorizing him to contract for +the construction of a frigate of two thousand tons to be equipped with +caloric-engines, and to appropriate for this purpose five hundred +thousand dollars. This recommendation failed in consequence of the +pressure of business at the close of the session. + +But notwithstanding the surprise and admiration which this achievement +excited in the scientific world, the speed attained was not sufficient +to meet the practical exigencies of commerce; and the repetition of +the engines on this large scale could not be undertaken at the charge +of individuals. Ericsson accordingly wisely devoted himself to +perfecting the Calorie-Engine on a small scale, and in 1859 he +produced it in a form which has since proved a complete success. It is +no longer a subject of experiment, but exists as a perfect, practical +machine. More than five hundred of these engines, with cylinders +varying from a diameter of six inches to one of forty inches, are now +in successful operation. It is applied to purposes of pumping, +printing, hoisting, grinding, sawing, turning light machinery, working +telegraphic instruments and sewing-machines, and propelling boats. No +less than forty daily papers (among which we may mention the "National +Intelligencer") are printed by means of this engine. In Cuba it is +used for grinding sugar-cane, on Southern plantations for ginning +cotton; and there is an endless variety of domestic, agricultural, and +mechanical uses to which it may be advantageously applied. + +The extent of power attainable by this machine, consistently with its +application to practical uses, is not yet precisely defined. Within +the limit thus far given to it, its power is certain, uniform, and +entirely sufficient. It is not attended with the numerous perils that +make the steam-engine so uncomfortable a servant, but is absolutely +free from danger. It requires no engineering supervision. It consumes a +very small amount of fuel (about one-third of the amount required by +the steam-engine) and requires no water. These peculiarities not only +make it a very desirable substitute for the steam-engine, but render +it available for many purposes to which the steam-engine would never +be applied. + +In addition to his regular professional avocations, Ericsson was +industriously occupied in devising new applications of the +Calorie-Engine, when the attempted secession of the Southern States +plunged the country into the existing war and struck a blow at all the +arts of peace. Ills whole heart and mind were given at once to the +support of the Union. Liberal in all his ideas, he is warmly attached +to republican institutions, and has a hearty abhorrence of intolerance +and oppression in all their forms. His early military education and +his long study of the appliances of naval warfare increased the +interest with which he watched the progress of events. The abandonment +of the Norfolk navy-yard to the Rebels struck him as a disgrace that +might have been avoided. He foresaw the danger of a formidable +antagonist from that quarter in the steamship which we had so +obligingly furnished them. The building of gun-boats with +steam-machinery _above_ the water-line--where the first shot from +an enemy might render it useless--seemed to him, in view of what he +had done and was ready to do again, a very unnecessary error. Knowing +thoroughly all the improvements made and making in the war-steamers of +England and France, and feeling the liability of their interference in +our affairs, he could not appreciate the wisdom of building new +vessels according to old ideas. The blockade of the Potomac by Rebel +batteries, in the very face of our navy, seemed to him an indignity +which need not be endured, if the inventive genius of the North could +have fair play. + +An impregnable iron gun-boat was, in his judgment, the thing that was +needed; and he determined that the plan of such a vessel should be his +contribution towards the success of the war. The subject was not a +new one to him. He had given it much consideration, and his plan, in +all its essential features, had been matured long before. Proposals +for iron-clad vessels having been invited by the Navy Department, +Ericsson promptly submitted his plans and specifications. Knowing the +opposition that novelties always encounter, he had no great expectation +that his proposal would be accepted. "I have done my part," said he; "I +have offered my plan. It is for the Government to say whether I shall +be allowed to carry it out." He felt confident, however, that, if the +plan should be brought to the notice of the President, his practical +wisdom and sound common sense could not fail to decide in its favor. +Fortunately for the country, Ericsson's offer was accepted by the Navy +Department. He immediately devoted all his energies to the execution of +his task, and the result was the construction of the vessel to which he +himself gave the name of the "Monitor." What she is and what she has +accomplished, we need not here repeat. Whatever may be her future +history, we may safely say, in the words of the New York Chamber of +Commerce, that "the floating-battery Monitor deserves to be, and will +be, forever remembered with gratitude and admiration." + +We rejoice to believe that the merits and services of Ericsson are now +fully appreciated by the people of the United States. The thanks of the +nation have been tendered to him by a resolution of Congress. The +Boston Board of Trade and the New York Chamber of Commerce have passed +resolutions expressive of their gratitude. The latter body expressed +also their desire that the Government of the United States should make +to Captain Ericsson "such suitable return for his services as will +evince the gratitude of a great nation." Upon hearing this suggestion, +Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,--"All the remuneration +I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is +all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of +consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he +discountenanced the movement set on foot among the merchants of New +York for the subscription of a sum of money to be presented to him. He +asks nothing but fair remuneration for services rendered,--and that, it +is to be hoped, the people will take care that he shall receive. + +Ericsson is now zealously at work in constructing six new iron +gun-boats on the plan of the Monitor. If that remarkable structure can +be surpassed, he is the man to accomplish it. His ambition is to render +the United States impregnable against the navies of the world. "Give me +only the requisite means," he writes, "and in a very short time we can +say to those powers now bent on destroying republican institutions, +'_Leave the Gulf with your frail craft, or perish_!' I have all my +life asserted that mechanical science will put an end to the power of +England over the seas. The ocean is Nature's highway between the +nations. It should be free; and surely Nature's laws, when properly +applied, will make it so." + +His reputation as an engineer is worldwide. In 1852 he was made a +Knight of the Order of Vasa by King Oscar of Sweden. The following +extract from a poem "To John Ericsson" we translate from "Svenska +Tidningen," the Government journal of Stockholm. It is eloquently +expressive of the pride and admiration with which he is regarded in his +native country. + +"World-wide his fame, so gracefully adorning +His native Sweden with enduring radiance! +Not a king's crown could give renown so noble: +For his is Thought's great triumph, and the sceptre +He wields is over elements his subjects!" + +Although now in his sixtieth year, Ericsson has the appearance of a man +of forty. He is in the very maturity of a vigorous manhood, and retains +all the fire and enthusiasm of youth. He has a frame of iron, cast in a +large and symmetrical mould. His head and face are indicative of +intellectual power and a strong will. His presence impresses one, at +the first glance, as that of an extraordinary man. His bearing is +dignified and courteous, with a touch perhaps of military +_brusquerie_ in his mode of address. He has a keen sense of humor, +a kindly and generous disposition, and a genial and companionable +nature. He is a "good hater" and a firm friend. Like all men of strong +character and outspoken opinions, he has some enemies; but his chosen +friends he "grapples to his heart with hooks of steel." + +He is not a mere mechanician, but has great knowledge of men and of +affairs, and an ample fund of information on all subjects. His +conversation is engaging and instructive; and when he seeks to enlist +cooeperation in his mechanical enterprises, few men can withstand the +force of his arguments and the power of his personal magnetism. + +Although his earnings have sometimes been large, his heavy expenditures +in costly experiments have prevented him from acquiring wealth. Money +is with him simply a means of working out new ideas for the benefit of +mankind; and in this way he does not scruple to spend to the utmost +limit of his resources. He lives freely and generously, but is strictly +temperate and systematic in all his habits. + +The amount of labor which he is capable of undergoing is astonishing. +While engaged in carrying out his inventions, it is a common thing for +him to pass sixteen hours a day at his table, in the execution of +detailed mechanical drawings, which he throws off with a facility and +in a style that have probably never been surpassed. He does not seem to +need such recreation as other men pine after. He never cares to run +down to the seashore, or take a drive into the country, or spend a week +at Saratoga or at Newport. Give him his drawing-table, his plans, his +models, the noise of machinery, the clatter of the foundry, and he is +always contented. Week in and week out, summer and winter, he works on +and on,--and the harder he works, the more satisfied he seems to be. He +is as untiring as one of his own engines, which never stop so long as +the fire burns. Endowed with such a constitution, it is to be hoped +that new triumphs and many years of honor and usefulness are yet before +him. + + * * * * * + + +MOVING. + + +Man is like an onion. He exists in concentric layers. He is born a +bulb and grows by external accretions. The number and character of his +involutions certify to his culture and courtesy. Those of the boor are +few and coarse. Those of the gentleman are numerous and fine. But strip +off the scales from all and you come to the same germ. The core of +humanity is barbarism. Every man is a latent savage. + +You may be startled and shocked, but I am stating fact, not theory. I +announce not an invention, but a discovery. You look around you, and +because you do not see tomahawks and tattooing you doubt my assertion. +But your observation is superficial. You have not penetrated into the +secret place where souls abide. You are staring only at the outside +layer of your neighbors; just peel them and see what you will find. + +I speak from the highest possible authority,--my own. Representing the +gentler half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and +good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with +the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand +and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my +circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of +Americans,--and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the +moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten +that stand lower. Yet through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of +my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty +to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization +leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be +just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white +shores of Britain fifteen hundred years ago. + +For we have been moving. + +People who live in cities and move regularly every year from one good, +finished, right-side-up house to another will think I give a very small +reason for a very broad fact; but they do not know what they are +talking about. They have fallen into a way of looking upon a house only +as an exaggerated trunk, into which they pack themselves annually with +as much nonchalance as if it were only their preparation for a summer +trip to the seashore. They don't strike root anywhere. They don't have +to tear up anything. A man comes with cart and horses. There is a stir +in the one house,--they are gone;--there is a stir in the other +house,--they are settled,--and everything is wound up and set going to +run another year. We do these things differently in the country. We +don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, +then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, +and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then +it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then +it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,--but keep living in it all +the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just +such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown +like a fungus ever since there was anything to grow,--where your life +and luggage have crept into all the crevices and corners, and every +wall is festooned with associations thicker than the cobwebs, though +the cobwebs are pretty thick,--where the furniture and the pictures and +the knick-knacks are so become a part and parcel of the house, so grown +with it and into it, that you do not know they are chiefly rubbish till +you begin to move them and they fall to pieces, and don't know it then, +but persist in packing them up and carrying them away for the sake of +auld lang syne, till, set up again in your new abode, you suddenly find +that their sacredness is gone, their dignity has degraded into +dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only +comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has +suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and +the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this +tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the _debris_ of many +generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary +new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough +for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great +crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, +literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and +amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,--in short, all the +arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,--and on this +side--moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to +my thinking, all the discomforts short of absolute physical torture +that can be condensed into the human lot. Condensed, did I say? If it +were a condensed agony, I could endure it. One great, stunning, +overpowering blow is undoubtedly terrible, but you rally all your +fortitude to meet and resist it, and when it is over it is over and the +recuperative forces go to work; but a trouble that worries and baffles +and pricks and rasps you, that penetrates into all the ramifications of +your life, that fills you with profound disgust, and fires you with +irrepressible fury, and makes of you an Ishmaelite indeed, with your +hand against every man and every man's hand against you,--ah! that is +the _experimentum crucis_. Such is moving, in the country,--not an +act, but a process,--not a volition, but a fermentation. + +We will say that the first of September is the time appointed for the +transit. The day approaches. It is the twenty-ninth of August. I +prepare to take hold of the matter in earnest. I am nipped in the bud +by learning that the woman who was to help about the carpets cannot +come, because her baby is taken with the croup. I have not a doubt of +it. I never knew a baby yet that did not go and have the croup, or the +colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was imperatively necessary +that it should not have them. But there is no help for it. I shudder +and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at the heavy, bulky, +unwieldy carpets, and am covered with dust and abomination. I think +carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. +It is impossible to be clean with them under your feet. You may sweep +your carpet twenty times and raise a dust on the twenty-first. I am +sure I heard long ago of some new fashion that was to be +introduced,--some Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something of +the sort. I should welcome anything that would dispense with these vile +rags. I sigh over the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers +rejoiced in,--and so, apotheosizing the past and anathematizing the +present, I pull away, and the tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer +slips and lets me back with a jerk, and the dust fills my hair and nose +and eyes and mouth and lungs, and my hands grow red and coarse and +ragged and sore and begrimed, and I pull and choke and cough and +strangle and pull. + +So the carpets all come up and the curtains all come down. The bureaus +march out of the chamber-windows and dance on a tight-rope down into +the yard below. The chairs are set at "heads and points." The clothes +are packed into the trunks. The flour and meal and sugar, all the +wholesale edibles, are carted down to the new house and stored. The +forks are wrapped up and we eat with our fingers, and have nothing to +eat at that. Then we are informed that the new house will not be ready +short of two weeks at least. Unavoidable delays. The plasterers were +hindered; the painters misunderstood orders; the paperers have +defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no +matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total +depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their +word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised +reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of +it,--a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis +state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch +towards the new house, just sufficient to keep up the circulation. One +day I dreamily carry down a basket of wine-glasses. At another time I +listlessly stuff all my slippers into a huge pitcher and take up the +line of march. Again a bucket is filled with tea-cups, or I shoulder +the fire-shovel. The two weeks drag themselves away, and the cry is +still, "Unfinished!" To prevent petrifying into a fossil remain, or +relapsing into primitive barbarism, or degenerating into a dormouse, I +rouse my energies and determine to put my own shoulder to the wheel and +see if something cannot be accomplished. I rise early in the morning +and walk to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of "gumption," +"faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am told that he is in Beersheba. Nothing +daunted, I take a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding +manifold dangers from rickety stone-walls, strong enough to keep women +in, but not strong enough to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts +out,--toppling enough to play the mischief with draperies, but not +toppling enough to topple over when urgently pressed to do so. But I +secure my man, and remember no more my sorrow of bulls and stones for +joy at my success. From Beersheba I proceed to Padan-aram to buy seven +pounds of flour, thence to Galilee of the Gentiles for a pound of +cheese, thence to the land of Uz for a smoked halibut, thence to the +ends of the earth for a lemon to make life tolerable,--and the days +hobble on. + +"The flying gold of the ruined woodlands" drives through the air, the +signal is given, and there is no longer "quiet on the Potomac." The +unnatural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once more I bring myself +to bear on the furniture and the trumpery, and there is a small +household whirlpool. All that went before "pales its ineffectual +fires." Now comes the strain upon my temper, and my temper bends, and +quivers, and creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his spear; +all the integuments of my conventional, artificial, and acquired +gentleness peel off, and I stand revealed a savage. Everything around +me sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. Looking-glasses +are shivered by the dozen. A bit is nicked out of the best China +sugar-bowl. A pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around the +centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished +surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, +and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of +woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the +closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a +moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush +rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. +"I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his leg. A +fractured leg is easily mended; but who shall restore me the nose of +my nymph, marred into irremediable deformity and dishonor? + +Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart the darkness to keep me +back from rash deeds. Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of +dark, bright hair and gold and pearls, that I lost two years ago and +would not be comforted. O happy days woven in with the dark, bright +hair! O golden, pearly days, come back to me again! "Never mind your +gewgaws," interposes real life; "what is to be done with the things in +this drawer?" Lying atop of a heap of old papers in the front-yard, +waiting the match that is to glorify them into flame, I find a letter +that mysteriously disappeared long since and caused me infinite alarm +lest indelicate eyes might see it and indelicate hands make ignoble use +of its honest and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new and +interesting facts in mechanics. I become acquainted for the first time +with the _modus operandi_ of "roller-cloths." I never understood +before how the roller got inside the towel. It was one of those gentle +domestic mysteries that repel even while they invite investigation. I +shall not give the result of my discovery to the public. If you wish +very much to find out, you can move, as I did. + +But the rifts of sunshine disappear, the clouds draw together and close +in. The savage walks abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life. + +I have scarcely fallen asleep, when I am reluctantly, by short and +difficult stages, awakened. A rumbling, grating, strident noise first +confuses, then startles me. Is it robbers? Is it an earthquake? Is it +the coming of fate? I lie rigid, bathed in a cold perspiration. I hear +the tread of banditti on the moaning stairs. I see the flutter of +ghostly robes by the uncurtained windows. A chill, uncanny air rushes +in and grips at my damp hair. I am nerved by the extremity of my +terror. I will die of anything but fright. I jerk off the bedclothes, +convulse into an upright posture, and glare into the darkness. Nothing. +I rise softly, creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that always +creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. A light gleams through +the open door of the opposite room whence the sound issues. A familiar +voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It is Petronius, the +unprincipled scoundrel, who is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly +through innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail came near +giving me an epilepsy. My savage lets loose the dogs of war. Petronius +would fain defend himself by declaring that it is morning. I +indignantly deny it. He produces his watch. A fig for his watch! I +stake my consciousness against twenty watches, and go to bed again; but +Sleep, angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up +the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the +morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself +upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be +corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify +me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded +up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring +Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does +not mend his ways, I slowly emerge again into the world,--the dreary, +chaotic world,--the world that is never at rest. + +And there is hurrying to and fro, and a clang of many voices, and the +clatter of much crockery, and a lifting, and balancing, and battering +against walls and curving around corners, and sundry contusions, and a +great waste of expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of +patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, +steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of +something from upsetting with the other, and both arms stretched around +a very big and very square picture-frame that knocks against my nose or +my chin every time the cart goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and +the wind threatening to blow my hat off, and blowing it off, and my +"back-hair" tumbling down,--and the old house is at last despoiled. The +rooms stand bare and brown and desolate. The sun, a hand-breadth above +the horizon, pours in through the unblinking windows. The last load is +gone. The last man has departed. I am left alone to lock up the house +and walk over the hill to the new home. Then, for the first time, I +remember that I am leaving. As I pass through the door of my own room, +not regretfully, I turn. I look up and down and through and through the +place where I shall never rest again, and I rejoice that it is so. As I +stand there, with the red, solid sunshine lying on the floor, lying on +the walls, unfamiliar in its new profusion, the silence becomes +audible. In the still October evening there is an effort in the air. +The dumb house is striving to find a voice. I feel the struggle of its +insensate frame. The old timbers quiver with the unusual strain. The +strong, blind, vegetable energy agonizes to find expression, and, +wrestling like a pinioned giant, the soul of matter throws off the +weight of Its superincumbent inertia. Slowly, gently, most sorrowfully +through the golden air cleaves a voice that is somewhat a wail, yet not +untuned by love. Inarticulate at first, I catch only the low +mournfulness; but it clears, it concentrates, it murmurs into cadence, +it syllables into intelligence, and thus the old house speaks:-- + +"Child, my child, forward to depart, stay for one moment your eager +feet. Put off from your brow the crown which the sunset has woven, and +linger yet a little longer in the shadow which enshrouds me forever. I +remember, in this parting hour, the day of days which the tremulous +years bore in their bosom,--a day crimson with the woodbine's happy +flush and glowing with the maple's gold. On that day a tender, tiny +life came down, and stately Silence fled before the pelting of +baby-laughter. Faint memories of far-off olden time were softly +stirred. Blindly thrilled through all my frame a vague, dim sense of +swelling buds, and singing-birds, and summer-gales,--of the purple +beauty of violets, the smells of fragrant earth, and the sweetness of +summer dews and darks. Many a harvest-moon since then has filled her +yellow horn, and queenly Junes crowned with roses have paled before the +sternness of Decembers. But Decembers and Junes alike bore royal gifts +to you,--gifts to the busy brain and the awakening heart. In dell and +copse and meadow and gay green-wood you drank great draughts of life. +Yet, even as I watched, your eyes grew wistful. Your lips framed +questions for which the Springs found no reply, and the sacred mystery +of living brought its sweet, uncertain pain. Then you went away, and a +shadow fell. A gleam passed out of the sunshine and a note from the +robin's song. The knights that pranced on the household hearth grew +faint and still, and died for want of young eyes to mark their +splendor. But when your feet, ever and anon, turned homeward, they used +a firmer step, and I knew, that, though the path might be rough, you +trod it bravely. I saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler thing +than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burning in the holy place. But +now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the +sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The +summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And--O bitterest cup of +all!--the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I +totter down to the grave, while you go on from strength to strength. +The Junes that gave you life brought death to me, and you sorrow not. O +child of my tender care, look not so coldly on my pain! Breathe one +sigh of regret, drop one tear of pity, before we part!" + +The mournful murmur ceased. I am not adamant. My savage crouched out of +sight among the underbrush. I think something stirred in the back of my +eyes. There was even a suspicion of dampness in front. I thrust my hand +in my pocket to have my handkerchief ready in case of a catastrophe. It +was an unfortunate proceeding. My pocket was crammed full. I had to +push my fingers in between all manner of rubbish, to get at the +required article, and when I got hold of it, I had to pull with all my +might to get it out, and when it did come, out with it came a tin box +of mustard seed, a round wooden box of tooth-powder, a ball of twine, a +paper of picture-books, and a pair of gloves. Of course, the covers of +both the boxes came off. The seed scattered over the floor. The +tooth-powder puffed a white cloud into my face. The ball of twine +unrolled and trundled to the other side of the room. I gathered up what +I could, but, by the time order was restored and my handkerchief ready +for use, I had no use for it. The stirring in the back of my eyes had +stopped. The dewiness had disappeared. My savage sprang out from the +underbrush and brandished his tomahawk. And to the old house I made +answer as a Bushman of Caffraria might, or a Sioux of the +Prae-Pilgrimic Age:-- + +"Old House, hush up! Why do you talk stuff? 'Golden memories' indeed! +To hear you, one might suppose you were an ivied castle on the Rhine, +and I a fair-haired princess, cradled in the depths of regal luxury, +feeding on the blossoms of a thousand generations, and heroic from +inborn royalty. 'Tender care'! Did you not wake me in the middle of the +night, last summer, by trickling down water on my face from a passing +shower? and did I not have to get up at that unearthly hour to move the +bed, and step splash into a puddle, and come very near being floated +away? Did not the water drip, drip, drip upon my writing-desk, and soak +the leather and swell the wood, and stain the ribbon and spoil the +paper inside, and all because you were treacherous at the roof and let +it? Have you not made a perfect rattery of yourself, yawning at every +possible chink and crumbling at the underpinning, and keeping me awake +night after night by the tramp of a whole brigade of the Grand Army +that slaughtered Bishop Hatto? Whenever a breeze comes along stout +enough to make an aspen-leaf tremble, don't you immediately go into +hysterics, and rock, and creak, and groan, as if you were the shell of +an earthquake? Don't you shrivel at every window to let in the +northeasters and all the snow-storms that walk abroad? Whenever a +needle, or a pencil, or a penny drops, don't you open somewhere and +take it in? 'Golden memories'! Leaden memories! Wooden memories! Madden +memories!" + +My savage gave a war-whoop. I turned scornfully. I swept down the +staircase. I banged the front-door. I locked it with an accent, and +marched up the hill. A soft sighing breathed past me. I knew it was the +old house mourning for her departing child. The sun had disappeared, +but the western sky was jubilant in purple and gold. The cool evening +calmed me. The echoes of the war-whoop vibrated almost tenderly along +the hushed hillside. I paused on the summit of the hill and looked +back. Down in the valley stood the sorrowful house, tasting the first +bitterness of perpetual desolation. The maples and the oaks and the +beech-trees hung out their flaming banners. The pond lay dark in the +shadow of the circling hills. The years called to me,--the happy, +sun-ripe years that I had left tangled in the apple-blossoms, and +moaning among the pines, and tinkling in the brook, and floating in the +cups of the water-lilies. They looked up at me from the orchard, dark +and cool. They thrilled across from the hill-tops, glowing still with +the glowing sky. I heard their voice by the lilac-bush. They smiled at +me under the peach-trees, and where the blackberries had ripened +against the southern wall. I felt them once more in the clover-smells +and the new-mown hay. They swayed again in the silken tassels of the +crisp, rustling corn. They hummed with the bees in the garden-borders. +They sang with the robins in the cherry-trees, and their tone was +tender and passing sweet. They besought me not to cast away their +memory for despite of the black-browed troop whose vile and sombre +robes had mingled in with their silver garments. They prayed me to +forget, but not all. They minded me of the sweet counsel we had taken +together, when summer came over the hills and walked by the +watercourses. They bade me remember the good tidings of great joy which +they had brought me when my eyes were dim with unavailing tears. My +lips trembled to their call. The war-whoop chanted itself into a +vesper. A happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered out over the +valley, and a comfort settled on the sad old house as I stretched forth +my hands and from my inmost soul breathed down a _Benedicite!_ + + * * * * * + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +It may seem to some of my readers that I have wandered from my subject +and forgotten the title of these articles, which purport to be a series +of papers on "Methods of Study in Natural History." But some idea of +the progress of Natural History, of its growth as a science, of the +gradual evolving of general principles out of a chaotic mass of facts, +is a better aid to the student than direct instruction upon special +modes of investigation; and it is with the intention of presenting the +study of Natural History from this point of view that I have chosen my +title. + +I have endeavored thus far to show how scientific facts have been +systematized so as to form a classification that daily grows more true +to Nature, in proportion as its errors are corrected by a more intimate +acquaintance with the facts; but I will now attempt a more difficult +task, and try to give some idea of the mental process by which facts +are transformed into scientific truth. I fear that the subject may seem +very dry to my readers, and I would again ask their indulgence for +details absolutely essential to my purpose, but which would indeed be +very wearisome, did they not lead us up to an intelligent and most +significant interpretation of their meaning. + +I should be glad to remove the idea that science is the mere amassing +of facts. It is true that scientific results grow out of facts, but not +till they have been fertilized by thought The facts must be collected, +but their mere accumulation will never advance the sum of human +knowledge by one step;--it is the comparison of facts and their +transformation into ideas that lead to a deeper insight into the +significance of Nature. Stringing words together in incoherent +succession does not make an intelligible sentence; facts are the words +of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach +us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations and +recognize the thought that binds them together as a consistent whole. + +I have spoken of the plans that lie at the foundation of all the +variety of the Animal Kingdom as so many structural ideas which must +have had an intellectual existence in the Creative Conception +independently of any special material expression of them. Difficult +though it be to present these plans as pure abstract formulae, distinct +from the animals that represent them, I would nevertheless attempt to +do it, in order to show how the countless forms of animal life have +been generalized into the few grand, but simple intellectual +conceptions on which all the past populations of the earth as well as +the present creation are founded. In such attempts to divest the +thought of its material expression, especially when that expression is +multiplied in such thousand-fold variety of form and color, our +familiarity with living animals is almost an obstacle to our success. +For I shall hardly be able to allude to the formula of the Radiates, +for instance,--the abstract idea that includes all the structural +possibilities of that division of the Animal Kingdom,--without +recalling to my readers a Polyp or a Jelly-Fish, a Sea-Urchin or a +Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk +plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a +Cuttle-Fish,--or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the +form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,--or of the Vertebrate plan, +without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or +Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes +of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the +limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural +elements, though each branch is entirely distinct. If this be true, +and if these organic formulae have the precision of mathematical +formulae, with which I have compared them, they should be susceptible +of the same tests. + +The mathematician proves the identity of propositions that have the +same mathematical value and significance by their convertibility. If +they have the same mathematical quantities, it must be possible to +transform them, one into another, without changing anything that is +essential in either. The problem before us is of the same character. +If, for instance, all Radiates, be they Sea-Anemones, Jelly-Fishes, +Star-Fishes, or Sea-Urchins, are only various modes of expressing the +same organic formula, each having the sum of all its structural +elements, it should be possible to demonstrate that they are +reciprocally convertible. This is actually the case, and I hope to be +able to convince my readers that it is no fanciful theory, but may be +demonstrated as clearly as the problems of the geometer. The +naturalist has his mathematics, as well as the geometer and the +astronomer; and if the mathematics of the Animal Kingdom have a greater +flexibility than those of the positive sciences, and are therefore not +so easily resolved into their invariable elements, it is because they +have the freedom and pliability of life, and evade our efforts to bring +all their external variety within the limits of the same structural +law which nevertheless controls and includes them all. + +I wish that I could take as the illustration of this statement animals +with whose structure the least scientific of my readers might be +presumed to be familiar; but such a comparison of the Vertebrates, +showing the identity and relation of structural elements throughout +the Branch, or even in any one of its Classes, would be too extensive +and complicated, and I must resort to the Radiates,--that branch of the +Animal Kingdom which, though less generally known, has the simplest +structural elements. + +I will take, then, for the further illustration of my subject, the +Radiates, and especially the class of Echinoderms, Star-Fishes, +Sea-Urchins, and the like, both in the fossil and the living types; and +though some special description of these animals is absolutely +essential, I will beg my readers to remember that the general idea, +and not its special manifestations, is the thing I am aiming at, and +that, if we analyze the special parts characteristic of these +different groups, it is only that we may resolve them back again into +the structural plan that includes them all. + +I have already in a previous article named the different Orders of this +Class in their relative rank, and have compared the standing of the +living ones, according to the greater or less complication of their +structure, with the succession of the fossil ones. Of the five Orders, +Beches-de-Mer, Sea-Urchins, Star-Fishes, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--or, to name them all according to their scientific +nomenclature, Holothurians, Echinoids, Asteroids, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--the last-named are lowest in structure and earliest in time. +Cuvier was the first naturalist who detected the true nature of the +Crinoids, and placed them where they belong in the classification of +the Animal Kingdom. They had been observed before, and long and +laborious investigations had been undertaken upon them, but they were +especially baffling to the student, because they were known only in the +fossil condition from incomplete specimens; and though they still have +their representatives among the type of Echinoderms as it exists at +present, yet, partly owing to the rarity of the living specimens and +partly to the imperfect condition of the fossil ones, the relation +between them was not recognized. The errors about them certainly did +not arise from any want of interest in the subject among naturalists, +for no less than three hundred and eighty different authors have +published their investigations upon the Crinoids, and the books that +have been printed about these animals, many of which were written long +before their animal nature was suspected, would furnish a library in +themselves. The ancients knew little about them. The only one to be +found in the European seas resembles the Star-Fish closely, and they +called it Asterias; but even Aristotle was ignorant of its true +structural relations, and alludes only to its motion and general +appearance. Some account of the gradual steps by which naturalists have +deciphered the true nature of these lowest Echinoderms and their +history in past times may not be without interest, and is very +instructive as showing bow such problems may be solved. + +In the sixteenth century some stones were found bearing the impression +of a star on their surface. They received the name of Trochites, and +gave rise to much discussion. Naturalists puzzled their brains about +them, called them star-shaped crystals, aquatic plants, corals; and to +these last Linnaeus himself, the great authority of the time on all +such questions, referred them. Beside these stony stars, which were +found in great quantities when attention was once called to them, +impressions of a peculiar kind had been observed in the rocks, +resembling flowers on long stems, and called "stone lilies" naturally +enough, for their long, graceful stems, terminating either in a +branching crown or a closer cup, recall the lily tribe among flowers. +The long stems of these seeming lilies are divided transversely at +regular intervals;--the stem is easily broken at any of these natural +divisions, and on each such fragment is stamped a star-like impression +resembling those found upon the loose stones or Trochites. + +About a century ago, Guettard the naturalist described a curious +specimen from Porto Rico, so similar to these fossil lilies of the +rocks that he believed they must have some relation to each other. He +did not detect its animal nature, but from its long stem and branching +crown he called it a marine palm. Thus far neither the true nature of +the living specimen, nor of the Trochites, nor of the fossil lilies +was understood, but it was nevertheless an important step to have found +that there was a relation between them. A century passed away, and +Guettard's specimen, preserved at the Jardin des Plantes, waited with +Sphinx-like patience for the man who should solve its riddle. + +Cuvier, who held the key to so many of the secrets of Nature, detected +at last its true structure; he pronounced it to be a Star-Fish with a +stem, and at once the three series of facts respecting the Trochites, +the fossil lilies, and Guettard's marine palm assumed their true +relation to each other. The Troehites were recognized as simply the +broken portions of the stem of some of these old fossil Crinoids, and +the Crinoids themselves were seen to be the ancient representatives of +the present Comatulae and Star-Fishes with stems. So is it often with +the study of Nature; many scattered links are collected before the man +comes who sees the connection between them and speaks the word that +reconstructs the broken chain. + +I will begin my comparison of all Echinoderms with an analysis of the +Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, because I think I can best show the +identity of parts between them, notwithstanding the difference in +their external form; the Sea-Urchins having always a spherical body, +while the Star-Fishes are always star-shaped, though in some the star +is only hinted at, sketched out, as it were, in a simply pentagonal +outline, while in others the indentations between the rays are very +deep, and the rays themselves so intricate in their ramifications as to +be broken up into a complete net-work of branches. But under all this +variety of outline, our problem remains always the same: to build with +the same number of pieces a star and a sphere, having the liberty, +however, of cutting the pieces differently and changing their relative +proportions. Let us take first the Sea-Urchin and examine in detail +all parts of its external structure. I shall say nothing of the +internal structure of any of these animals, because it does not affect +the comparison of their different forms and the external arrangement of +parts, which is the subject of the present article. + +On the lower side is the mouth, and we may call that side and all the +parts that radiate from it the oral region. On the upper side is a +small area to which the parts converge, and which, from its position +just opposite the so-called mouth or oral opening, we may call the +_ab-oral region_. I prefer these more general terms, because, if +we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the +higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture +through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very +naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts +of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in +all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called +the mouth, though there is not the least structural relation between +the organs so designated, except within the limits of each different +branch or division. To speak of these opposite regions in the +Sea-Urchin as the upper and lower sides would equally mislead us, +since, as we have seen, there is, properly speaking, no above and +below, no right and left sides, no front and hind extremities in these +animals, all parts being evenly distributed around a vertical axis. I +will, therefore, although it has been my wish to avoid technicalities +as much as possible in these papers, make use of the unfamiliar terms +oral and ab-oral regions, to indicate the mouth with the parts +diverging from it and the opposite area towards which all these parts +converge. [Footnote: When reference is made to the whole structure, +including the internal organs as well as the solid parts of the +surface, the terms _actinal_ and _ab-actinal_ are preferable +to oral and ab-oral.] + +[Illustration: Sea-Urchin seen from the oral side, showing the zones +with the spines and suckers; for the ab-oral side, on the summit of +which the zones unite, see February Number, p. 216.] + +The whole surface of the animal is divided by zones,--ten in number, +five broader ones alternating with five narrower ones. The five broad +zones are composed of large plates on which are the most prominent +spines, attached to tubercles that remain on the surface even when the +spines drop off after death, and mark the places where the spines have +been. The five small zones are perforated with regular rows of holes, +and through these perforations pass the suckers or water-tubes which +are their locomotive appendages. For this reason these narrower zones +are called the _ambulacra_, while the broader zones intervening +between them and supporting the spines are called the +_interambulacra_. Motion, however, is not the only function of +these suckers; they are subservient also to respiration and +circulation, taking in water, which is conveyed through them into +various parts of the body. + +[Illustration: Portion of Sea-Urchin representing one narrow zone with +a part of the broad zones on either side and the ab-oral area on the +summit.] + +The oral aperture is occupied by five plates, which may be called jaws, +remembering always that here again this word signifies the function, +and not the structure usually associated with the presence of jaws in +the higher animals; and each of these jaws or plates terminates in a +tooth. Even the mode of eating in these animals is controlled by their +radiate structure; for these jaws, evenly distributed about the +circular oral aperture, open to receive the prey and then are brought +together to crush it, the points meeting in the centre, thus working +concentrically, instead of moving up and down or from right to left, +as in other animals. From the oral opening the ten zones diverge, +spreading over the whole surface, like the ribs on a melon, and +converging in the opposite direction till they meet in the small space +which we have called the ab-oral region opposite the starting-point. + +Here the broad zones terminate in five large plates differing somewhat +from those that form the zones in other parts of the body, and called +ovarian plates, because the eggs pass out through certain openings in +them; while the five narrow zones terminate in five small plates on +each of which is an eye, making thus five eyes alternating with five +ovarian plates. The centre of this area containing the ovarian plates +and the visual plates is filled up with small movable plates closing +the space between them. I should add that one of the five ovarian +plates is larger than the other four, and has a peculiar structure, +long a puzzle to naturalists. It is perforated with minute holes, +forming an exceedingly delicate sieve, and this is actually the purpose +it serves. It is, as it were, a filter, and opens into a canal which +conducts water through the interior of the body; closed by this sieve +on the outside, all the water that passes into it is purified from all +foreign substances that might be injurious to the animal, and is thus +fitted to pass into the water-system, from which arise the main +branches leading to the minute suckers which project through the holes +in the narrow zones of plates. + +[Illustration: Star-Fish from the ab-oral side.] + +Now in order to transform theoretically our Sea-Urchin into a +Star-Fish, what have we to do? Let the reader imagine for a moment that +the small ab-oral area closing the space between the ovarian plates and +the eye-plates is elastic and may be stretched out indefinitely; then +split the five broad zones along the centre and draw them down to the +same level with the mouth, carrying the ovarian plates between them. +We have then a star, just as, dividing, for instance, the peel of an +orange into five compartments, leaving them, of course, united at the +base, then stripping it off and spreading it out flat, we should have a +five-rayed star. + +[Illustration: One arm of Star-Fish from the oral side.] + +But in thus dividing the broad zones of the Sea-Urchins, we leave the +narrow zones in their original relation to them, except that every +narrow zone, instead of being placed between two broad zones, has now +one-half of each of the zones with which it alternated in the +Sea-Urchin on either side of it and lies between them. The adjoining +wood-cut represents a single ray of a Star-Fish, drawn from what we +call its lower side or the oral side. Along the centre of every such +ray, diverging from the central opening or the mouth, we have a +furrow, corresponding exactly to the narrower zones of the Sea-Urchin. +It is composed of comparatively small perforated plates through which +pass the suckers or locomotive appendages. On either side of the +furrows are other plates corresponding to the plates of the broad zones +in the Sea-Urchin. Where shall we look for the five eyes? Of course, at +the tip of every ray; exactly where they were when the rays were drawn +up to form the summit of a sphere, so that the eyes, which are now at +their extremities, were clustered together at their point of meeting. +Where shall we look for the ovarian plates? At each angle of the five +rays, because, when the broad zones of which they formed the summit +were divided, they followed the split, and now occupy the place which, +though it seems so different on the surface of the Star-Fish, is +nevertheless, relatively to the rest of the body, the same as they +occupied in the Sea-Urchin. Assuming, as we premised, that the central +area of the ab-oral region, forming the space between the plates at the +summit of the zones in the Sea-Urchin, is elastic, it has stretched +with the spreading out of the zones, following the indentation between +the rays, and now forms the whole upper surface of the body. All the +internal organs of the animal lie between the oral and ab-oral +regions, just as they did in the Sea-Urchin, only that in the Star- +Fish these regions are coequal in extent, while in the Sea-Urchin the +ab-oral region is very contracted, and the oral region with the parts +belonging to it occupies the greater part of its surface. + +Such being the identity of parts between a Star-Fish and a Sea-Urchin, +let us see now how the Star-Fish may be transformed into the +Pedunculated Crinoid, the earliest representative of its Class, or +into a Comatula, one of the free animals that represent the Crinoids in +our day. + +[Illustration: Crinoid with branching crown; oral side turned upward.] + +We have seen that in the Sea-Urchins the ab-oral region is very +contracted, the oral region and the parts radiating from it and forming +the sides being the predominant features in the structure; and we +shall find, as we proceed in our comparison, that the different +proportion of these three parts, the oral and ab-oral regions and the +sides, determines the different outlines of the various Orders in this +Class. In the Sea-Urchin the oral region and the sides are predominant, +while the ab-oral region is very small. In the Star-Fish, the oral and +ab-oral regions are brought into equal relations, neither +preponderating over the other, and the sides are compressed, so that, +seen in profile, the outline of the Star-Fish is that of a slightly +convex disk, instead of a sphere, as in the Sea-Urchin. But when we +come to the Crinoids, we find that the great preponderance of the +ab-oral region determines all that peculiarity of form that +distinguishes them from the other Echinoderms, while the oral region is +comparatively insignificant. The ab-oral region in the Crinoid rises +to form a sort of cup-like or calyx-like projection. The plates forming +it, which in the Star-Fish or the Sea-Urchin are movable, are soldered +together so as to be perfectly immovable in the Crinoid. Let this +seeming calyx be now prolonged into a stem, and we see at once how +striking is the resemblance to a flower; turn it downwards, an attitude +which is natural to these Crinoids, and the likeness to a drooping +lily is still more remarkable The oral region, with the radiating +ambulacra, is now limited to the small flat area opposite the juncture +of the stem with the calyx; and whether it stretches out to form long +arms, or is more compact, so as to close the calyx like a cup, it +seems in either case to form a flower-like crown. In these groups of +Echinoderms the interambulacral plates are absent; there are no rows +of plates of a different kind alternating with the ambulacral ones, as +in the Sea-Urchins and the Star-Fishes, but the ab-oral region closes +immediately upon the ambulacra. + +It seems a contradiction to say, that, though these Crinoids were the +only representatives of their Class in the early geological ages, +while it includes five Orders at the present time, Echinoderms were as +numerous and various then as now. But, paradoxical as it may seem, this +is nevertheless true, not only for this Class, but for many others in +the Animal Kingdom. The same numerical proportions, the same richness +and vividness of conception were manifested in the early creation as +now; and though many of the groups were wanting that are most prominent +in modern geological periods, those that existed were expressed in such +endless variety that the Animal Kingdom seems to have been as full +then as it is to-day. The Class of the Echinoderms is one of the most +remarkable instances of this. In the Silurian period, the Crinoids +stood alone; there were neither Ophiurans, Asteroids, Echinoids, nor +Holothurians; and yet in one single locality, Lockport, in the State +of New York, over an area of not more than a few square miles, where +the Silurian deposits have been carefully examined, there have been +found more different Species of Echinoderms than are living now along +our whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. + +There is nothing more striking in these early populations of the earth +than the richness of the types. It would seem as if, before the world +was prepared for the manifold existences that find their home here now, +when organic life was limited by the absence of many of the present +physical conditions, the whole wealth of the Creative Thought lavished +itself upon the forms already introduced upon the globe. After thirty +years' study of the fossil Crinoids, I am every day astonished by some +new evidence of the ingenuity, the invention, the skill, if I may so +speak, shown in varying this single pattern of animal life. When one +has become, by long study of Nature, in some sense intimate with the +animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate +action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties +it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis, +of reminiscence and prophecy, of that which has been in eternal harmony +with that which is to be; and while we stand in reverence before the +grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it +such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and +vividness of color, nay, even the ripple of mirthfulness,--for Nature +has its humorous side also,--that we lose our grasp of its completeness +in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its +marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus +characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from +the exercise of our own mental faculties; but it is nevertheless true, +that, the nearer we come to Nature, the more does it seem to us that +all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty +Mind, and that the eternal archetypes of all manifestations of thought +in man are found in the Creation of which he is the crowning work. + +In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more +striking than in the Crinoids. They seem like the productions of one +who handles his work with an infinite ease and delight, taking pleasure +in presenting the same thought under a thousand different aspects. +Some new cut of the plates, some slight change in their relative +position is constantly varying their outlines, from a close cup to an +open crown, from the long pear-shaped oval of the calyx in some to its +circular or square or pentagonal form in others. An angle that is +simple in one projects by a fold of the surface and becomes a fluted +column in another; a plate that was smooth but now has here a +symmetrical figure upon it drawn in beaded lines; the stem which is +perfectly unbroken in one, except by the transverse divisions common to +them all, in the next puts out feathery plumes at every such transverse +break. In some the plates of the stem are all rigid and firmly soldered +together; in others they are articulated upon each other in such a +manner as to give it the greatest flexibility, and allow the seeming +flower to wave and bend upon its stalk. It would require an endless +number of illustrations to give even a faint idea of the variety of +these fossil Crinoids. There is no change that the fancy can suggest +within the limits of the same structure that does not find expression +among them. Since I have become intimate with their wonderful +complications, I have sometimes amused myself with anticipating some +new variation of the theme, by the introduction of some undescribed +structural complication, and then seeking for it among the specimens +at my command, and I have never failed to find it in one or other of +these ever-changing forms. + +The modern Crinoid without stem, or the Comatula, though agreeing with +the ancient in all the essential elements of structure, differs from it +in some specific features. It drops its stem when full-grown, though +the ab-oral region still remains the predominant part of the body and +retains its cup-like or calyx-like form. The Comatulae are not +abundant, and though represented by a number of Species, yet the type +as it exists at present is meagre in comparison to its richness in +former times. Indeed, this group of Echinoderms, which in the earliest +periods was the exponent of all its kind, has dwindled gradually, in +proportion as other representatives of the Class have come in, and +there exists only one species now, the Pentacrinus of the West Indies, +which retains its stem in its adult condition. It is a singular fact, +to which I have before alluded, and which would seem to have especial +reference to the maintenance of the same numeric proportions in all +times, that, while a Class is represented by few types, those types are +wonderfully rich and varied, but in proportion as other expressions of +the same structure are introduced, the first dwindle, and, if they do +not entirely disappear, become at least much less prominent than +before. + +[Illustration: Ophiuran; showing one ray from the oral side.] + +There remain only two other Orders to be considered, the Ophiurans and +the Holothurians. The Ophiurans approach the Crinoids more nearly than +any other group of Echinoderms, and in our classifications are placed +next above them. In them the ab-oral region, which has such a +remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no +longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like +or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids,--though, +when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite +convex. The disk in the Ophiurans is small in comparison to the length +of the arms, and perfectly circular; it does not merge gradually in the +arms as in the Star-Fish, but the arms start abruptly from its +periphery. In these, as in the Crinoids, the interambulacral plates are +absent, and the interambulacral spaces are filled by an encroachment of +the ab-oral region upon them. There is an infinite variety and beauty +both of form and color in these Sea-Stars. The arms frequently measure +many times the diameter of the whole disk, and are so different in +size and ornamentation in the different Species that at first sight +one might take them for animals entirely distinct from each other. In +some the arms are comparatively short and quite simple,--in others +they are very long, and may be either stretched to their full length or +partly contracted to form a variety of graceful curves; in some they +are fringed all along the edges,--in others they are so ramified that +every arm seems like a little bush, as it were, and, intertwining with +each other, they make a thick network all around the animal. In the +geological succession, these Ophiurans follow the Crinoids, being +introduced at about the Carboniferous period, and perhaps earlier. +They have had their representatives in all succeeding times, and are +still very numerous in the present epoch. + +To show the correspondence of the Holothurians with the typical formula +of the whole class of Echinoderms, I will return to the Sea-Urchins, +since they are more nearly allied with that Order than with any of the +other groups. We have seen that the Sea-Urchins approach most nearly to +the sphere, and that in them the oral region and the sides predominate +so greatly over the ab-oral region that the latter is reduced to a +small area on the summit of the sphere. In order to transform the +Sea-Urchin into a Holothurian, we have only to stretch it out from end +to end till it becomes a cylinder, with the oral region or mouth at +one extremity, and the ab-oral region, which in the Holothurian is +reduced to its minimum, at the other. The zones of the Sea-Urchin now +extend as parallel rows on the Holothurian, running from one end to the +other of the long cylindrical body. On account of their form, some of +them have been taken for Worms, and so classified by naturalists; but +as soon as their true structure was understood, which agrees in every +respect with that of the other Echinoderms, and has no affinity +whatever with the articulated structure of the Worms, they found their +true place in our classifications. + +[Illustration: Holothurian.] + +The natural attitude of these animals is different from that of the +other Echinoderms: they lie on one side, and move with the oral +opening forward, and this has been one cause of the mistakes as to +their true nature. But when we would compare animals, we should place +them, not in the attitude which is natural to them in their native +element, but in what I would call their normal position,--that is, such +a position as brings the corresponding parts in all into the same +relation. For instance, the natural attitude of the Crinoid is with +the ab-oral region downward, attached to a stem, and the oral region or +mouth upward; the Ophiuran turns its oral region, along which all the +suckers or ambulacra are arranged, toward the surface along which it +moves; the Star-Fish does the same; the Sea-Urchin also has its oral +opening downward; but the Holothurian moves on one side, mouth +foremost, as represented in the adjoining wood-cut, dragging itself +onward, like all the rest, by means of its rows of suckers. If, now, we +compare these animals in the various attitudes natural to them, we may +fail to recognize the identity of parts, or, at least, it will not +strike us at once. But if we place them all--Holothurian, Sea-Urchin, +Star-Fish, Ophiuran, and Crinoid--with the oral or mouth side +downward, for instance, we shall see immediately that the small area at +the opposite end of the Holothurian corresponds to the area on the top +of the Sea-Urchin; that the upper side of the Star-Fish is the same +region enlarged; that, in the Ophiuran, that region makes one side of +the small circular disk; while in the Crinoid it is enlarged and +extended to make the calyx-like projection and stem. In the same way, +if we place them in the same attitude, we shall see that the long, +straight rows of suckers along the length of the Holothurian, and the +arching zones of suckers on the spherical body of the Sea-Urchin, and +the furrows with the suckers protruding from them along the arms of +the Star-Fish and Ophiuran, and the radiating series of pores from the +oral opening in the Crinoid are one and the same thing in all, only +altered somewhat in their relative proportion and extent. Around the +oral opening of the Holothurian there are appendages capable of the +most extraordinary changes, which seem at first to be peculiar to these +animals, and to have no affinity with any corresponding feature in the +same Class. But a closer investigation has shown them to be only +modifications of the locomotive suckers of the Star-Fish and +Sea-Urchin, but ramifying to such an extent as to assume the form of +branching feelers. The little tufts projecting from the oral side in +the Sea-Urchins, described as gills, are another form of the same kind +of appendage. + +The Holothurians have not the hard, brittle surface of the other +Echinoderms; on the contrary, their envelope is tough and leathery, +capable of great contraction and dilatation. No idea can be formed of +the beauty of these animals either from dried specimens or from those +preserved in alcohol. Of course, in either case, they lose their color, +become shrunken, and the movable appendages about the mouth shrivel up. +One who had seen the Holothurian only as preserved in museums would be +amazed at the spectacle of the living animal, especially if his first +introduction should be to one of the deep, rich crimson-colored +species, such as are found in quantities in the Bay of Fundy. I have +seen such an animal, when first thrown into a tank of sea-water, remain +for a while closely contracted, looking like a soft crimson ball. +Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as it becomes accustomed to its new +position, it begins to elongate; the fringes creep softly out, +spreading gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal +seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate +tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals +are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on +the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring +than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion +surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The +habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily growing constantly +more popular, and before long the beauty of these inhabitants of the +ocean will be as familiar to us as that of Birds and Insects. Many of +the most beautiful among them are, however, difficult to obtain, and +not easily kept alive in confinement, so that they are not often seen +in aquariums. + +Having thus endeavored to sketch each different kind of Echinoderm, let +us try to forget them all in their individuality, and think only of the +structural formula that applies equally to each. In all, the body has +three distinct regions, the oral, the ab-oral, and the sides; but by +giving a predominance to one or other of these regions, a variety of +outlines characteristic of the different groups is produced. In all, +the parts radiate from the oral opening, and join in the ab-oral +region. In all, this radiation is accompanied by rows of suckers +following the line of the diverging rays. It is always the same +structure, but, endowed with the freedom of life, it is never +monotonous, notwithstanding its absolute permanence. In short, drop +off the stem of the Crinoid, and depress its calyx to form a flat disk, +and we have an Ophiuran; expand that disk, and let it merge gradually +in the arms, and we have a Star-Fish; draw up the rays of the +Star-Fish, and unite them at the tips so as to form a spherical +outline, and we have a Sea-Urchin; stretch out the Sea-Urchin to form +a cylinder, and we have a Holothurian. + +And now let me ask,--Is it my ingenuity that has imposed upon these +structures the conclusion I have drawn from them?--have I so combined +them in my thought that they have become to me a plastic form, out of +which I draw a Crinoid, an Ophiuran, a Star-Fish, a Sea-Urchin, or a +Holothurian at will? or is this structural idea inherent in them all, +so that every observer who has a true insight into their organization +must find it written there? Had our scientific results anything to do +with our invention, every naturalist's conclusions would be colored +by his individual opinions; but when we find all naturalists +converging more and more towards each other, arriving, as their +knowledge increases, at exactly the same views, then we must believe +that these structures are the Creative Ideas in living reality. In +other words, so far as there is truth in them, our systems are what +they are, not because Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, or all the men who +ever studied Nature, have so thought and so expressed their thought, +but because God so thought and so expressed His thought in material +forms when He laid the plan of Creation, and when man himself existed +only in the intellectual conception of his Maker. + + + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +II. + +THE WEDDING. + +In her satin gown so fine +Trips the bride within the shrine. +Waits the street to see her pass, +Like a vision in a glass. +Roses crown her peerless head: +Keep your lilies for the dead! + +Something of the light without +Enters with her, veiled about; +Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, +Please themselves with silken wear; +Shadows point to what shall be +In the dim futurity. + +Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke +Might of mortal never broke! +From the altar of her vows +To the grave's unsightly house +Measured is the path, and made; +All the work is planned and paid. + +As a girl, with ready smile, +Where shall rise some ponderous pile, +On the chosen, festal day, +Turns the initial sod away, +So the bride with fingers frail +Founds a temple or a jail,-- + +Or a palace, it may be, +Flooded full with luxury, +Open yet to deadliest things, +And the Midnight Angel's wings. +Keep its chambers purged with prayer: +Faith can guard it, Love is rare. + +Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! +Priest, recite the sacred runes! +Hast no ghostly help nor art +Can enrich a selfish heart, +Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, +Joy with bloom for bargain sold? + +Hail, the wedded task of life! +Mending husband, moulding wife. +Hope brings labor, labor peace; +Wisdom ripens, goods increase; +Triumph crowns the sainted head, +And our lilies wait the dead. + + * * * * * + + +FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER. + + +I. + +The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor +reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow +his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of +satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the +Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches +of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, +fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone +fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days, +but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a +New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the +scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted +how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up +and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and +Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the +hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the +spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers +of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible +lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and +waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson. + +Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world,--that is, so +much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his own +sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on its +borders, he neither knew, nor cared to know, much more of the human +race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun. In the +discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on +the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling +brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County, invariably +blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was one of the best +on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest +of a few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on real +estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him in the consideration +she enjoyed within the limits of the sect; and his two children, Moses +and Asenath, vindicated the paternal training by the strictest sobriety +of dress and conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways led +him among "the world's people"; and Asenath had never been known to +wear, or to express a desire for, a ribbon of a brighter tint than +brown or fawn-color. Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his +sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and +looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation +into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild +voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions. + +He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy +square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the +Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and +grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made +him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among +men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of +swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained, +and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his +home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited +quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines, +gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set +forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the +hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level +of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from +trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge +of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were +grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted +squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane. + +The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a green little hollow +just below it, the walled garden, with its clumps of box and lilac, and +the vast barn on the left, all joined in expressing a silent welcome to +their owner, as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five, left +his work in the garden, and walked forward in his shirt-sleeves. + +"Well, father, how does thee do?" was his quiet greeting, as they shook +hands. + +"How's mother, by this time?" asked Eli. + +"Oh, thee needn't have been concerned," said the son. "There she is. Go +in: I'll 'tend to the horse." + +Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a woman +of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth, placid beauty +of countenance which had survived her youth. She was dressed in a +simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so +scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with her for six +months without ever discovering a spot on the former or an uneven fold +in the latter. Asenath, who followed, was almost as plainly attired, +her dress being a dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard +sun-bonnet, with broad cape, covered her head. + +"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to his +wife. + +"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome. + +No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had +witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life,--after +the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with a peculiar +sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a +season of tribulation, and therefore was too earnest to be profaned to +the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal embrace, +she would have felt, had it been given, like the doomed daughter of the +Gileadite, consecrated to sacrifice. + +Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings of the +Meeting, and to receive personal news of the many friends whom Eli had +seen; but they asked few questions until the supper table was ready and +Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it +must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until +the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee +the inspiration came. Hovering, at first, over indifferent details, he +gradually approached those of more importance,--told of the addresses +which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony +borne, and the appearance and genealogy of any new Friends who had +taken a prominent part therein. Finally, at the close of his relation, +he said,-- + +"Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about. Friend +Speakman's partner--perhaps thee's heard of him, Richard Hilton--has a +son who is weakly. He's two or three years younger than Moses. His +mother was consumptive, and they're afraid he takes after her. His +father wants to send him into the country for the summer,--to some +place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate exercise, and +Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought I'd mention it to thee, and if +thee thinks well of it, we can send word down next week, when Josiah +Comly goes." + +"What does _thee_ think?" asked his wife, after a pause. + +"He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman says, and would +be very little trouble to thee. I thought perhaps his board would buy +the new yoke of oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat +ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to decide." + +"I suppose we could take him," said Abigail, seeing that the decision +was virtually made already; "there's the corner-room, which we don't +often use. Only, if he should get worse on our hands"-- + +"Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He's only weak-breasted, as +yet, and clerking isn't good for him. I saw the young man at the store. +If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly." + +So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an inmate +of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer. + + +II. + +At the end of ten days he came. + +In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of +three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. +Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered +him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an +invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin +crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's case, it +was already broken before his arrival. His only embarrassment, in +fact, arose from the difficulty which he naturally experienced in +adapting himself to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The +greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar +and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally +of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like a +new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position among +them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or +at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was not easy for him to assume, +at such short notice, those of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath +as "Miss Mitchenor," Eli turned to him with a rebuking face. + +"We do not use compliments, Richard," said he; "my daughter's name is +Asenath." + +"I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your ways, since you +have been so kind as to take me for a while," apologized Richard +Hilton. + +"Thee's under no obligation to us," said Friend Mitchenor, in his +strict sense of justice; "thee pays for what thee gets." + +The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose. + +"We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard," she remarked, +with a kind expression of face, which had the effect of a smile; "but +our ways are plain and easily learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're +no respecters of persons." + +It was some days, however, before the young man could overcome his +natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of +speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but +it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such +sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either +extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt Mitchenor." +On the other hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won the +confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally busied +himself in the garden, by way of exercise, or accompanied Moses to the +cornfield or the woodland on the hill, but was careful never to +interfere at inopportune times, and willing to learn silently, by the +simple process of looking on. + +One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated +the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of +chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow workbasket on +her arm, issued from the house. As she approached him, she paused and +said,-- + +"The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard. If thee's strong +enough to walk to the village and back, it might do thee more good than +sitting still." + +Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall. + +"Certainly I am able to go," said he, "if you will allow it." + +"Haven't I asked thee?" was her quiet reply. + +"Let me carry your basket," he said, suddenly, after they had walked, +side by side, some distance down the lane. + +"Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and +some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee +mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,--I'm told,--if +they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, +thee mustn't over-exert thy strength." + +Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered +the last sentence. + +"Why, Miss--Asenath, I mean--what am I good for, if I have not strength +enough to carry a basket?" + +"Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be +thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's +only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely +nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of." + +While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in order, +unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his steps. + +"Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom!" she exclaimed, +pointing to a shady spot beside the brook; "does thee know them?" + +Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a handful of the +nodding yellow bells, trembling above their large, cool, spotted +leaves. + +"How beautiful they are!" said he; "but I should never have taken them +for violets." + +"They are misnamed," she answered. "The flower is an +_Erythronium_; but I am accustomed to the common name, and like +it. Did thee ever study botany?" + +"Not at all--I can tell a geranium, when I see it, and I know a +heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a +rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable +distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew +something about them." + +"If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to learn. I think a +study of this kind would pleasantly occupy thy mind. Why couldn't thee +try? I would be very willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not +much, indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show thee how +simple the principles are." + +Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath, as they slowly +walked forward, proceeded to dissect it, explained the mysteries of +stamens and pistils, pollen, petals, and calyx, and, by the time they +had reached the village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of +the Linnaean system of classification. His mind took hold of the +subject with a prompt and profound interest. It was a new and wonderful +world which suddenly opened before him. How surprised he was to learn +that there were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected from +a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed, that the gray +lichens on the rocks belonged to the vegetable kingdom! His respect for +Asenath's knowledge thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her +youth and sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal, friend; and +the simple, candid manner which was the natural expression of her +dignity and purity thoroughly harmonized with this relation. + +Although, in reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a +gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of +mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before +observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well +imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted +dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual +griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had +developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded +below the reach of tides and storms. + +She would have been very much surprised, if any one had called her +handsome; yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive beauty, which seemed to +grow and deepen from day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek +standard, it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine and +straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled, and the lips +calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown hair, parted over a high +white forehead, was smoothly laid across the temples, drawn behind the +ears, and twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sunbonnet +gave her face a nun-like character, which set her apart, in the +thoughts of "the world's people" whom she met, as one sanctified for +some holy work. She might have gone around the world, repelling every +rude word, every bold glance, by the protecting atmosphere of purity +and truth which inclosed her. + +The days went by, each bringing some new blossom to adorn and +illustrate the joint studies of the young man and maiden. For Richard +Hilton had soon mastered the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla +Wakefield,--the only source of Asenath's knowledge,--and entered, with +her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he procured from +Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken her in his knowledge of the +technicalities of the science, her practical acquaintance with plants +and their habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring the +meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought home his discoveries +to enjoy her aid in classifying and assigning them to their true +places. Asenath had generally an hour or two of leisure from domestic +duties in the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was over; +and sometimes, on "Seventh-days," she would be his guide to some +locality where the rarer plants were known to exist. The parents saw +this community of interest and exploration without a thought of +misgiving. They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any +possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed by the +absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued his study. An +earnest discussion as to whether a certain leaf was ovate or +lanceolate, whether a certain plant belonged to the species +_scandens_ or _canadensis_, was, in their eyes, convincing +proof that the young brains were touched, and therefore _not_ the +young hearts. + +But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical +emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study +requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of +communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that +his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams, +even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the +possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from the +genial season, the pure country air, and the release from gloomy +thoughts which his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a +future--though brief, perhaps, still a _future_--began to glimmer +before him. If this could be his life,--an endless summer, with a +search for new plants every morning, and their classification every +evening, with Asenath's help, on the shady portico of Friend +Mitchenor's house,--he could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of +life unthinkingly. + +The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis and trillium +followed, then the yellow gerardias and the feathery purple pogonias, +and finally the growing gleam of the golden-rods along the wood-side +and the red umbels of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced the +close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection, +brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed,-- + +"Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year." + +"What sign?" he asked. + +"That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then +nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and +golden-rods." + +Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life +would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets, +its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. How could +he give up the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed through +the summer? The question suddenly took a more definite form in his +mind: How could he give up Asenath? Yes,--the quiet, unsuspecting girl, +sitting beside him, with her lap full of the September blooms he had +gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life. Pure and beautiful +as she was, almost sacred in his regard, his heart dared to say.--"I +need her and claim her!" + +"Thee looks pale to-night, Richard," said Abigail, as they took their +seats at the supper-table. "I hope thee has not taken cold." + + +III. + +"Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the rudbeckias grow," said +Asenath, on the following "Seventh-day" afternoon. + +They crossed the meadows, and followed the course of the stream, under +its canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the +hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall +autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like +young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia, +tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike +of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive +sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves +dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer streaming from its bushy +fringe, gurgled over the pebbles in its bed. Here and there, on its +banks, shone the deep yellow stars of the flower they sought. + +Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically plucking a stem of +rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently, into the water. + +"Why, Richard! what's thee doing?" cried Asenath; "thee has thrown away +the very best specimen." + +"Let it go," he answered, sadly. "I am afraid everything else is thrown +away." + +"What does thee mean?" she asked, with a look of surprised and anxious +inquiry. + +"Don't ask me, Asenath. Or--yes, I _will_ tell you. I must say it +to you now, or never afterwards. Do you know what a happy life I've +been leading since I came here?--that I've learned what life is, as if +I'd never known it before? I want to live, Asenath,--and do you know +why?" + +"I hope thee will live, Richard," she said, gently and tenderly, her +deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed tears. + +"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't understand +that, because you do not know what you are to me. No, you never guessed +that all this while I've been loving you more and more, until now I +have no other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you, not +to share your life!" + +"Oh, Richard!" + +"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this to +myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb the +peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take it back, +if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for loving +you,--forgive me now and every day of my life." + +He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on the +edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight frame +trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had become very +pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and brow as +she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered flowers fell from her +hands, and she hid her face. For a few minutes no sound was heard but +the liquid gurgling of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the +thicket beside them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice of +hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name,-- + +"Asenath!" + +She took away her hands and slowly lifted her face. She was pale, but +her eyes met his with a frank, appealing, tender expression, which +caused his heart to stand still a moment. He read no reproach, no +faintest thought of blame; but--was it pity?--was it pardon?--or-- + +"We stand before God, Richard," said she, in a low, sweet, solemn tone. +"He knows that I do not need to forgive thee. If thee requires it, I +also require His forgiveness for myself." + +Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow, she met his gaze with +the bravery of a pure and innocent heart. Richard, stunned with the +sudden and unexpected bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of +it into a being which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first +impulse was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his arms, and +hold her in the embrace which encircled, for him, the boundless promise +of life; but she stood there, defenceless, save in her holy truth and +trust, and his heart bowed down and gave her reverence. + +"Asenath," said he, at last, "I never dared to hope for this. God bless +you for those words! Can you trust me?--can you indeed love me?" + +"I can trust thee,--I do love thee!" + +They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging pressure. No kiss +was given, but side by side they walked slowly up the dewy meadows, in +happy and hallowed silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old +farm-house appeared through the trees. + +"Father and mother must know of this, Richard," said she. "I am afraid +it may be a cross to them." + +The same fear had already visited his own mind, but he answered, +cheerfully,-- + +"I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of life, and shall soon +be strong enough to satisfy them. Besides, my father is in prosperous +business." + +"It is not that," she answered; "but thee is not one of us." + +It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim +candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence +was attributed to fatigue. + +The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring +Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various +special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting +parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers +which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was +taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him. + +"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with +thee." + +"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a +seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand. + +"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to +approach so important a crisis in his life, + +"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live +with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man." + +"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does +thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say +against thee." + +"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and +she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my +hands?" + +"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker, +with a face too amazed to express any other feeling. + +"Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care? I love her with my +whole heart and soul, and the fortune of my life depends on your +answer." + +The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow deeper and more +rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill glitter of steel. Richard, not +daring to say a word more, awaited his reply in intense agitation. + +"So!" he exclaimed at last, "this is the way thee's repaid me! I didn't +expect _this_ from thee! Has thee spoken to her?" + +"I have." + +"Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded her to think as +thee does. Thee'd better never have come here. When I want to lose my +daughter, and can't find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know." + +"What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?" Richard sadly asked, +forgetting, in his excitement, the Quaker speech he had learned. + +"Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall be a Friend while +_I_ live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings and vanities are not +for her. Thee belongs to the world, and thee may choose one of the +world's women." + +"Never!" protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor was already ascending +the garden-steps on his way to the house. + +The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to the nearest grove and +threw himself on the ground. Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion, +unable to grasp any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards +evening, he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It was Moses. + +The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents, and expected +to "pass meeting" in a few weeks. He knew what had happened, and felt a +sincere sympathy for Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His +face was very grave, but kind. + +"Thee'd better come in, Richard," said he; "the evenings are damp, and +I've brought thy overcoat I know everything, and I feel that it must be +a great cross for thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it." + +"Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?" he asked, in +a tone of despondency which anticipated the answer. + +"Father's very hard to move," said Moses; "and when mother and Asenath +can't prevail on him, nobody else need try. I'm afraid thee must make +up thy mind to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think +thee'd better go back to town." + +"I'll go to-morrow,--go and die!" he muttered hoarsely, as he followed +Moses to the house. + +Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed his +hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an Iceland +rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and +his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the +morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went +up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the +farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him. + +"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as +he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the +village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word +of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved +face, he was taken away. + + +IV. + +True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor, +the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind. +It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard +Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the +few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely +dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it +back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when +he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it +there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its +folded leaves. If that day came not, she would at the last give it back +to God, saying, "Father, here is Thy most precious gift: bestow it as +Thou wilt." + +As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it +was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not +heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in +dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles with +herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's +departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to +the summer's companionship with him. She performed her household +duties, if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as +before; and her father congratulated himself that the unfortunate +attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however, +was not deceived by this external resignation. She noted the faint +shadows under the eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the +unconscious traces of pain which sometimes played about the dimpled +corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter with a silent, tender +solicitude. + +The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she +stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her +position with such sweet composure that many of the older female +Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli +Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young +Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed +with worldly goods--followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he +thought, "before she is consoled." + +Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment of +Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's +conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented +as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last +assumed such a definite form that Friend Mitchenor brought them to the +notice of his family. + +"I met Josiah Comly in the road," said he, one day at dinner. "He's +just come from Philadelphia, and brings bad news of Richard Hilton. +He's taken to drink, and is spending in wickedness the money his father +left him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it seems he's +not to be reclaimed." + +Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he either disregarded or +failed to understand her look. Asenath, who had grown very pale, +steadily met her father's gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never +yet heard from her lips,-- + +"Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's name when I am +by?" + +The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was that of authority. +The old man was silenced by a new and unexpected power in his +daughter's heart: he suddenly felt that she was not a girl, as +heretofore, but a woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer +compel. + +"It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath," he said; "we had best forget +him." + +Of their friends, however, she could not expect this reserve, and she +was doomed to hear stories of Richard which clouded and embittered her +thoughts of him. And a still severer trial was in store. She +accompanied her father, in obedience to his wish, and against her own +desire, to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has passed into a +proverb, that the Friends, on these occasions, always bring rain with +them; and the period of her visit was no exception to the rule. The +showery days of "Yearly-Meeting Week" glided by, until the last, and +she looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to Bucks County, +glad to have escaped a meeting with Richard Hilton, which might have +confirmed her fears, and could but have given her pain in any case. + +As she and her father joined each other, outside the meeting-house, at +the close of the afternoon meeting, a light rain was falling. She took +his arm, under the capacious umbrella, and they were soon alone in the +wet streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained +them. At a crossing, where the water, pouring down the gutter towards +the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood, +staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered +clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair +hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a +song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend +Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by +the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly, +face to face with them. + +"Asenath!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish pierced through the +confusion of his senses, and struck down into the sober quick of his +soul. + +"Richard!" she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low, terrified voice. + +It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her, or rather--as she +afterwards thought, in recalling the interview--the body of Richard +Hilton, possessed by an evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than +hectic red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the +recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient, reckless devil +seemed to lurk under the set mask of his features. + +"Here I am, Asenath," he said at length, hoarsely. "I said it was +death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than death, I suppose; but what +matter? You can't be more lost to me now than you were already. This is +_thy_ doing, Friend Eli!" he continued, turning to the old man, +with a sneering emphasis on the "_thy_." "I hope thee's satisfied +with thy work!" + +Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it chilled Asenath's +blood to hear. + +The old man turned pale. "Come away, child!" said he, tugging at her +arm. But she stood firm, strengthened for the moment by a solemn +feeling of duty which trampled down her pain. + +"Richard," she said, with the music of an immeasurable sorrow in her +voice, "oh, Richard, what has thee done? Where the Lord commands +resignation, thee has been rebellious; where He chasteneth to purify, +thee turns blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard; I +thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would have helped and +uplifted thee,--not through me, as an unworthy object, but through the +hopes and the pure desires of thy own heart. I expected that thee would +so act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my affection +a reproach,--oh, Richard, not to cast over my heart the shadow of thy +sin!" + +The wretched young man supported himself against the post of an awning, +buried his face in his hands, and wept passionately. Once or twice he +essayed to speak, but his voice was choked by sobs, and, alter a look +from the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to meet, he +again covered his face. A stranger, coming down the street, paused out +of curiosity. "Come, come!" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from +the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on. + +Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief. +She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free. + +"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us +give me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee +then, but it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and +pity I feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other +feelings. I would still do anything for thee except that which thee +cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the +gulf between us so wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep +for thee and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still +precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!" + +He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears +and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up +and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father +and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was +spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question +had visited Asenath's tongue. + +She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which +give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and +transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never +blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers, +under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant +music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost, +reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face +with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened +the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence +of God. + + +V. + +Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the +Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his +marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years +Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an +unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally +determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to +manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, +and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show +of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her more +keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a +neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which +lie parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had +preceded it. + +It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with +new faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a +quiet satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which +might be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all +the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo +of the sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar +wild-flowers which _the first_ Richard Hilton had gathered. This +was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his +fall. Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those pure +and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious of their true +charm. She did not dare to express to herself, in words, that one +everlasting joy of woman's heart, through all trials and sorrows,--"I +have loved, I have been beloved." + +On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the +meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring, +and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were +dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow +dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn +leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless +violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the +miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept +in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the +remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent +sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around +her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured +forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of +the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck +it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the +spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft +radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, +evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered, +taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love. + +During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but +had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a man +whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli +Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's +gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her +protestations were of no avail. + +"Father," she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and +still remembered, "thee can take away, but thee cannot give." + +He never mentioned the subject again. + +Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting +with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career +of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as +hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After +that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading +a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed,--almost hoped; +for in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and +peace which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of +him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion, +than to know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and +blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was +simply a prolongation of the present,--an alternation of seed-time and +harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should +bid her lay down her load and follow Him. + +Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in +a community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the +large old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He +at once took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of +whom he knew already, from having met them, year after year, in +Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient +occupation; the money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough +to support him comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment +seemed now to have come to the old man. He was done with the earnest +business of life. Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and +Friend; and Asenath would be reasonably provided for at his death. As +his bodily energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind +became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a +cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer who was one of "the +world's people." Thus, at seventy-five, he was really younger, because +tenderer of heart and more considerate, than he had been at sixty. + +Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to +approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had +become thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form +around her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the +scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless +she be very old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, gave that her +perfect goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence; +but, when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so +clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends +that she possessed "a gift," which might, in time, raise her to honor +among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word +from "Aunt 'Senath" oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the +parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness; +and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little +farther into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every +morning's sun, for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission +brightened into a cheerful content with life. + +It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been +rumors of the expected presence of "Friends from a distance," and not +only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not +connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road through the woods, it +was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the +meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in +his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the +forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the branches +of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of +hickory-leaves, sweet-fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here +and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and +sunshine, grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers +to a lonely heart. That serene content which she had learned to call +happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the +waters took back their transparency under a cloudless sky. + +Passing around to the "women's side" of the meeting-house, she mingled +with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the +expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth +Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be +there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and +Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend +Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him +once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about +him, because they thought he was too much inclined to "the newness," +but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend +Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old +man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks. + +At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued +rustling which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of +silence, shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons +would feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first, +and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of +exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her +admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her +eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her +body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the +commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious +scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an +aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel. + +The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty +years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair +gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child +of "the stillness and the quietness." His voice, though not loud, was +clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which +arrested, not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor. +His delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the +Quaker preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his +words, through the contrast with those who preceded him. + +His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as +the highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine. The +paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which +appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his +fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner; +we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot +pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in +others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but +kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love +may not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet +created hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said, +is but a general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they +manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives,--in the exercise +of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian love. + +The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers. +There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to +speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath +Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and +her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and +truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her +alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain +them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and +walked to his side. + +Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. "I feel moved to-day," +he said,--"moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to +relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come +directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution, +whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the +house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and +exercise." + +Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed +and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them +from trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she +heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a +stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that +meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present! +Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's +passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his +living face before her! She gasped for breath,--his face _was_ +before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her +memory recalled, had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen +years had made, and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap +of the heart, she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have +fallen from her seat but for the support of the partition against which +she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with +the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with +their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths. + +The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to +the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to +sit still and listen further. + +"Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path," he +continued, "the young man left his home and went to a city in another +State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender +hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the +hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends, +Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds +destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and +forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it +was the principle of _life_ which grew stronger within him, the +young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of +self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the +wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed +only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy +evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the +approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his +arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a +face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him. +'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy +mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young man shook +his head. 'I will be silent, then, but I will save thee. I know the +human heart, and its trials and weaknesses, and it may be put into my +mouth to give thee strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he +had been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard the sad +story, from beginning to end; and the young man wept upon his breast, +to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest and tenderest pity +bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and the +Friend's right hand was upon his head while they prayed. + +"The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still +further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he +had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to +life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease. +The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear. He +bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was +mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness +of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends. + +"I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story," Friend Carter +concluded, "from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time, +to influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among +you, my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning? Oh, +believe that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into +the hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of +wrath in the hands of the Lord!" + +He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the +eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and +thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace +and joy descended upon her heart. + +When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized +Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he +endeavored in rain to control, approached the preacher. + +"The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips," said he; "will thee +come to one side, and hear me a minute?" + +"Eli Mitchenor!" exclaimed Friend Carter; "Eli! I knew not thee was +here! Doesn't thee know me?" + +The old man stared in astonishment. "It seems like a face I ought to +know," he said, "but I can't place thee." + +They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned +again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in his own, +exclaimed,-- + +"Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I +am--or, rather, I was--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew." + +Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy, +and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened. + +"But thee calls thyself Carter?" he finally said. + +"Soon after I was saved," was the reply, "an aunt on the mother's side +died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her +name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like +losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now." + +"Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!" said the +old man. "Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a +concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee +walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?" + +"Asenath?" + +"Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her. +I'm coming, Moses!"--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which +was approaching. + +Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard +Hilton there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not +betrayed his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did +not wish it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might +surprise him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough +for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was +redeemed,--that a holier light than the autumn sun's now rested, and +would forever rest, on the one landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone +with the pure brightness of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek +and smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step was light +and elastic as in the old time. + +Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its +string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The +breeze had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm +light of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed +penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace. + +But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep +followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called her by name. + +She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face. + +"I knew thee, Richard!" at last she said, in a trembling voice; "may +the Lord bless thee!" + +Tears were in the eyes of both. + +"He has blessed me," Richard answered, in a reverent tone; "and this +is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives +me." + +"I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard,--forgiven, but not +forgotten." + +The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by +side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the +crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their +stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low +and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and +listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky. + +At last Richard stopped. + +"Asenath," said he, "does thee remember that spot on the banks of the +creek, where the rudbeckias grew?" + +"I remember it," she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face. + +"If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be +thy answer?" + +Her words came brokenly. + +"I would say to thee, Richard,--I can trust thee,--I _do_ love +thee!'" + +"Look at me, Asenath." + +Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first +confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his +shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it +again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man. + + + + +TAXATION NO BURDEN. + + +According to returns made by the Census Bureau to the Secretary of the +Treasury, the gross value of the productions of the United States for +1860 was $3,900,000,000: namely,--the product of Manufactures, the +Mechanic Arts, Mining, and the Fisheries, $1,900,000,000; the product +of Agriculture, $2,000,000,000. + +It is a well-understood principle of political economy, that the +annual product of a country is the source from which internal taxes +are to be derived. + +The nation is to be considered a partnership, the several members +engaged in the various departments of business, and producing annually +products of the value of $3,900,000,000, which are distributed among +the partners, affording to each a certain share of profit. The firm is +out of debt, but a sudden emergency compels an investment, in a new +and not immediately profitable branch of business, of $1,500,000,000, +which sum the firm borrows. As the consequence of this liability, the +firm must afterward incur an annual additional expense as follows: +$100,000,000 for the payment of members not engaged in productive +labor, $90,000,000 for interest upon the debt incurred, and $60,000,000 +for a sinking-fund which shall pay the debt in less than twenty years. + +It is absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the business of +the firm, that this immense investment, so unexpectedly called for, +shall be made to pay. How shall this problem be solved? + +Large sums are confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of +the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an +active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the +annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion of his farm is +very badly cultivated; no intelligent laborers can be induced to remain +upon it, owing to certain causes, easily removable, but which, being +an easy-going man, well satisfied with his income as it has been, +Uncle Sam has been unwilling to take hold of with any determination. + +Suddenly and without notice, he is compelled to borrow $15,000, and +spend it upon this portion of his farm; and he then finds, while +expending the money for another object and not a profitable one, he can +remove the only obstacle which prevented his obtaining a full supply +of the best and most intelligent labor, and that he can very soon +increase his annual product to $42,500. The increase of $2,500 each +year will enable him to pay his additional clerks, to meet the interest +on his liabilities, and to accumulate a sinking-fund sufficient to pay +his debts before his children come of age. He will be able to take some +comfort and satisfaction in his agricultural laborers; he will have a +larger amount of cotton to spin and to sell than ever before, and so +much wool, that, instead of being obliged to buy one-third the amount +required by his factory, as he has heretofore done, he will have more +than he can spin; and lastly, he will be able to raise fruit, to make +wine, to produce indigo, cochineal, and a great variety of articles +never produced on his farm before. + +What sound business-man would not thus regulate his investment, when +compelled to make it, even though he had been unwilling to borrow the +money for the simple purpose of making such an improvement? + +If a farm and factory, which badly managed produce $40,000 annually, +can by good management be made to produce $42,500, and can be very +much increased in value and ease of management by the process, the +owner had better borrow $15,000 to accomplish the object, and the tax +upon him of $2,500 required to meet the interest and sink the principal +will be no burden. That is the whole problem,--no more, no less. + +We have been driven into a war to maintain the boundaries of our farm; +in so doing we shall probably spend $1,500,000,000. It behooves us not +only to meet the expenditure promptly, but to make the investment pay. + +We have but to increase the annual product of the country six and +one-half per cent, and we shall meet the tax for expenses, interest, +and sinking-fund, and be as well off as we now are, provided the tax be +equitably assessed. + +This increase can be made without any increase in the number of +laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by +the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large +portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have +heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive +soil of the North. + +Slavery is the one obstacle to be removed in order to render this war a +paying operation. + +Under the false pretence that the climate of the South is too hot for +white men to labor in the fields, the degradation involved in +field-labor in a Slave State excludes intelligent cultivators from the +cotton-fields, a very large portion of which have a climate less hot +and less unsuitable for white men than that of Philadelphia, while +there is not a river-bottom in the whole South in which the extremes of +heat during the summer are so great as in St. Louis. Slave-labor +cultivates, in a miserable, shiftless manner, less than two per cent, +of the area of the Cotton States; and upon this insignificant portion a +crop of cotton has been raised in one year worth over $200,000,000. + +There is ample and conclusive evidence to be found in the statistics of +the few well-managed and well-cultivated cotton-plantations, that +skilful, educated farmers can get more than double the product to the +hand or to the acre that is usually obtained as the result of +slave-labor. + +Again, it will be admitted that $350 per annum is more than an average +return for the work of a common laborer on an average New England farm, +including his own support. + +It is capable of demonstration from, actual facts that an average +laborer, well directed, can produce a gross value of $1,000 per annum, +upon the uplands of Georgia and South Carolina, in the cultivation of +cotton and grain. Negro slaves under a negro driver, with no white man +on the premises, have produced this result in Hancock County, Georgia, +upon lands previously considered worthless, with a system of +cultivation singular and exceptional in that region, but common in all +well-cultivated sections, namely, a simple rotation of crops and a +moderate amount of manure. + +Elevate the negro from a state of slavery to the dignity of a free +laborer, and his consumption of manufactured goods increases +enormously. In proof of this may be cited the trade with Hayti, and the +immense increase in the import of manufactured goods into the British +West Indies since emancipation. Slaves are furnished with two suits of +clothes in a year, made from the coarsest and cheapest materials: it is +safe to estimate, that, if the fair proportion of their earnings were +paid them, their demand upon the North for staple articles would be +doubled, while the importations of silks, velvets, and other foreign +luxuries, upon which their earnings have been heretofore lavished by +their masters, would decrease. + +The commonly received view of the position of the cotton-planter is +that he is in a chronic state of debt. Such is the fact; not, however, +because he does not make a large amount of profit,--for cotton-planting +is the most profitable branch of agriculture in the United States,--but +because his standard of value is a negro, and not a dollar, and, in the +words of a Southern writer, "He is constantly buying more land to make +more cotton to buy more negroes to cultivate more land to raise more +cotton to buy more negroes," and for every negro he buys he gets +trusted for another. Both himself and his hands are of the least +possible value to the community. By maintaining his system he excludes +cheap labor from the cultivation of cotton,--slave-labor being the +most wasteful and the most expensive of any. He purchases for his +laborers the least possible amount of manufactured articles, and he +wastes his own expenditure in the purchase of foreign luxuries. + +Reference has been made to the increase to be expected in the product +of wool, after the removal or destruction of Slavery. + +We import annually 30,000,000 pounds of wool, and make little or no use +of the best region for growing wool in the whole country,--the western +slope of the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains and of the Blue Ridge. +Free laborers will not go there, although few slaves are there to be +found; for they well know that there is no respect or standing for the +free laborer in any Slave State. + +Again, throughout the uplands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, +it has been proved that sheep can be raised upon the English system +with the greatest success. Upon their light lands, (selling at less +than $1 per acre,) turnips can be raised in great abundance and fed to +sheep in the field, and by the process the fields brought to a point of +fertility, for cotton or grain, equal to the best bottom-lands of +Mississippi or Louisiana. This fact has been sufficiently proved by the +experience of the very few good farmers in Georgia. + +The climate of these sections is wonderfully healthy, and is far +better adapted to the production of wool than that of England, the +extremes of heat and cold being far greater, and yet the cold not being +sufficient to prevent the raising of turnips or feeding from the field +in winter. To produce fine fleece-wool, a warm summer and a cool +winter are requisite. + +Let any one examine Southern writings upon agriculture, and note the +experience of the few working, sensible cultivators, who, by a system +of rewards and premiums partially equivalent to the payment of wages +to their slaves, have obtained the best results of which Slavery is +capable, and he will realize the immense increase to be expected when +free and intelligent labor shall be applied to Southern agriculture. + +We hold, therefore, that by the destruction of Slavery, and by that +only, this war can be made to pay, and taxation become no burden. + +By free labor upon Southern soil we shall add to the annual product of +the country a sum more than equal to the whole tax which will be +required to pay interest and expenses, and to accumulate a sinking-fund +which will pay the debt in less than twenty years; while to the North +will come the immensely increased demand for manufactured articles +required by a thrifty and prosperous middle class, instead of the small +demand for coarse, cheap articles required by slaves, and the demand +for foreign luxuries called for by the masters. + +The addition of $250,000,000 to the product of the country would be a +gain to every branch of industry; and if the equable system of taxation +by a stamp-tax on all sales were adopted, the burden would not be +felt. The additional product being mostly from an improved system of +agriculture at the South, a much larger demand would exist for the +manufactures of the North, and a much larger body of distributors +would be required. + +Let us glance for a moment at the alternative,--the restoration of the +Union without the removal of Slavery. + +The system of slave-labor has been shaken to its foundation, and for +years to come its aggregate product will be far less than it has been, +thus throwing upon the North the whole burden of the taxes with no +compensating gain in resources. + +Only the refuse of our army could remain in the Slave States, to +become to us in the future an element of danger and not of +security,--the industrious and respectable portion would come back to +the North, to find their places filled and a return to the pursuits of +peace difficult to accomplish. + +With Slavery removed, the best part of our army will remain upon the +fertile soil and in the genial climate of the South, forming +communities, retaining their arms, keeping peace and good order with +no need of a standing army, and constituting the _nuclei_ around +which the poor-white trash of the South would gather to be educated in +the labor-system of the North, and thus, and thus only, to become loyal +citizens. + +The mass of the white population of the South are ignorant and deluded; +they need leaders, and will have them. + +We have allowed them to be led by slaveholders, and are reaping our +reward. Remove Slavery, and their present leaders are crushed out +forever. + +Give them new leaders from among the earnest and industrious portion of +our army, and we increase our resources and render taxation no burden, +and we restore the Union in fact and not simply in name. + +Leave Slavery in existence, and we decrease our resources, throw the +whole tax upon the North, reinforce the Secession element with the +refuse of our army, and bequeath to our children the shadow of a Union, +a mockery and a derision to all honest men. + + + + +THE POET TO HIS READERS. + + +Nay, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say,--"Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost: +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burrs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown; +When these I write--ah, well-a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May! + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek: +Can all the varied phrases tell, +That Babel's wandering children speak, +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read! +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. + + * * * * * + + +THE CHILDREN'S CITIES. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all +alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and +not one above another. + +His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys +covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each +other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other +two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the +city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. + +The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to +write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them +to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went +into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will +was drawn up as he desired. + +One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying +to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool +thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better +boat,--for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace +quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat +of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of +sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when +the will blew away, that he could speak no more when the lawyers came +back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died +without telling his sons what he wished them to do. + +However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they +were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little +persons,--at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never +quarrelled,--so that the child-people loved them almost as well as +they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the +princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, +because there was no king's will, and by rights the eldest ought to +have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called +his brothers to him and said,-- + +"I am quite sure, though there is no will, that our royal papa built +the three cities that we might each have one to reign over, and not one +reign over all. Therefore I will have you both, dear brothers, choose a +city to govern over, and I will govern over the city you do not +choose." + +And his brothers danced for joy; and the people too were pleased, for +they loved all the three princes. But there were not enough people in +the kingdom to fill more than one city quite full. Was not this very +odd? Gentil thought so; but, as he could not make out the reason, he +said to the child-people,-- + +"I will count you, and divide you into three parts, and each part shall +go to one city." + +For, before the king had built the cities, the child-people had lived +in the green valleys, and slept on beds of flowers. + +So Joujou, the second prince, chose the city of Pastime; and Bonbon, +the youngest prince, chose the city of Confection; and the city of +Lessonland was left for Prince Gentil, who took possession of it +directly. + +And first let us see how the good Gentil got on in his city. + +The city of Lessonland was built of books, all books, and only books. +The walls were books, set close like bricks, and the bridges over the +rivers (which were very blue) were built of books in arches, and there +were books to pave the roads and paths, and the doors of the houses +were books with golden letters on the outside. The palace of Prince +Gentil was built of the largest books, all bound in scarlet and green +and purple and blue and yellow. And inside the palace all the loveliest +pictures were hung upon the walls, and the handsomest maps; and in his +library were all the lesson-books and all the story-books in the world. +Directly Gentil began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these books for? They must mean that we are to learn, and +to become very clever, in order to be good. I wish to be very clever, +and to make my people so; so I must set them a good example." + +And he called all his child-people together, who would do anything for +the love of him, and he said,-- + +"If we mean to be of any use in the world, we must learn, learn, learn, +and read, read, read, and always be doing lessons." + +And they said they would, to please him; and they all gathered together +in the palace council-chamber, and Gentil set them tasks, the same as +he set himself, and they all went home to learn them, while he learned +his in the palace. + +Now let us see how Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, +Joujou,--oh, so fond of fun! as you may believe, from his choosing the +city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime! how unlike the city of dear, +dull Lessonland! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful +toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of +the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people +to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that +ran along by clock-work, and such rocking-horses! And there was not to +be found a book In the whole city, but the houses were crammed with +toys from the top to the bottom,--tops, hoops, balls, battle-doors, +bows and arrows, guns, peep-shows, drums and trumpets, marbles, +ninepins, tumblers, kites, and hundreds upon hundreds more, for there +you found every toy that ever was made in the world, besides thousands +of large wax dolls, all in different court-dresses. And directly Joujou +began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these toys for? They must mean that we are to play +always, that we may be always happy. I wish to be very happy, and that +my people should be happy, always. Won't I set them an example?" + +And Joujou blew a penny-trumpet, and got on the back of the largest +rocking-horse and rocked with all his might, and cried,-- + +"Child-people, you are to play always, for in all the city of Pastime +you see nothing else but toys!" + +The child-people did not wait long; some jumped on rocking-horses, some +drove off in carriages, and some in gigs and music-carts. And organs +were played, and bells rang, and shuttlecocks and kites flew up the +blue sky, and there was laughter, laughter, in all the streets of +Pastime! + +And now for little Bonbon, how is he getting on? He was a dear little +fat fellow,--but, oh, so fond of sweets! as you may believe, from his +choosing the city of Confection. And there were no books in Confection, +and no toys; but the walls were built of gingerbread, and the houses +were built of gingerbread, and the bridges of barley-sugar, that +glittered in the sun. And rivers ran with wine through the streets, +sweet wine, such as child-people love; and Christmas-trees grew along +the banks of the rivers, with candy and almonds and golden nuts on the +branches; and in every house the tables were made of sweet brown +chocolate, and there were great plum-cakes on the tables, and little +cakes, and all sorts of cakes. And when Bonbon began to reign he did +not think much about it, but began to eat directly, and called out, +with his mouth full,-- + +"Child-people, eat always! for in all the city of Confection there is +nothing but cakes and sweets." + +And did not the child-people fall to, and eat directly, and eat on, and +eat always? + +Now by this time what has happened to Gentil? for we left him in the +city of Lessonland. All the first day he learned the lessons he had set +himself, and the people learned theirs too, and they all came to Gentil +in the evening to say them to the Prince. But by the time Gentil had +heard all the lessons, he was very, very tired,--so tired that he +tumbled asleep on the throne; and when the child-people saw their +prince was asleep, they thought they might as well go to sleep too. And +when Gentil awoke, the next morning, behold! there were all his people +asleep on the floor. And he looked at his watch and found it was very +late, and he woke up the people, crying, with a very loud voice,-- + +"It is very late, good people!" + +And the people jumped up, and rubbed their eyes, and cried,-- + +"We have been learning always, and we can no longer see to read,--the +letters dance before our eyes." + +And all the child-people groaned, and cried very bitterly behind their +books. Then Gentil said,-- + +"I will read to you, my people, and that will rest your eyes." + +And he read them a delightful story about animals; but when he stopped +to show them a picture of a lion, the people were all asleep. Then +Gentil grew angry, and cried in a loud voice,-- + +"Wake up, idle people, and listen!" + +But when the people woke up, they were stupid, and sat like cats and +sulked. So Gentil put the book away, and sent them home, giving them +each a long task for their rudeness. The child-people went away; but, +as they found only books out of doors, and only books at home, they +went to sleep without learning their tasks. And all the fifth day they +slept. But on the sixth day Gentil went out to see what they were +doing; and they began to throw their books about, and a book knocked +Prince Gentil on the head, and hurt him so much that he was obliged to +go to bed. And while he was in bed, the people began to fight, and to +throw the books at one another. + +Now as for Joujou and his people, they began to play, and went on +playing, and did nothing else but play. And would you believe it?--they +got tired too. The first day and the second day nobody thought he ever +could be tired, amongst the rocking-horses and whips and marbles and +kites and dolls and carriages. But the third day everybody wanted to +ride at once, and the carriages were so full that they broke down, and +the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the +little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were +broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very +largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a +drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go +to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and +shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they +were toy-arrows, but which made Joujou very much afraid, for he did not +wish his people to hate him. + +"What do you want?" he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to +please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the +golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court of the +palace?" + +"Yes! yes!" cried the people, and the drummer jumped down from the +wall. "Yes! yes! Punch and Judy! We are tired of marbles, and balls, +and ninepins. But we sha'n't be tired of Punch and Judy!" + +So the people gathered together in the court of the palace, and saw +Punch and Judy over and over again, all day long on the fifth day. And +they had it so often, that, when the sixth day came, they pulled down +the stage, and broke Punch to pieces, and burned Judy, and screamed out +that they were so hungry they did not know what to do. And the drummer +called out,-- + +"Let us eat Prince Joujou!" + +But the people loved him still; so they answered,-- + +"No! but we will go out of the city and invade the city of Confection, +and fight them, if they won't give us anything to eat!" + +So out they went, with Joujou at their head; for Joujou, too, was +dreadfully hungry. And they crossed the green valley to the city of +Confection, and began to try and eat the gingerbread walls. But the +gingerbread was hard, because the walls had been built in ancient days; +and the people tried to get on the top of the walls, and when they had +eaten a few holes in the gingerbread, they climbed up by them to the +top. And there they saw a dreadful sight. All the people had eaten so +much that they were ill, or else so fat that they could not move. And +the people were lying about in the streets, and by the side of the +rivers of sweet wine, but, oh, so sick, that they could eat no more! +And Prince Bonbon, who had got into the largest Christmas-tree, had +eaten all the candy upon it, and grown so fat that he could not move, +but stuck up there among the branches. When the people of Pastime got +upon the walls, however, the people of Confection were very angry; and +one or two of those who could eat the most, and who still kept on +eating while they were sick, threw apples and cakes at the people of +Pastime, and shot Joujou with sugar-plums, which he picked up and ate, +while his people were eating down the plum-cakes, and drinking the wine +till they were tipsy. + +As soon as Gentil heard what a dreadful noise his people were making, +he got up, though he still felt poorly, and went out into the streets. +The people were fighting, alas! worse than ever; and they were trying +to pull down the strong book-walls, that they might get out of the +city. A good many of them were wounded in the head, as well as Prince +Gentil, by the heavy books falling upon them; and Gentil was very +sorry for the people. + +"If you want to go out, good people," he said, "I will open the gates +and go with you; but do not pull down the book-walls." + +And they obeyed Gentil, because they loved him, and Gentil led them out +of the city. When they had crossed the first green valley, they found +the city of Pastime empty, not a creature in it! and broken toys in the +streets. At sight of the toys, the poor book-people cried for joy, and +wanted to stop and play. So Gentil left them in the city, and went on +alone across the next green valley. But the city of Confection was +crammed so full with sick child-people belonging to Bonbon, and with +Joujou's hungry ones, that Gentil could not get in at the gate. So he +wandered about in the green valleys, very unhappy, until he came to his +old father's palace. There he found the fool, sitting on the banks of +the river. + +"O fool," said Gentil, "I wish I knew what my father meant us to do!" + +And the fool tried to comfort Gentil; and they walked together by the +river where the fool had made the boat of the will, without knowing +what it was. They walked a long way, Gentil crying, and the fool trying +to comfort him, when suddenly the fool saw the boat he had made, lying +among some green rushes. And the fool ran to fetch it, and brought it +to show Gentil. And Gentil saw some writing on the boat, and knew it +was his father's writing. Then Gentil was glad indeed; he unfolded +the paper, and thereon he read these words,--for a good king's words +are not washed away by water:-- + +"My will and pleasure is, that my dearly beloved sons, Prince Gentil, +Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, should all reign together over the +three cities which I have built. But there are only enough child-people +to fill one city; for I know that the child-people cannot live always +in one city. Therefore let the three princes, with Gentil, the eldest, +wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Lessonland +in the morning, that the bright sun may shine upon their lessons and +make them pleasant; and Gentil to set the tasks. And in the afternoon +let the three princes, with Joujou wearing the crown, lead all the +child-people to the city of Pastime, to play until the evening; and +Joujou to lead the games. And in the evening let the three princes, +with Bonbon wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of +Confection, to drink sweet wine and pluck fruit off the Christmas-trees +until time for bed; and little Bonbon to cut the cake. And at time for +bed, let the child-people go forth into the green valleys and sleep +upon the beds of flowers: for in Child Country it is always spring." + +This was the king's will, found at last; and Gentil, whose great long +lessons had made him wise, (though they had tired him too,) thought the +will the cleverest that was ever made. And he hastened to the city of +Confection, and knocked at the gate till they opened it; and he found +all the people sick by this time, and very pleased to see him, for they +thought him very wise. And Gentil read the will in a loud voice, and +the people clapped their hands and began to get better directly, and +Bonbon called to them to lift him down out of the tree where he had +stuck, and Joujou danced for joy. + +So the king's will was obeyed. And in the morning the people learned +their lessons, and afterwards they played, and afterwards they enjoyed +their feasts. And at bed-time they slept upon the beds of flowers, in +the green valleys: for in Child Country it is always spring. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +1. VICTOR HUGO. _Les Miserables. Fantine_. New York: P. W. +Christern. 8vo. + +2. _The Same_. Translated from the Original French, by CHARLES E. +WILBOUR. New York: G. W. Carleton. 8vo. + + +"FANTINE," the first of five novels under the general title of "Les +Miserables," has produced an impression all over Europe, and we already +hear of nine translations, It has evidently been "engineered" with +immense energy by the French publisher. Translations have appeared in +numerous languages almost simultaneously with its publication in Paris. +Every resource of bookselling ingenuity has been exhausted in order to +make every human being who can read think that the salvation of his +body and soul depends on his reading "Les Miserables." The glory and +the obloquy of the author have both been forced into aids to a system +of puffing at which Barnum himself would stare amazed, and confess +that he had never conceived of "a dodge" in which literary genius and +philanthropy could be allied with the grossest bookselling humbug. But +we trust, that, after our American showman has recovered from his +first shock of surprise, he will vindicate the claim of America to be +considered the "first nation on the face of the earth," by immediately +offering Dickens a hundred thousand dollars to superintend his +exhibition of dogs, and Florence Nightingale a half a million to appear +at his exhibition of babies. + +The French bookseller also piqued the curiosity of the universal public +by a story that Victor Hugo wrote "Les Miserables" twenty-five years +ago, but, being bound to give a certain French publisher all his works +after his first celebrated novel, he would not delight the world with +this product of his genius until he had forced the said publisher into +a compliance with his terms. The publisher shrank aghast from the sum +which the author demanded, and this sum was yearly increased in amount, +as years rolled away and as Victor Hugo's reputation grew more +splendid. At last the publisher died, probably from vexation, and +Victor Hugo was free. Then he condescended to allow the present +publisher to issue "Les Miserables" on the payment of eighty thousand +dollars. It is not surprising, that, to get his money back, this +publisher has been compelled to resort to tricks which exceed +everything known in the whole history of literature. + +"Fantine," therefore, comes before us, externally, as the most +desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from +drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of +having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most +reckless _charlatanerie_ to save himself from utter ruin and +complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before +us as an attempt both to include and to supersede the Christian +religion. Wilkinson, in a preface to one of his books, stated that he +thought that "Christendom was not the error of which _Chapmandom_ +was the correction,"--Chapman being then the English publisher of a +number of skeptical books. In the same way we may venture to affirm +that Christendom is not the beginning of which _Hugoism_ is the +complement and end. We think that the revelation made by the publisher +of "Les Miserables" sadly interferes with the revelation made by +Victor Hugo. Saint Paul may be inferior to Saint Hugo, but everybody +will admit that Saint Paul would not have hesitated a second in +deciding, in the publication of _his_ epistles, between the good +of mankind and his own remuneration. Saint Hugo confessedly waited +twenty-five years before he published his new gospel. The salvation of +Humanity had to be deferred until the French saviour received his +eighty thousand dollars. At last a bookselling Barnum appears, pays +the price, and a morality which utterly eclipses that of Saint Paul is +given to an expectant world. + +This morality, sold for eighty thousand dollars, is represented by +Bishop Myriel. The character is drawn with great force, and is full +both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary +churchmen. The portion of the work in which it figures contains many +striking sayings. Thus, we are told, that, when the Bishop "had money, +his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich." +"Ask not," he said, "the name of him who asks you for a bed; it is +especially he whose name is a burden to him who has need of an +asylum." This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness +so far as to receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses +reject, and, when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the +latter by telling the officers who had apprehended the thief that he +had given him the silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, +that, like Peter Bell, he "becomes a good and pious man," starts a +manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent +purposes. Fantine, the heroine, after having been seduced by a +Parisian student, comes to work in his factory. She has a child that +she supports by her labor. This fact is discovered by some female +gossip, and she is dismissed from the factory as an immoral woman, and +descends to the lowest depths of prostitution,--still for the purpose +of supporting her child. Jean Valjean, the reformed criminal, +discovers her, is made aware that her debasement is the result of the +act of his foreman, and takes her, half dead with misery and sickness, +to his own house. Meanwhile he learns that an innocent person, by +being confounded with himself, is in danger of being punished for his +former deeds. He flies from the bedside of Fantine, appears before the +court, announces himself as the criminal, is arrested, but in the end +escapes from the officers who have him in charge. Fantine dies. Her +child is to be the heroine of Novel Number Two of "Les Miserables," and +will doubtless have as miserable an end as her mother. From this bare +abstract, the story does not seem to promise much pleasure to +novel-readers, yet it is all alive with the fiery genius of Victor +Hugo, and the whole representation is so intense and vivid that it is +impossible to escape from the fascination it exerts over the mind. Few +who take the book up will leave it until they have read it through. It +is morbid to a degree that no eminent English author, not even Lord +Byron, ever approached; but its morbid elements are so combined with +sentiments abstractly Christian that it is calculated to wield a more +pernicious influence than Byron ever exerted. Its tendency is to +weaken that abhorrence of crime which is the great shield of most of +the virtue which society possesses, and it does this by attempting to +prove that society itself is responsible for crimes it cannot +prevent, but can only punish. To legislators, to Magdalen societies, +to prison-reformers, it may suggest many useful hints; but, considered +as a passionate romance, appealing to the sympathies of the ordinary +readers of novels, it will do infinitely more harm than good. The +bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice. On the +whole, therefore, we think that Victor Hugo, when he stood out +twenty-five years for his price, did a service to the human race. The +great value of his new gospel consisted in its not being published. We +wish that another quarter of a century had elapsed before it found a +bookseller capable of venturing on so reckless a speculation. + + * * * * * + +_Christ the Spirit_: being an Attempt to state the Primitive View +of Christianity. By the Author of "Remarks on Alchemy and the +Alchemists," and "Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher." 2 vols. New York: +James Miller. + +Tins remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the +United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign +and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the +grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, +and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the +creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, +may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and +moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach +theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the +divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to +reestablish Christianity upon, its true basis. In opposition to +existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as +opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, "It is the spirit that +quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,"--or again, with the Spirit of +Truth itself, he declares, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true +worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the +Father seeketh such to worship Him." General Hitchcock believes that +the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret +society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea +with the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was written for the instruction of +the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath +by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of +this theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly +interesting and instructive. + +The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essenes +thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and +a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man; as +spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held +that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; +and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote--the Four +Gospels--they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified +the law of Moses,--Christ representing in his double character both the +spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the +spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the +"wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the +Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in +all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the +Spirit of Nature,--the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in +whom it abides. + +From this brief statement it will be seen that General Hitchcock takes +a view of Christianity widely different from that of theologians. Jesus +of Nazareth, as a person, he regards simply as a great teacher of this +sect of philosophers; and in the Christ of the New Testament, a being +endowed with supernatural powers, he sees a personification of the +Spirit of Truth. The literal history of a series of supernatural +events occurring in Judea two thousand years ago he transforms into +sublime teachings of the great truths inherent in human nature, and +which, wherever man is, are there forever reenacting the same +drama,--in the assumed history of Jesus, divinely portrayed,--not, if +rightly understood, as an actual history of any one man, but as a +symbolic narration, representing the spiritual life of all men. + +Many grave reflections are forced upon us in contemplating a view so +original of a subject upon which apparently nothing more remained to be +said. It becomes not only the question, How will this work be received +by the religious world? but, How, in a true spirit of inquiry, +_ought_ it to be received? The theory of the author is peculiarly +simple, but in its simplicity lies an exceeding beauty. The idea that +the Scriptures are symbolical has always found adherents, but never +such an advocate. Swedenborg affirmed this truth, and invented a +formal mode of interpretation, upon which he wrote his multitudinous +octavos, themselves mystical volumes, and whose effect has been to +involve a subject already obscure in still deeper darkness, and to +transfer the adoration of a small portion of the Christian world from +the letter of the Scriptures to the letter of Swedenborg,--a +questionable benefit to his followers, in spite of the many important +truths which this great man advocated. The radical difference between +such a system and that which we are now considering is evident. Not +Swedenborg alone, but many others, through artificial systems of their +own, have sought to interpret the mysteries of the Bible; but it has +remained for the author of "Christ the Spirit" to attempt a discovery +of the key unlocking the symbolism of the New Testament, as it was +understood by the gospel writers themselves. + +_The Pearl of Orr's Island._ A Story of the Coast of Maine. By +MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The +Minister's Wooing," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +Mrs. Stowe is never more in her element than in depicting +unsophisticated New-England life, especially in those localities where +there is a practical social equality among the different classes of +the population. "The Pearl of Orr's Island," the scene of which is +laid in one of those localities, is every way worthy of her genius. +Without deriving much interest from its plot, it fastens the pleased +attention of the reader by the freshness, clearness, and truth of its +representations, both of Nature and persons. The author transports us +at once to the place she has chosen as the scene of her story, makes us +as familiarly acquainted with all its surroundings as if we had been +born and bred there, introduces us to all the principal inhabitants in +a thoroughly "neighborly" way, and contrives to impress us with a +sense of the substantial reality of what she makes us mentally see, +even when an occasional improbability in the story almost wakes us up +to a perception that the whole is a delightful illusion. + +This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee +recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables +the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine +of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In +the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with +Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed +to this magazine: the difference is in time and circumstance, and not +in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture +and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of +Spenser's exquisite individualizations of abstract feminine +excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted +spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her +nature, and her soul moves in a sphere of religious experience compared +with which "fairy-land" is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel +as well as a woman; yet the height of her meditations does not +interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human +duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to +her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid +delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we +cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe's best claims to be considered a woman +of true imaginative genius. + +In the rest of the population of Orr's Island the reader cannot fail to +take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the +hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. +But "Cap'n" Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and +Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for +a long dissertation on New England and human character. Miss Roxy, +especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee-land, and is so +thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her +eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been +allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in +actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in +education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital +self-sacrifice and tenderness of heart. + +We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than +Mrs. Stowe's other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they +love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, +is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with +Moses. The latter is "made happy" in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. +Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the +last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or +knowing it. + +In style, "The Pearl of Orr's Island" ranks with the best narratives in +American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and +Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only +facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It +is the exact mirror of the author's mind and character. It is fresh, +simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention +from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which +are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. +The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so +excellent,--that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the +matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the +singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest +reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of +description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara +and Moses on the open sea, the night-visit which Mara makes to the +rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede +Mara's death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and +fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated +to common words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and +passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of +accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual +perception,--in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and +sentiment,--and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward +sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,--"The Pearl of +Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has +heretofore contributed to American literature. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. I. New York. G. P. Putnam. 13mo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +History of the United States Naval Academy, with Biographical Sketches, +and the Names of all the Superintendents, Professors, and Graduates. To +which is added a Record of some of the Earliest Votes by Congress, of +Thanks, Medals, and Swords, to Naval Officers. By Edward Chauncey +Marshall, A.M., formerly Instructor in Captain Kinsley's Military +School at West Point, Assistant Professor in the New York University, +etc. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 156. $1.00. + +Instruction for Naval Light Artillery, Afloat and Ashore. Prepared and +arranged for the United States Naval Academy. By William H. Parker, +Lieutenant U.S.N. Second Edition. Revised by Lieutenant S.B. Luce, +U.S.N., Assistant Instructor of Gunnery at the United States Naval +Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 120. $1.50. + +Manual of Target-Practice for the United States Army. By Major G.L. +Willard, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 18mo. pp. 80. 50 cts. + +A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery; compiled for the Use +of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy. By Captain J.G. +Benton, Ordnance Department, late Instructor of Ordnance and Science of +Gunnery, Military Academy, West Point; Principal Assistant to the Chief +of Ordnance, U.S.A. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. New York. D. +Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 550. $4.00. + +Seventh Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the State of +Massachusetts. January 1, 1862. Part I., Marine and Fire Insurance: +Part II., Life Insurance. Boston. William White, Printer to the State. +8vo. pp. xxxvi., 262; xl., 33; 15. + +Ballads of the War. By George Whitfield Hewes. New York. G.W. Garleton. +16mo. pp. 147. 50 cts. + +The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of the +Life of the Author and a Catalogue of his Writings. New York. William +Gowans. 12mo. pp. 311. $1.00. + +The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood, +Author of "East Lynne," etc. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. +8vo. paper, pp. 302. 50 cts. + +The Bay Path. A Tale of New England Colonial Life. By J.G. Holland, +Author of "Letters to the Young," "Lessons in Life," etc. New York. C. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 418. $1.25. + +The Church in the Army; or, The Four Centurions. By Rev. William A. +Scott, D.D., of San Francisco. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 443. +$1.25. + +Prison-Life in the Tobacco-Warehouse at Richmond. By a Ball's-Bluff +Prisoner, Lieutenant William C. Harris, of Colonel Baker's California +Regiment. Philadelphia. G.W. Childs. 16mo. pp. 175. 75 cts. + +Mount Vernon, and other Poems. By Harvey Rice. Columbus. Follett, +Foster, & Co. 16mo. pp. 221. $1.00. + +Last Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With a Memorial by Theodore +Tilton. New York. James Miller. 32mo. pp. 242. 75 cts. + +Manual for Engineer Troops. Consisting of, I., Ponton Drill; II., Rules +for Conducting a Siege; III., School of the Sap; IV., Military Mining; +V., Construction of Batteries. By Captain J.C. Duane, Corps of +Engineers, U.S. Army. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 275. $2.00. + +Our Flag. A Poem in Four Cantos. By F.H. Underwood. New York. G. W. +Carleton. 16mo. paper, pp. 41. 25 cts. + +A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial. By +Captain S.V. Benet, Ordnance Department, U.S. Army: late Assistant +Professor of Ethics, Law, etc. Military Academy, West Point. New York. +D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 377. $3.00. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, +July, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, JULY 1862 *** + +***** This file should be named 9493.txt or 9493.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/4/9/9493/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9493.zip b/9493.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..27f8d50 --- /dev/null +++ b/9493.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..333fe9d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9493 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9493) diff --git a/old/710a110.txt b/old/710a110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1295000 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/710a110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9117 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862, +by Various + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9493] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 10, NO. 57 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + + +VOL. X.--JULY, 1862.--NO. LVII. + + + +SOME SOLDIER-POETRY. + + +It is certain that since the time of Homer the deeds and circumstances +of war have not been felicitously sung. If any ideas have been the +subject of the strife, they seldom appear to advantage in the poems +which chronicle it, or in the verses devoted to the praise of heroes. +Remove the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," some English, Spanish, and +Northern ballads, two or three Old-Bohemian, the war-songs composed by +Ziska, and one or two Romaic, from the field of investigation, and one +is astonished at the scanty gleaning of battle-poetry, camp-songs, and +rhymes that have been scattered in the wake of great campaigns, and +many of the above-mentioned are more historical or mythological than +descriptive of war. The quantity of political songs and ballads, +serious and satirical, which were suggested by the great critical +moments of modern history, is immense. Every country has, or might +have, its own peculiar collections. In France the troubles of the +League gave an impulse to song-writing, and the productions of +Desportes and Bertaut are relics of that time. Historical and +revolutionary songs abound in all countries; but even the +"Marseillaise," the gay, ferocious "Carmagnole," and the "Ca Ira," +which somebody wrote upon a drum-head in the Champ de Mars, do not +belong to fighting-poetry. The actual business of following into the +field the men who represent the tendencies of any time, and of helping +to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, +seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the +same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; +the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; +even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and +suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the +gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when +wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be kissed, are +scarcely seen, or feebly hinted at. The horizon of the battle-field +itself is limited, and it is impossible to obtain a total impression +of the picturesque and terrible fact. After the smoke has rolled away, +the historian finds a position whence the scenes deliberately reveal to +him all their connection, and reenact their passion. He is the real +poet of these solemn passages in the life of man. [1] + +[Footnote 1: There is a little volume, called _Voices from the +Ranks_, in which numerous letters written by privates, corporals, +etc., in the Crimea, are collected and arranged. They are full of +incident and pathos. Suffering, daring, and humor, the love of home, +and the religious dependence of men capable of telling their own Iliad, +make this a very powerful book. In modern times the best literature of +a campaign will be found in private letters. We have some from Magenta +and Solferino, written by Frenchmen; the character stands very clear in +them. And here is one written by an English lad, who is describing a +landing from boats in Finland, when he shot his first man. The act +separated itself from the whole scene, and charged him with it. +Instinctively he walked up to the poor Finn; they met for the first +time. The wounded man quietly regarded him; he leaned on his musket, +and returned the fading look till it went out.] + +One would think that a poet in the ranks would sometimes exchange the +pike or musket for the pen in his knapsack, and let all the feelings +and landscapes of war distil through his fine fancy from it drop by +drop. But the knapsack makes too heavy a draught upon the nervous +power which the cerebellum supplies for marching orders; concentration +goes to waste in doing porter's work; his tent-lines are the only kind +a poet cares for. If he extemporizes a song or hymn, it is lucky if it +becomes a favorite of the camp. The great song which the soldier lifts +during his halt, or on the edge of battle, is generally written +beforehand by some pen unconscious that its glow would tip the points +of bayonets, and cheer hearts in suspense for the first cannon-shot of +the foe. If anybody undertakes to furnish songs for camps, he prospers +as one who resolves to write anthems for a prize-committee to sit on: +it is sutler's work, and falls a prey to the provost-marshal. + +Nor are poets any more successful, when they propose to make camp-life +and soldiers' feelings subjects for aesthetic consideration. Their +lines are smooth, their images are spirited; but as well might the +campaign itself have been conducted in the poet's study as its +situations be deliberately transferred there to verse. The +"Wallenstein's Camp" of Schiller is not poetry, but racy and sparkling +pamphleteering. Its rhyming does not prevent it from belonging to the +historical treatment of periods that are picturesque with many passions +and interests, that go clad in jaunty regimental costumes, and require +not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his +soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the +storming and marauding of the mediaeval _Lanzknecht;_ set to +music, it might be sung by fine _dilettanti_ tenors in garrison, +but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the +countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the +campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces +an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which +describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French. +But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to +give. The songs of Koerner are well known already in various English +dresses. [2] + +[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's _Midnight Review_, +of Follen's _Bluecher's Ball_, of Freihgrath's _Death of +Grabbe_, of Rueckert's _Patriot's Lament_, of Arndt's +_Field-Marshal Bluecher_, of Pfeffel's _Tobacco-Pipe_, of +Gleim's _War Song_, of Tegner's _Veteran_, (Swedish,) of +Rahbek's _Peter Colbjornsen_, (Danish,) _The Death-Song of +Regner Lodbrock_, (Norse,) and Koerner's _Sword-Song_, in Mr. +Longfellow's _Poets and Poetry of Europe_. See all of Koerner's +soldier songs well translated, the _Sword-Song_ admirably, by +Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in _Specimens of Foreign Literature_, Vol. +XIV. See, in Robinson's _Literature of Slavic Nations_, some +Russian and Servian martial poetry.] + +But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms +which were points in the welfare of nations--when, for instance, +Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges +of the barons--is more interesting than all the modern songs which +nicely depict soldiers' moods. Language itself was fighting for +recognition, as well as industrial and social rights. The verses mark +successive steps of a people into consciousness and civilization. Some +of this battle-poetry is worth preserving; a few camp-rhymes, also, +were famous enough in their day to justify translating. Here are some +relics, of pattern more or less antique, picked up from that field of +Europe where so many centuries have met in arms. [3] + +[Footnote 3: Among such songs is one by Bayard Taylor, entitled +_Annie Laurie_, which is of the very best kind.] + +The Northern war-poetry, before the introduction of Christianity, is +vigorous enough, but it abounds in disagreeable commonplaces: trunks +are cleft till each half falls sideways; limbs are carved for ravens, +who appear as invariably as the Valkyrs, and while the latter pounce +upon the souls that issue with the expiring breath, the former +banquet upon the remains. The celebration of a victory is an exulting +description of actual scenes of revelling, mead-drinking from mounted +skulls, division of the spoils, and half-drunken brags[4] of future +prowess. The sense of dependence upon an unseen Power is manifested +only in superstitious vows for luck and congratulations that the Strong +Ones have been upon the conquering side. There is no lifting up of the +heart which checks for a time the joy of victory. They are ferociously +glad that they have beaten. This prize-fighting imagery belongs also +to the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and is in marked contrast with the +commemorative poetry of Franks and Germans after the introduction of +Christianity. The allusions may be quite as conventional, but they show +that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the +fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure +establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon +an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. We speak only +of war-poetry. + +[Footnote 4: Braga was the name of the goblet over which the Norse +drinkers made their vows. Probably no Secessionist ever threatened more +pompously over his whiskey. The word goes back a great distance. +_Paruf_ is Sanscrit for rough, and _Ragh_, to be equal to. +In reading the Norse poetry, one can understand why _Braga_ was +the Apollo of the Asa gods, and why the present made to a favorite +Scald was called _Bragar-Laun_ (_Lohn_). _Bravo_ is also a +far-travelled form.] + +Here, for instance, is the difference plainly told. Hucbald, a monk of +the cloister St. Amand in Flanders, wrote "The Louis-Lay," to celebrate +the victory gained by the West-Frankish King Louis III. over the +Normans, in 881, near Saucourt. It is in the Old-High-German. A few +lines will suffice:-- + +The King rode boldly, sang a holy song, +And all together sang, Kyrie eleison. +The song was sung; the battle was begun; +Blood came to cheeks; thereat rejoiced the Franks; +Then fought each sword, but none so well as Ludwig, +So swift and bold, for 't was his inborn nature; +He struck down many, many a one pierced through, +And at his hands his enemies received +A bitter drink, woe to their life all day. +Praise to God's power, for Ludwig overcame; +And thanks to saints, the victor-fight was his. +Homeward again fared Ludwig, conquering king, +And harnessed as he ever is, wherever the need may be, +Our God above sustain him with His majesty! + +Earlier than this it was the custom for soldiers to sing just before +fighting. Tacitus alludes to a kind of measured warcry of the +Germans, which they made more sonorous and terrific by shouting it into +the hollow of their shields. He calls it _barditus_ by mistake, +borrowing a term from the custom of the Gauls, who sang before battle +by proxy,--that is, their bards chanted the national songs. But Norse +and German soldiers loved to sing. King Harald Sigurdson composes +verses just before battle; so do the Skalds before the Battle of +Stiklestad, which was fatal to the great King Olaf. The soldiers learn +the verses and sing them with the Skalds. They also recollect older +songs,--the "Biarkamal," for instance, which Biarke made before he +fought.[5] These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged +with threats of unlimited slaughter. The custom survived all the social +and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the +Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the +Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns: +they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the +time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of +St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, +and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the +"Lyra Germanica," p. 237. + +[Footnote 5: Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol. +III. p. 90.] + +William's minstrel, Taillefer, sang a song before the Battle of +Hastings: but the Normans loved the purely martial strain, and this +was a ballad of French composition, perhaps a fragment of the older +"Roland's Song." The "Roman de Rou," composed by Master Wace, or Gasse, +a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, who died in 1184, is very +minute in its description of the Battle of Val des Dunes, near Caen, +fought by Henry of France and William the Bastard against Guy, a Norman +noble in the Burgundian interest. The year of the battle was 1047. +There is a Latin narrative of the Battle of Hastings, in eight hundred +and thirty-five hexameters and pentameters. This was composed by Wido, +or Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075. + +The German knights on their way to Jerusalem sang a holy psalm, +beginning, "Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of the earth." This was +discovered not long ago in Westphalia; a translation of it, with the +music, can be found in Mr. Richard Willis's collection of hymns. + +One would expect to gather fragments of war-poetry from the early times +of the Hungarians, who held the outpost of Europe against the Turks, +and were also sometimes in arms against the imperial policy of Germany. +But De Gerando informs us that they set both victories and defeats to +music. The "Rakotzi" is a national air which bears the name of an +illustrious prince who was overcome by Leopold. "It is remarkable that +in Hungary great thoughts and deep popular feelings were expressed and +consecrated, not by poetry, but by national airs. The armed Diets which +were held upon the plain of Rakos were the symbol of ancient liberty to +the popular apprehension; there is the 'Air of Rakos,' also the 'Air of +Mohacs,' which recalls the fall of the old monarchy, and the 'Air of +Zrinyi,' which preserves the recollection of the heroic defence of +Szigeth."[6] These airs are not written; the first comer extemporized +their inartificial strains, which the feeling of the moment seized upon +and transmitted by tradition. Among the Servians, on the contrary, +the heroic ballad is full of fire and meaning, but the music amounts to +nothing. + +[Footnote 6: A. De Gerando, _La Transylvanie et ses Habitants_, +Tom. II. p. 265, et seq.] + +The first important production of the warlike kind, after Germany began +to struggle with its medieval restrictions, was composed after the +Battle of Sempach, where Arnold Struthalm of Winkelried opened a +passage for the Swiss peasants through the ranks of Austrian spears. It +is written in the Middle-High-German, by Halbsuter, a native of +Lucerne, who was in the fight. Here are specimens of it. There is a +paraphrase by Sir Walter Scott, but it is done at the expense of the +metre and _naive_ character of the original. + +In the thousand and three hundred and six and eightieth year +Did God in special manner His favor make appear: +Hei! the Federates, I say, +They get this special grace upon St. Cyril's day. + +That was July 9, 1386. The Swiss had been exasperated by the +establishment of new tolls by the nobility, who were upheld in it by +the Duke of Austria. The Federates (_Confederates_ can never again +be used in connection with a just fight) began to attack the castles +which sheltered the oppressive baronial power. The castle behind the +little town of Willisow is stormed and burned. Thereupon the nobles +swear to put these Swiss free peasants down and get them a master. The +poet tells all this, and proceeds to describe their excesses and +pride. Then,-- + +Ye Lowland lords are drawing hither to the +Oberland, +To what an entertainment ye do not understand: +Hei! 't were better for shrift to call, +For in the mountain-fields mischances may +befall. + +To which the nobles are imagined to reply,-- + +"Indeed! where sits the priest, then, to grant +this needful gift?" +In the Schweitz he is all ready,--he'll give +you hearty shrift: +Hei! he will give it to you sheer, +This blessing will he give it with sharp halberds +and such gear. + +The Duke's people are mowing in the fields near Sempach. A knight +insolently demands lunch for them from the Sempachers: a burgher +threatens to break his head and lunch them in a heavy fashion, for the +Federates are gathering, and will undoubtedly make him spill his +porridge. A cautious old knight, named Von Hasenburg, rides out to +reconnoitre, and he sees enough to warn the Duke that it is the most +serious business in which he ever engaged. + +Then spake a lord of Ochsenstein, "O Hasenburg, +hare-heart!" +Him answereth Von Hasenburg, "Thy words +bring me a smart: +Hei! I say to you faithfully, +Which of us is the coward this very day you'll see." + +So the old knight, not relishing being punned upon for his counsel, +dismounts. All the knights, anticipating an easy victory, dismount, +and send their horses to the rear, in the care of varlets who +subsequently saved themselves by riding them off. The solid ranks are +formed bristling with spears. There is a pause as the two parties +survey each other. The nobles pass the word along that it looks like a +paltry business:-- + +So spake they to each other: "Yon folk is +very small,-- +In case such boors should beat us, 't will bring +no fame at all: +'Hei! fine lords the boors have mauled!'" +Then the honest Federates on God in heaven +called. + +"Ah, dear Christ of Heaven, by Thy bitter +death we plead, +Help bring to us poor sinners in this our strait +and need; +Hei! and stand by us in the field, +And have our land and people beneath Thy +ward and shield." + +The shaggy bull (of Uri) was quite ready to meet the lion (Leopold), +and threw the dust up a little with its hoof. + +"Hei! will you fight with us who have beaten you before?" + +To this the lion replies,-- + +"Thank you for reminding me. I have many a knight and varlet here to +pay you off for Laupen, and for the ill turn you did me at Morgarten; +now you must wait here till I am even with you." + +Now drew the growling lion his tail in for a +spring: +Then spake the bull unto him, "Wilt have +your reckoning? +Hei! then nearer to us get, +That this green meadow may with blood be +growing wet." + +Then they began a-shooting against us in the +grove, +And their long lances toward the pious Federates +move: +Hei! the jest it was not sweet, +With branches from the lofty pines down rattling +at their feet. + +The nobles' front was fast, their order deep +and spread; +That vexed the pious mind; a Winkelried he +said, +"Hei! if you will keep from need +My pious wife and child, I'll do a hardy +deed. + +"Dear Federates and true, my life I give to +win: +They have their rank too firm, we cannot break +it in: +Hei! a breaking in I'll make. +The while that you my offspring to your protection +take." + +Herewith did he an armful of spears nimbly take; +His life had an end, for his friends a lane did make: +Hei! he had a lion's mood, +So manly, stoutly dying for the Four Cantons' good. + +And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began +With hewing and with sticking,--it was God's holy plan: +Hei! if this He had not done, +It would have cost the Federates many an honest one. + +The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, +enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or +comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners +which they leave behind. [7] + +[Footnote 7: It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made +in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the +ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle +which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed +before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that +Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is +furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, +there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" +villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced +to _deshabille_? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up +William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but +Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument +against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.] + +Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are +pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and +described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His +facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or +three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and +temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout +commences, he says,-- + +One hither fled, another there, +With good intent to disappear, + Some hid them in the bushes: +I never saw so great a pinch,-- +A crowd that had no thirst to quench + Into the water pushes. + +They waded in up to the chin, +Still we our shot kept pouring in, + As if for ducks a-fowling: +In boats we went and struck them dead, +The lake with all their blood was red,-- + What begging and what howling! + +Up in the trees did many hide, +There hoping not to be espied; + But like the crows we shot them: +The rest on spears did we impale, +Their feathers were of no avail, + The wind would not transport them. + +He will not vouch for the number of the killed, but gives it on hearsay +as twenty-six thousand drowned and slain; but he regrets that their +flight was so precipitate as to prevent him from recording a more +refreshing total. He is specially merry over the wealth and luxurious +habits of Charles, alludes to his vapor-baths, etc.:-- + +His game of chess was to his cost, +Of pawns has he a many lost, + And twice[8] his guard is broken; +His castles help him not a mite, +And see how lonesome stands his knight! +Checkmate's against him spoken. + +[Footnote 8: Once, the year before, at Granson.] + +The wars of the rich cities with the princes and bishops stimulated a +great many poems that are full of the traits of burgher-life. Seventeen +princes declared war against Nuremberg, and seventy-two cities made a +league with her. The Swiss sent a contingent of eight hundred men. This +war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success +for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, +in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenpluel, celebrated this in verses +like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic +street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of +Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All +these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do +not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discomfitures +in the field are the occasion of elaborate ridicule. + +The _Lanzknechts_ were foot-soldiers recruited from the roughs of +Germany, and derived their name from the long lance which they +carried;[9] but they were also armed subsequently with the arquebuse. +They were first organized into bodies of regular troops by George +Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a famous German captain, whose castle was +about twenty miles south-west of Augsburg. It was afterwards the centre +of a little principality which Joseph I. created for the Duke of +Marlborough,[10] as a present for the victory of Hochstaedt (Blenheim). +Frundsberg was a man of talent and character, one of the best soldiers +of Charles V. He saved the Imperial cause in the campaign of 1522 +against the French and Swiss. At Bicocco he beat the famous Swiss +infantry under Arnold of Winkelried, a descendant, doubtless, of one of +the children whom Arnold Struthabn left to the care of his comrades. At +Pavia a decisive charge of his turned the day against Francis I. And on +the march to Rome, his unexpected death so inflamed the +_Lanzknechts_ that the meditated retreat of Bourbon became +impossible, and the city was taken by assault. His favorite mottoes +were, _Kriegsrath mit der That_, "Plan and Action," and _Viel +Feinde, viel Ehre_, "The more foes, the greater honor." He was the +only man who could influence the mercenary lancers, who were as +terrible in peace as in war. + +[Footnote 9: It is sometimes spelled _landsknecht_, as if it meant +_country-fellows_, or recruits,--men raised at large. But that was +a popular misapprehension of the word, because some of them were +Suabian bumpkins.] + +[Footnote 10: The French soldier-song about Marlborough is known to +every one.] + +The _Lanzknecht's_ lance was eighteen feet long: he wore a helmet +and breastplate, and was taught to form suddenly and to preserve an +impenetrable square. Before him all light and heavy cavalry went down, +and that great arm of modern war did not recover from its disgrace and +neglect till the time of Frederic. But his character was very +indifferent: he went foraging when there was no campaign, and in time +of peace prepared for war by systematic billeting and plundering. It +was a matter of economy to get up a war in order to provide employment +for the _Lanzknecht_. + +Hans Sachs wrote a very amusing piece in 1558, entitled, "The Devil +won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one +evening, speaks of the _Lanzknecht_ as a new kind of man; he +describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire +to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a +tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a +stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's +Satan, and listens while the _Lanzknechts_ drink. They begin to +tell stories which make his hair stand on end, but they also God-bless +each other so often, at sneezing and hiccupping, that he cannot get a +chance at them. One of them, who had stolen a cock and hung it behind +the stove, asks the landlord to go and fetch the poor devil. Beelzebub, +soundly frightened, beats a hasty retreat, expressing his wonder that +the _Lanzknecht_ should know he was there. He apologizes to +Lucifer for being unable to enrich his cabinet, and assures him that it +would be impossible to live with them; the devils would be eaten out of +house and home, and their bishopric taken from them. Lucifer concludes +on the whole that it is discreet to limit himself to monks, nuns, +lawyers, and the ordinary sinner. + +The songs of the _Lanzknecht_ are cheerful, and make little of the +chances of the fight. Fasting and feasting are both welcome; he is as +gay as a Zouave.[11] To be maimed is a slight matter: if he loses an +arm, he bilks the Swiss of a glove; if his leg goes, he can creep, or a +wooden leg will serve his purpose:-- + +It harms me not a mite, +A wooden stump will make all right; +And when it is no longer good, +Some spital knave shall get the wood. + +But if a ball my bosom strikes, + On some wide field I lie, +They'll take me off upon their pikes,-- + A grave is always nigh; +Pumerlein Pum,--the drums shall say +Better than any priest,--Good day! + +[Footnote 11: Who besings himself thus, in a song from the Solferino +campaign:-- + +"Quand l'zouzou, coiffe de son fez, +A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l'nez, +L'tremblement s'met dans la cambuse; +Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups, +Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts, + Et gare dessous, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse! + Des coups, des coups, des coups, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse."] + +There is a very characteristic piece, without date or name of the +writer, but which, to judge from the German, was written after the time +of Luther. Nothing could better express the feeling of a people who +have been saved by martial and religious enthusiasm, and brought +through all the perils of history. It is the production of some +Meistersinger, who introduced it into a History of Henry the Fowler, +(fought the Huns, 919-935,) that was written by him in the form of a +comedy, and divided into acts. He brings in a minstrel who sings the +song before battle. The last verse, with adapted metre and music, is +now a soldier's song. + +Many a righteous cause on earth + To many a battle growing, +Of music God has thought them worth, + A gift of His bestowing. +It came through Jubal into life; + For Lamech's son inventing +The double sounds of drum and fife, + They both became consenting. + For music good + Wakes manly mood, + Intrepid goes + Against our foes. + Calls stoutly, "On! + Fall on! fall on! + Clear field and street + Of hostile feet, + Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, + Not one against you leave!" + +Elias prophecy would make + In thirsty Israel's passion: + "To me a minstrel bring," he spake, + "Who plays in David's fashion." +Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, + In words of help undoubted,-- +Great waters flowed the rainless land, + The foe was also routed. + + Drom, Druri, Drom, + Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Drumming and fifing good + Make hero-mood; + Prophets upspring, + Poets, too, sing; + Music is life + To peace and strife,-- + And men have ever heeded + What chief by them is needed. + +In Dorian mood when he would sing, + Timotheus the charmer, +'Tis said the famous lyre would bring + All listeners into armor: +It woke in Alexander rage + For war, and nought would slake it, +Unless he could the world engage, + And his by conquest make it. + Timotheus + Of Miletus + Could strongly sing + To rouse the King + Of Macedon, + Heroic one, + Till, in his ire + And manly fire, + For shield and weapon rising, + He went, the foe chastising. + +For what God drives, that ever goes,-- + So sang courageous Judith; +No one can such as He oppose; + There prospers what He broodeth. +Who has from God a martial mood, + Through all resistance breaking, +Can prove himself 'gainst heroes good, + On foes a vengeance taking. + Drums, when we droop; + Stand fast, my troop! + Let dart and sabre + The air belabor; + Give them no heed, + But be agreed + That flight be a breach of honor: + Of that be hearty scorner. + +Although a part, as haps alway, + Will faintly take to fleeing, +A lion's heart have I to-day + For Kaiser Henry's seeing. +The wheat springs forth, the chaff's behind;[12] + Strike harder, then, and braver; + +[Footnote 12: This was first said by Rudolph of Erlach at the Battle of +Laupen, in 1339, fought between citizens of Berne and the neighboring +lords. The great array of the nobles caused the rear ranks of the +Bernese to shrink. "Good!" cried Erlach, "the chaff is separated from +the wheat! Cowards will not share the victory of the brave." +--Zschokke's _History of Switzerland_, p. 48, Shaw's translation.] + +Perhaps they all will change their mind, + So, brothers, do not waver! + Kyrie eleison! + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Alarum beat, + There's no retreat; + Wilt soon be slashed, + Be pierced and gashed: + But none of these things heeding, + The foe, too, set a-bleeding. + +Many good surgeons have we here, + Again to heal us ready; +With God's help, then, be of good cheer, + The Pagans grow unsteady: +Let not thy courage sink before + A foe already flying; +Revenge itself shall give thee more, + And hearten it, if dying. + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Kyrie eleison! + Strike, thrust,--for we + Must victors be; + Let none fall out, + Keep order stout; + Close to my side, + Comrade, abide! + Be grace of God revealed now, + And help us hold the field now! + +God doth Himself encamp us round, + Himself the tight inspiring; +The foe no longer stands his ground, + On every side retiring; +Ye brothers, now set boldly on + The hostile ranks!--they waver,-- +They break before us and are gone,-- + Praise be to God the Saver! + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Come, brother, come! + Drums, make a noise! + My troops, rejoice! + Help now pursue + And thrust and hew; + Pillage restrain,-- + The spoils remain + In reach of every finger, + But not a foe wilt linger. + +Ye bold campaigners, praise the Lord, + And strifeful heroes, take now +The prize He doth to us accord, + Good cheer and pillage make now: +What each one finds that let him take, + But friendly share your booty, +For parents', wives', and children's sake, + For household use or beauty. + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Field-surge on come, + My gash to bind, + Am nearly blind,-- + The arrows stick, + Out pull them quick,-- + A bandage here, + To save my ear,-- + Come, bind me up, + And reach a cup,-- + Ho, here at hand, + I cannot stand,-- + Reach hither what you're drinking, + My heart is 'neath me sinking. + +War-comrades all, heart's-brothers good, + I spare no skill and labor, +For these your hurts in hero-mood + You got from hostile sabre. +Now well behave, keep up thy heart, + God's help itself will tend thee; +Although at present great the smart, + To dress the wound will mend thee; + Wash off the blood, + Time makes it good,-- + Reach me the shear,-- + A plaster here,-- + Hold out your arm, + 'T is no great harm,-- + Give drink to stay, + He limps away: + Thank God, their wounds all tended, + Be dart- and pike-hole mended! + +Three faces does a surgeon wear: + At first God is not higher; +And when with wounds they illy fare, + He comes in angel's tire; +But soon as word is said of pay, + How gracelessly they grieve him! +They bid his odious face away, + Or knavishly deceive him: + No thanks for it + Spoils benefit, + Ill to endure + For drugs that cure; + Pay and respect + Should he collect, + For at his art + Your woes depart; + God bids him speed + To you in need; + Therefore our dues be giving, + God wills us all a living. + +No death so blessed in the world + As his who, struck by foeman, +Upon the airy field is hurled, + Nor hears lament of woman; +From narrow beds death one by one + His pale recruits is calling, +But comrades here are not alone, + Like Whitsun blossoms falling. + 'T is no ill jest + To say that best + Of ways to die + Is thus to lie + In honor's sleep, + With none to weep: + Marched out of life + By drum and fife + To airy grave, + Thus heroes crave + A worthy fame,-- + Men say his name +Is _Fatherland's Befriender_, +By life and blood surrender. + +With the introduction of standing armies popular warlike poetry falls +away, and is succeeded by camp-songs, and artistic renderings of +martial subjects by professed poets. The people no longer do the +fighting; they foot the bills and write melancholy hymns. Weckerlin +(1584-1651) wrote some hearty and simple things; among others, +_Frisch auf, ihr tapfere Soldaten_, "Ye soldiers bold, be full of +cheer." Michael Altenburg, (1583-1640,) who served on the Protestant +side, wrote a hymn after the Battle of Leipsic, 1631, from the watch +word, "God with us," which was given to the troops that day. His hymn +was afterwards made famous by Gustavus Adolphus, who sang it at the +head of his soldiers before the Battle of Luetzen, November 16, 1632, +in which he fell. Here it is. (_Verzage nicht, du Haeuflein +klein_.) + +Be not cast down, thou little band, +Although the foe with purpose stand + To make thy ruin sure: +Because they seek thy overthrow, +Thou art right sorrowful and low: + It will not long endure. + +Be comforted that God will make +Thy cause His own, and vengeance take,-- + 'T is His, and let it reign: +He knoweth well His Gideon, +Through him already hath begun + Thee and His Word sustain. + +Sure word of God it is to fell +That Satan, world, and gates of hell, + And all their following, +Must come at last to misery: +God is with us,--with God are we,-- + He will the victory bring. + +Here is certainly a falling off from Luther's _Ein feste Burg_, +but his spirit was in the fight; and the hymn is wonderfully improved +when the great Swedish captain takes it to his death. + +Von Kleist (1715-1759) studied law at Koenigsberg, but later became an +officer in the Prussian service. He wrote, in 1759, an ode to the +Prussian army, was wounded at the Battle of Kuenersdorf, where Frederic +the Great lost his army and received a ball in his snuff-box. His +poetry is very poor stuff. The weight of the enemy crushes down the +hills and makes the planet tremble; agony and eternal night impend; and +where the Austrian horses drink, the water fails. But his verses were +full of good advice to the soldiers, to spare, in the progress of their +great achievements, the poor peasant who is not their foe, to help his +need, and to leave pillage to Croats and cowards. The advice was less +palatable to Frederic's troops than the verses. + +But there were two famous soldier's songs, of unknown origin, the pets +of every camp, which piqued all the poets into writing war-verses as +soon as the genius of Frederic kindled such enthusiasm among +Prussians. The first was an old one about Prince Eugene, who was +another hero, loved in camps, and besung with ardor around every +watchfire. It is a genuine soldier's song. + +Prince Eugene, the noble captain, +For the Kaiser would recover + Town and fortress of Belgrade; +So he put a bridge together +To transport his army thither, + And before the town parade. + +When the floating bridge was ready, +So that guns and wagons steady + Could pass o'er the Danube stream, +By Semlin a camp collected. +That the Turks might be ejected, + To their great chagrin and shame. + +Twenty-first of August was it, +When a spy in stormy weather + Came, and told the Prince and swore +That the Turks they all amounted, +Near, at least, as could be counted, + To three hundred thousand men, or more. + +Prince Eugenius never trembled +At the news, but straight assembled + All his generals to know: +Them he carefully instructed +How the troops should be conducted + Smartly to attack the foe. + +With the watchword he commanded +They should wait till twelve was sounded + At the middle of the night; +Mounting then upon their horses, +For a skirmish with the forces, + Go in earnest at the fight. + +Straightway all to horseback getting, +Weapons handy, forth were setting + Silently from the redoubt: +Musketeers, dragooners also, +Bravely fought and made them fall so,-- + Led them such a dance about. + +And our cannoneers advancing +Furnished music for the dancing, + With their pieces great and small; +Great and small upon them playing, +Heathen were averse to staying, + Ran, and did not stay at all. + +Prince Eugenius on the right wing +Like a lion did his fighting, + So he did field-marshal's part: +Prince Ludwig rode from one to th' other, +Cried, "Keep firm, each German brother, + Hurt the foe with all your heart!" + +Prince Ludwig, struck by bullet leaden, +With his youthful life did redden, + And his soul did then resign: +Badly Prince Eugene wept o'er him, +For the love he always bore him,-- + Had him brought to Peterwardein. + +The music is peculiar,--one flat, 3/4 time,--a very rare measure, and +giving plenty of opportunity for a quaint camp-style of singing. + +The other song appeared during Frederic's Silesian War. It contains +some choice reminiscences of his favorite rhetoric. + +Fridericus Rex, our master and king, +His soldiers altogether to the field would bring, +Battalions two hundred, and a thousand squadrons clear, +And cartridges sixty to every grenadier. + +"Cursed fellows, ye!"--his Majesty began,-- +"For me stand in battle, each man to man; +Silesia and County Glatz to me they will not grant, +Nor the hundred millions either which I want. + +"The Empress and the French have gone to be allied, +And the Roman kingdom has revolted from my side, +And the Russians are bringing into Prussia war;-- +Up, let us show them that we Prussians are! + +"My General Schwerin, and Field-Marshal Von Keith, +And Von Ziethen, Major-General, are ready for a fight; +Turban-spitting Element! Cross and Lightning get +Who has not found Fritz and his soldiers out yet! + +"Now adieu, Louisa![13]--Louisa, dry your eyes! +There's not a soldier's life for every ball that flies; +For if all the bullets singly hit their men, +Where could our Majesties get soldiers then? + +"Now the hole a musket-bullet makes is small,-- +'T is a larger hole made by a cannon-ball; +But the bullets all are of iron and of lead, +And many a bullet goes for many overhead. + +"'T is a right heavy calibre to our artillery, +And never goes a Prussian over to the enemy, +For 't is cursed bad money that the Swedes have to pay; +Is there any better coin of the Austrian?--who can say? + +"The French are paid off in pomade by their king, +But each week in pennies we get our reckoning; +Sacrament of Cross and Lightning! Turbans, spit away! +Who draws so promptly as the Prussian his pay?" + +With a laurel-wreath adorned, Fridericus my King, +If you had only oftener permitted plundering, +Fredericus Rex, king and hero of the fight, +We would drive the Devil for thee out of sight! + +[Footnote 13: His queen] + +Among the songs which the military ardor of this period stimulated, the +best are those by Gleim, (1719-1803) called "Songs of a Prussian +Grenadier." All the literary men, Lessing not excepted, were seized +with the Prussian enthusiasm; the pen ravaged the domain of sentiment +to collect trophies for Father Friedrich. The desolation it produced in +the attempt to write the word Glory could be matched only by the +sword. But Gleim was a man of spirit and considerable power. The shock +of Frederic's military successes made him suddenly drop the pen with +which he had been inditing Anacreontics, and weak, rhymeless Horatian +moods. His grenadier-songs, though often meagre and inflated, and +marked with the literary vices of the time, do still account for the +great fame which they acquired, as they went marching with the finest +army that Europe ever saw. Here is a specimen:-- + +VICTORY-SONG AFTER THE BATTLE NEAR PRAGUE. + +Victoria! with us is God; + There lies the haughty foe! +He falls, for righteous is our God; + Victoria! he lies low. + +'T is true our father[14] is no more, + Yet hero-like be went, +And now the conquering host looks o'er + From high and starry tent. + +The noble man, he led the way + For God and Fatherland, +And scarce was his old head so gray + As valiant his hand. + +With fire of youth and hero-craft + A banner snatching, he +Held it aloft upon its shaft + For all of us to see; + +And said,--"My children, now attack,-- + Take each redoubt and gun!" +And swifter than the lightning track + We followed, every one. + +Alas, the flag that led the strife + Falls with him ere we win! +It was a glorious end of life: + O fortunate Schwerin! + +And when thy Frederic saw thee low, + From out his sobbing breath +His orders hurled us on the foe + In vengeance for thy death. + +Thou, Henry,[15] wert a soldier true, + Thou foughtest royally! +From deed to deed our glances flew, + Thou lion-youth, with thee! + +A Prussian heart with valor quick, + Right Christian was his mood: +Red grew his sword, and flowing thick + His steps with Pandourt[16]-blood. + +Full seven earth-works did we clear, + The bear-skins broke and fled; +Then, Frederic, went thy grenadier + High over heaps of dead: + +Remembered, in the murderous fight, + God, Fatherland, and thee,-- +Turned, from the deep and smoky night, + His Frederic to see, + +And trembled,--with a flush of fear + His visage mounted high; +He trembled, not that death was near, + But lest thou, too, shouldst die: + +Despised the balls like scattered seed, + The cannon's thunder-tone, +Fought fiercely, did a hero's deed, + Till all thy foes had flown. + +Now thanks he God for all His might, + And sings, Victoria! +And all the blood from out this fight + Flows to Theresia. + +And if she will not stay the plague, + Nor peace to thee concede, +Storm with us, Frederic, first her Prague, + Then, to Vienna lead! + +[Footnote 14: Marshal Schwerin, seventy years of age, who was killed at +the head of a regiment, with its colors in his hand, just as it crossed +through the fire to the enemy's intrenchments.] + +[Footnote 15: The King's brother.] + +[Footnote 16: A corps of foot-soldiers in the Austrian service, +eventually incorporated in the army. They were composed of Servians, +Croats, etc., inhabitants of the military frontier, and were named +originally from the village of Pandur in Lower Hungary, where probably +the first recruits were gathered.] + +The love which the soldiers had for Frederic survived in the army after +all the veterans of his wars had passed away. It is well preserved in +this camp-song:-- + +THE INVALIDES AT FATHER FREDERIC'S GRAVE. + +Here stump we round upon our crutches, round our Father's grave we go, +And from our eyelids down our grizzled beards the bitter tears will +flow. + +'T was long ago, with Frederic living, that we + got our lawful gains: +A meagre ration now they serve us,--life's no + longer worth the pains. + +Here stump we round, deserted orphans, and + with tears each other see,-- +Are waiting for our marching orders hence, + to be again with thee. + +Yes, Father, only could we buy thee, with our + blood, by Heaven, yes,-- +We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight + through death would storming press! + +When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for +Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of +Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and +anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation. +Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the +cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon +expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of +this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of +verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly +expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the +Battle of Leipsic:-- + +Can there no song + Roar with a might + Loud as the fight +Leipsic's region along? + +Three days and three nights, + No moment of rest, + And not for a jest, +Went thundering the fights. + +Three days and three nights + Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured + There with an iron yardstick were measured, +Bringing the reckoning with them to rights. + +Three days and all night + A battue of larks the Leipsicker make; + Every haul a hundred he takes, +A thousand each flight. + +Ha! it is good, + Now that the Russian can boast no longer + He alone of us is stronger +To slake his steppes with hostile blood. + +Not in the frosty North alone, + But here in Meissen, + Here at Leipsic on the Pleissen, +Can the French be overthrown. + +Shallow Pleissen deep is flowing; + Plains upheaving, + The dead receiving, +Seem to mountains for us growing. + +They will be our mountains never, + But this fame + Shall be our claim +On the rolls of earth forever. + +What all this amounted to, when the German people began to send in +their constitutional _cartes-blanches_, is nicely taken off by +Hoffman von Fallersleben, in this mock war-song, published in 1842:-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the beating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man. +Rouse, rouse +From earth and house! +Ye women and children, good night! +Forth we hasten, we hasten to the fight, +With God for our King and Fatherland. + +_A night-patrol of 1813 sings_. + +O God! and why, and why, +For princes' whim, renown, and might, + To the fight? +For court-flies and other crows, + To blows? +For the nonage of our folk, + Into smoke? +For must-war-meal and class-tax, + To thwacks? +For privilege and censordom-- + Hum-- +Into battle without winking? + But--I was thinking-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the heating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man: +In battle's roar +The time is o'er +To ask for reasons,--hear, the drum +Again is calling,--tum--tum--tum,-- +With God for King and Fatherland. + +Or to put it in two stanzas of his, written on a visit to the Valhalla, +or Hall of German Worthies, at Regensburg:-- + +I salute thee, sacred Hall, + Chronicle of German glory! +I salute ye, heroes all + Of the new time and the hoary! + +Patriot heroes, from your sleep + Into being could ye pass! +No, a king would rather keep + Patriots in stone and brass. + +The Danish sea-songs, like those of the English, are far better than +the land-songs of the soldiers: but here is one with a true and +temperate sentiment, which the present war will readily help us to +appreciate. It is found in a book of Danish popular songs. [17] + +[Footnote 17: _Sange til Brug for blandede Selskaber_, samlade af +FREDERIK SCHALDEMOSE. 1816. Songs for Use in Social Meetings, etc.] +(_Herlig er Krigerens Faerd_.) + +Good is the soldier's trade, +For envy well made: +The lightning-blade + Over force-men he swingeth; + A loved one shall prize + The honor he bringeth; +Is there a duty? +That's soldier's booty,-- +To have it he dies. + +True for his king and land +The Northman will stand; +An oath is a band,-- + He never can rend it; + The dear coast, 't is right + A son should defend it; +For battle he burneth, +Death's smile he returneth, + And bleeds with delight. + +Scars well set off his face,-- +Each one is a grace; +His profit they trace,-- + No labor shines brighter: + A wreath is the scar + On the brow of a fighter; +His maid thinks him fairer, +His ornament rarer + Than coat with a star. + +Reaches the king his hand, +That makes his soul grand, +And fast loyal band + Round his heart it is slinging; + From Fatherland's good +The motion was springing: +His deeds so requited, +Is gratefully lighted + A man's highest mood. + +Bravery's holy fire, +Beam nobler and higher, +And light our desire + A path out of madness! + By courage and deed + We conquer peace-gladness: +We suffer for that thing, +We strike but for that thing, + And gladly we bleed. + +But our material threatens the space we have at command. Four more +specimens must suffice for the present. They are all favorite +soldier-songs. The first is by Chamisso, known popularly as the author +of "Peter Schlemihl's Shadow," and depicts the mood of a soldier who +has been detailed to assist in a military execution:-- + +The muffled drums to our marching play. +How distant the spot, and how long the way! +Oh, were I at rest, and the bitterness through! +Methinks it will break my heart in two! + +Him only I loved of all below,-- +Him only who yet to death must go; +At the rolling music we parade, +And of me too, me, the choice is made! + +Once more, and the last, he looks upon +The cheering light of heaven's sun; +But now his eyes they are binding tight: +God grant to him rest and other light! + +Nine muskets are lifted to the eye, +Eight bullets have gone whistling by; +They trembled all with comrades' smart,-- +But I--I hit him in his heart! + +The next is by Von Holtei:-- + +THE VETERAN TO HIS CLOAK. + +Full thirty years art thou of age, hast many a + storm lived through, + Brother-like hast round me tightened, + And whenever cannons lightened, +Both of us no terror knew. + +Wet soaking to the skin we lay for many a + blessed night, + Thou alone hast warmth imparted, + And if I was heavy-hearted, +Telling thee would make me light. + +My secrets thou hast never spoke, wert ever still and true; + Every tatter did befriend me, + Therefore I'll no longer mend thee, +Lest, old chap, 't would make thee new. + +And dearer still art thou to ma when jests about thee roll; + For where the rags below are dropping, + There went through the bullets popping,-- +Every bullet makes a hole. + +And when the final bullet comes to stop a German heart, + Then, old cloak, a grave provide me, + Weather-beaten friend, still hide me, +As I sleep in thee apart. + +There lie we till the roll-call together in the grave: + For the roll I shall be heedful, + Therefore it will then be needful +For me an old cloak to have. + +The next one is taken from a student-song book, and was probably +written in 1814:-- + +THE CANTEEN. + +Just help me, Lottie, as I spring; + My arm is feeble, see,-- +I still must have it in a sling; + Be softly now with me! +But do not let the canteen slip,-- + Here, take it first, I pray,-- +For when that's broken from my lip, + All joys will flow away. + +"And why for that so anxious?--pshaw! + It is not worth a pin: +The common glass, the bit of straw, + And not a drop within!" +No matter, Lottie, take it out,-- + 'T is past your reckoning: +Yes, look it round and round about,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +By Leipsic near, if you must know,-- + 'T was just no children's play,-- +A ball hit me a grievous blow, + And in the crowd I lay; +Nigh death, they bore me from the scene, + My garments off they fling, +Yet held I fast by my canteen,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +For once our ranks in passing through + He paused,--we saw his face; +Around us keen the volleys flew, + He calmly kept his place. +He thirsted,--I could see it plain, + And courage took to bring +My old canteen for him to drain,-- + He drank from it--my King! + +He touched me on the shoulder here, + And said, "I thank thee, friend, +Thy liquor gives me timely cheer,-- + Thou didst right well intend." +O'erjoyed at this, I cried aloud, + "O comrades, who can bring +Canteen like this to make him proud?-- + There drank from it--my King!" + +That old canteen shall no one have, + The best of treasures mine; +Put it at last upon my grave, + And under it this line: +"He fought at Leipsic, whom this green + Is softly covering; +Best household good was his canteen,-- + There drank from it--his King!" + +And finally, a song for all the campaigns of life:-- + +Morning-red! morning-red! +Lightest me towards the dead! +Soon the trumpets will be blowing, +Then from life must I be going, + I, and comrades many a one. + +Soon as thought, soon as thought, +Pleasure to an end is brought; +Yesterday upon proud horses,-- +Shot to-day, our quiet corses + Are to-morrow in the grave. + +And how soon, and how soon, +Vanish shape and beauty's noon! +Of thy cheeks a moment vaunting, +Like the milk and purple haunting,-- + Ah, the roses fade away! + +And what, then, and what, then, +Is the joy and lust of men? +Ever caring, ever getting, +From the early morn-light fretting + Till the day is past and gone. + +Therefore still, therefore still +I content me, as God will: +Fighting stoutly, nought shall shake me: +For should death itself o'ertake me, + Then a gallant soldier dies. + + + + +FROUDE'S HENRY THE EIGHTH. + + +The spirit of historical criticism in the present age is on the whole a +charitable spirit. Many public characters have been heard through their +advocates at the bar of history, and the judgments long since passed +upon them and their deeds, and deferentially accepted for centuries, +have been set aside, and others of a widely different character +pronounced. Julius Caesar, who was wont to stand as the model usurper, +and was regarded as having wantonly destroyed Roman liberty in order to +gratify his towering ambition, is now regarded as a political reformer +of the very highest and best class,--as the man who alone thoroughly +understood his age and his country, and who was Heaven's own instrument +to rescue unnumbered millions from the misrule of an oligarchy whose +members looked upon mankind as their proper prey. He did not overthrow +the freedom of Rome, but he took from Romans the power to destroy the +personal freedom of all the races by them subdued. He identified the +interests of the conquered peoples with those of the central +government, so far as that work was possible,--thus proceeding in the +spirit of the early Roman conquerors, who sought to comprehend even the +victims of their wars in the benefits which proceeded from those wars. +This view of his career is a sounder one than that which so long +prevailed, and which enabled orators to round periods with references +to the Rubicon. It is not thirty years since one of the first of +American statesmen told the national Senate that "Julius Caesar struck +down Roman liberty at Pharsalia," and probably there was not one man in +his audience who supposed that he was uttering anything beyond a +truism, though they must have been puzzled to discover any resemblance +between "the mighty Julius" and Mr. Martin Van Buren, the gentleman +whom the orator was cutting up, and who was actually in the chair while +Mr. Calhoun was seeking to kill him, in a political sense, by +quotations from Plutarch's Lives. We have learnt something since 1834 +concerning Rome and Caesar as well as of our own country and its +chiefs, and the man who should now bring forward the conqueror of Gaul +as a vulgar usurper would be almost as much laughed at as would be that +man who should insist that General Jackson destroyed American liberty +when he removed the deposits from the national bank. The facts and +fears of one generation often furnish material for nothing but jests +and jeers to that generation's successors; and we who behold a million +of men in arms, fighting for or against the American Union, and all +calling themselves Americans, are astonished when we read or remember +that our immediate predecessors in the political world went to the +verge of madness on the Currency question. Perhaps the men of 1889 may +be equally astonished, when they shall turn to files of newspapers that +were published in 1862, and read therein the details of those events +that now excite so painful an interest in hundreds of thousands of +families. Nothing is so easy as to condemn the past, except the +misjudging of the present, and the failure to comprehend the future. + +Men of a very different stamp from the first of the Romans have been +allowed the benefits that come from a rehearing of their causes. +Robespierre, whose deeds are within the memory of many yet living, has +found champions, and it is now admitted by all who can effect that +greatest of conquests, the subjugation of their prejudices, that he was +an honest fanatic, a man of iron will, but of small intellect, who had +the misfortune, the greatest that can fall to the lot of humanity, to +be placed by the force of circumstances in a position which would have +tried the soundest of heads, even had that head been united with the +purest of hearts. But the apologists of "the sea-green incorruptible," +it must be admitted, have not been very successful, as the sence of +mankind revolts at indiscriminate murder, even when the murderer's +hands have no other stain than that which comes from blood,--for that +is a stain which will not "out"; not even printer's ink can erase or +cover it; and the attorney of Arras must remain the Raw-Head and +Bloody-Bones of history. Benedict Arnold has found no direct defender +or apologist; but those readers who are unable to see how forcibly +recent writers have dwelt upon the better points of his character and +career, while they have not been insensible to the provocations he +received, must have read very carelessly and uncritically indeed. Mr. +Paget has all but whitewashed Marlborough, and has shaken many men's +faith in the justice of Lord Macauley's judgement and in the accuracy +of his assertions. Richard III., by all who can look through the clouds +raised by Shakespeare over English history of the fifteenth century, is +admitted to have been a much better man and ruler than were the average +of British monarchs from the Conquest to the Revolution, thanks to the +labors of Horace Walpole and Caroline Halsted, who, however, have only +followed in the path struck out by Sir George Buck at a much earlier +period. The case of Mary Stuart still remains unsettled, and bids fair +to be the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of history; but this is owing to +the circumstance that that unfortunate queen is so closely associated +with the origin of our modern parties that justice where her reputation +is concerned is scarcely to be looked for. Little has been said for +King John; and Mr. Woolryche's kind attempt to reconcile men to the +name of Jeffreys has proved a total failure. Strafford has about as +many admirers as enemies among those who know his history, but this is +due more to the manner of his death than to any love of his life: of so +much more importance is it that men should die well than live well, so +far as the judgement of posterity is concerned with their actions. + +Strafford's master, who so scandalously abandoned him to the headsman, +owes the existence of the party that still upholds his conduct to the +dignified manner in which he faced death, a death at which the whole +world "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has +found no formal defender, but the Catilinarian Conspiracy is now +generally admitted to have been the Popish Plot of antiquity, with an +ounce of truth to a pound of falsehood in the narratives of it that +have come down to us from Rome's revolutionary age, in political +pamphlets and party orations. Cicero's craze on the subject, and that +tendency which all men have to overrate the value of their own actions, +have made of the business in his lively pages a much more consequential +affair than it really was. The fleas in the microscope, and there it +will ever remain, to be mistaken for a monster. Truly, the Tullian +gibbeted the gentleman of the Sergian _gens_. It must be confessed +that Catiline was a proper rascal. How could he have been anything +else, and be one of Sulla's men? And a proper rascal is an improper +character of the very worst kind. Still, we should like to have had his +marginal "notes" on Cicero's speeches, and on Sallust's job pamphlet. +They would have been mighty interesting reading,--as full of lies, +probably, as the matter commented on, but not the less attractive on +that account. What dull affairs libraries would be, if they contained +nothing but books full of truth! The Greek tyrants have found +defenders, and it has been satisfactorily made out that they were the +cleverest men of their time, and that, if they did occasionally bear +rather hard upon individuals, it was only because those individuals +were so unreasonable as not to submit to be robbed or killed in a quiet +and decorous manner. Mr. Grote's rehabilitation of the Greek sophists +is a miracle of ingenuity and sense, and does as much honor to the man +who wrote it as justice to the men of whom it is written. + +Of the doubtful characters of history, royal families have furnished +not a few, some of whom have stood in as bad positions as those which +have been assigned to Robespierre and his immediate associates. +Catharine de' Medici and Mary I. of England, the "Bloody Mary" of +anti-Catholic localities, are supposed to be models of evil, to be in +crinoline; but if you can believe Eugenio Alberi, Catharine was not the +harlot, the tyrant, the poisoner, the bigot, and the son-killer that +she passes for in the common estimation, and he has made out a capital +defence for the dead woman whom he selected as his client. The Massacre +of St. Bartholomew was not an "Italian crime," but a French _coup +d'etat_, and was as rough and coarse as some similar transactions +seen by our grandfathers, say the September prison-business at Paris in +1792. As to Mary Tudor, she was an excellent woman, but a bigot; and if +she did turn Mrs. Rogers and her eleven children out to the untender +mercies of a cold world, by sending Mr. Rogers into a hot fire, it was +only that souls might be saved from a hotter and a huger fire,--a sort +of argument the force of which we always have been unable to +appreciate, no doubt because we are of the heretics, and never believed +that persons belonging to our determination ought to be roasted. The +incense of the stake, that was so sweet in ecclesiastical nostrils +three hundred years ago, and also in vulgar nostrils wherever the +vulgar happened to be of the orthodox persuasion, has become an +insufferable stench to the more refined noses of the nineteenth +century, which, nevertheless, are rather partial to the odor of the +gallows. Miss Strickland and other clever historians may dwell upon the +excellence of Mary Tudor's private character with as much force as they +can make, or with much greater force they may show that Gardiner and +other reactionary leaders were the real fire-raisers of her reign; but +the common mind will ever, and with great justice, associate those +loathsome murders with the name and memory of the sovereign in whose +reign they were perpetrated. + +The father of Mary I. stands much more in need of defence and apology +than does his daughter. No monarch occupies so strange a position in +history as Henry VIII. A sincere Catholic, so far as doctrine went, and +winning from the Pope himself the title of Defender of the Faith +because of his writing against the grand heresiarch of the age, he +nevertheless became the chief instrument of the Reformation, the man +and the sovereign without whose aid the reform movement of the +sixteenth century would have failed as deplorably as the reform +movements of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries had failed. A +legitimate king, though the heir of a successful usurpation, and +holding the royal prerogative as high as any man who ever grasped the +sceptre, he was the tool of the mightiest of revolutionists, and poured +out more royal and noble blood than ever flowed at the command of all +the Jacobins and Democrats that have warred against thrones and +dynasties and aristocracies. He is abhorred of Catholics, and +Protestants do not love him; for he pulled down the old religious +fabric of his kingdom, and furnished to the Reformers a permanent +standing-place from which to move the world, while at the same time he +slaughtered Protestants as ruthlessly as ever they were disposed of by +any ruler of the Houses of Austria and Valois. Reeking with blood, and +apparently insensible to anything like a humane feeling, he was yet +popular with the masses of his subjects, and no small share of that +popularity has descended to our time, in which he is admired by the +unreflecting because of the boldness and dash of his actions and on +account of the consequences of those actions, so that he is commonly +known as "bluff King Hal," a title that speaks more as to the general +estimate of his character than would a whole volume of professed +personal panegyric, or of elaborate defence of his policy and his +deeds. But this is not sufficient for those persons who would have +reasons for their historical belief, and who seek to have a solid +foundation for the faith they feel in the real greatness of the second +Tudor king of England. Men of ability have occasionally sought to +create an intelligible Henry VIII., and to cause us to respect one +whose doings have so potently affected human affairs through ten +generations, and the force of whose labors, whether those labors were +blindly or rationally wrought, is apparently as unspent as it was on +that day on which, having provided for the butchery of the noblest of +his servants, he fell into his final sleep. At the head of these +philosophic writers, and so far ahead of them as to leave them all out +of sight, is Mr. James Anthony Froude, whose "History of England from +the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" has been brought down to +the death of Mary I., in six volumes,--another proof of the grand scale +on which history is now written, in order that it may be read on the +small scale; for it is not given to many men to have the time for study +which even a moderate modern course of history requires in these active +days. Mr. Froude is a very different writer from Dr. Nares, but the +suggestions made to the heavy Doctor by Macaulay might be borne in mind +by the lively historian. He should remember that "the life of man is +now threescore years and ten," and not "demand from us so large a +portion of so short an existence" as must necessarily be required for +the perusal of a history which gives an octavo volume for every five +years of the annals of a small, though influential monarchy. + +Mr. Froude did not commence his work in a state of blind admiration of +his royal hero,--the tone of his first volume being quite calm, and on +the whole as impartial as could reasonably have been expected from an +Englishman writing of the great men of a great period in his country's +history; but so natural is it for a man who has assumed the part of an +advocate to identify himself with the cause of his client, that our +author rapidly passes from the character of a mere advocate to that of +a partisan, and by the time that he has brought his work down to the +execution of Thomas Cromwell, Henry has risen to the rank of a saint, +with a more than royal inability to do any wrong. That "the king can do +no wrong" is an English constitutional maxim, which, however sound it +may be in its proper place, is not to be introduced into history, +unless we are desirous of seeing that become a mere party-record. The +practice of publishing books in an incomplete state is one that by no +means tends to render them impartial, when they relate to matters that +are in dispute. Mr. Froude's first and second volumes, which bring the +work down to the murder of Anne Boleyn, afforded the most desirable +material for the critics, many of whom most pointedly dissented from +his views, and some of whom severely attacked his positions, and not +always unsuccessfully. They were, naturally, not disposed to think that +an act bad in itself changed its character when it became the act of +Henry VIII. It was contrary to all human experience to suppose that +Henry was in all cases in the right, while his opponents and his +victims were as invariably in the wrong. If there ever had lived and +reigned a man who could not do wrong, it was preposterous to look for +him in one who had been a wife-killer, a persecutor, the slayer of the +nobility of his kingdom, the exterminator of the last remnants of an +old royal race, the patron of fagots and ropes and axes, and a +hard-hearted and selfish voluptuary, who seems never to have been open +to one kind or generous feeling. Most of those tyrants that have been +hung up on high, by way of warning to despots, have had their +"uncorrupted hours," in which they vindicated their claim to humanity +by the performance of some good deeds. Gratitude for some such acts is +supposed to have caused even the tomb of Nero to be adorned with +garlands. But Henry VIII. never had a kind moment. He was the same +moral monster at eighteen, when he succeeded to his sordid, selfish +father, that he was at fifty-six, when he, a dying man, employed the +feeble remnants of his once Herculean strength to stamp the +death-warrants of innocent men. No wonder that Mr. Froude's critics +failed to accept his estimate of Henry, or that they arrayed anew the +long list of his shocking misdeeds, and dwelt with unction on his total +want of sympathy with ordinary humanity. As little surprising is it +that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be +increased by the course of the critics. That is the usual course. The +biographer comes to love the man whom at first he had only endured. To +endurance, according to the old notion, succeeds pity, and then comes +the embrace. And that embrace is all the warmer because others have +denounced the party to whom it is extended. It is fortunate that no man +of talent has ever ventured to write the biography of Satan. Assuredly, +had any such person done so, there would have been one sincere, +enthusiastic, open, devout Devil-worshipper on earth, which would have +been a novel, but not altogether a moral, spectacle for the eyes of +men. A most clear, luminous and unsatisfactory account of the conduct +of Satan in Eden would have been furnished, and it would have been +logically made out that all the fault of the first recorded son was +with Eve, who had been the temptress, not the tempted, and who had +taken advantage of the Devil's unsophisticated nature to impose upon +his innocence and simplicity, and then had gone about among "the +neighbors" to scandalize his character at tea-tables and +quilting-parties. + +Mr. Froude is too able a man to seek to pass crude eulogy of Henry +VIII. upon the world. He knows that the reason why this or that or the +other thing was done is what his readers will demand, and he does his +best to meet their requirements. Very plausible, and very well +sustained by numerous facts, as well as by philosophical theory, is the +position which he assumes in reference to Henry's conduct. Henry, +according to the Froudean theory, was troubled about the succession to +the throne. His great purpose was to prevent the renewal of civil war +in England, a war for the succession. When he divorced Catharine of +Aragon, when he married Anne Boleyn, when he libelled and murdered Anne +Boleyn, when he wedded Jane Seymour, when he became disgusted with and +divorced Anne of Cleves, when he married and when he beheaded Catharine +Howard, when he patronized, used, and rewarded Cromwell, and when he +sent Cromwell to the scaffold and refused to listen to his plaintive +plea for mercy, when he caused Plantagenet and Neville blood to flow +like water from the veins of old women as well as from those of young +men, when he hanged Catholics and burned Protestants, when he caused +Surrey to lose the finest head in England,--in short, no matter what he +did, he always had his eye steadily fixed across that boiling sea of +blood that he had created upon one grand point, namely, the +preservation of the internal peace of England, not only while he +himself should live, but after his death. His son, or whoso should be +his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should +be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most +of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet. +Church-yards were to be filled in order that all England might be +reduced to the condition of a church-yard. That _Red Spectre_ +which has so often frightened even sensible men since 1789, and caused +some remarkably humiliating displays of human weakness during our +generation and its immediate predecessor, was, it should seem, ever +present to the eyes of Henry VIII. He saw Anarchy perpetually +struggling to get free from those bonds in which Henry VIII. had +confined that monster, and he cut off nearly every man or woman in +whose name a plea for the crown could be set up as against a Tudor +prince or princess. Like his father, to use Mr. Froude's admirable +expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and +he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously +disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would +naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually +striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by +ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a +failing business at the best. Men and women, patrician and plebeian, +might play at rebellion, if they liked it, but they should be made to +find that they were playing the losing game. + +Now, this succession-question theory has the merit of meeting the very +difficulty that besets us when we study the history of Henry's reign, +and it is justified by many things that belong to English history for a +period of more than two centuries,--that is to say, from the deposition +of Richard II., in 1399, to the death of Elizabeth, in 1603. It is a +strangely suggestive satire on the alleged excellence of hereditary +monarchy as a mode of government that promotes the existence of order +beyond any other, that England should not have been free from trouble +for two hundred years, because her people could not agree upon the +question of the right to the crown, and so long as that question was +left unsettled, there could be no such thing as permanent peace for +the castle or the cottage or the city. Town and country, citizen, +baron, and peasant, were alike dependent upon the ambition of aspiring +princes and king-makers for the condition of their existence. The folly +of Richard II. enabled Henry of Bolingbroke to convert his ducal +coronet into a royal crown, and to bring about that object which his +father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, seems to have ever had at +heart. Henry IV. was a usurper, in spite of his Parliamentary title, +according to all ideas of hereditary right; for, failing heirs of the +body to Richard II., the crown belonged to the House of Mortimer, in +virtue of the descent of its chief from the Duke of Clarence, third +son of Edward III, the Duke of Lancaster being fourth son of that +monarch. Henry IV. felt the force of the objection that existed to his +title, and he sought to evade it by pretending to found his claim to +the crown on descent from Edmund of Lancaster, whom he assumed to have +been the _elder_ brother of Edward I.; but no weight was attached +to this plea by his contemporaries, who saw in him a monarch created +by conquest and by Parliamentary action. The struggle that then began +endured until both Plantagenets and Tudors had become extinct, and +the English crown had passed to the House of Stuart, in the person of +James I., who was descended in the female line from the Duke of +Clarence, through Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., and +wife of Henry VII. Intrigues, insurrections, executions, and finally +great civil wars, grew out of the usurpation of the throne by the line +of Lancaster. We find the War of the Roses spoken of by nearly all +writers on it as beginning in 1455, when the first battle of St. Albans +was fought, but in fact the contest of which that war was but the +extreme utterance began nearly sixty years earlier than the day of the +Battle of St. Albans, its commencement dating from the time that Henry +IV. became King. A variety of circumstances prevented it from assuming +its severest development until long after all the actors in its early +stages had gone to their graves. Henry IV. was a man of superior +ability, which enabled him, though not without struggling hard for it, +to triumph over all his enemies; and his early death prevented a +renewal of the wars that had been waged against him. His son, the +overrated Henry V., who was far inferior to his father as a statesman, +entered upon a war with France, and so distracted English attention +from English affairs; and had he lived to complete his successes, all +objection to his title would have disappeared. Indeed, England herself +would have disappeared as a nation, becoming a mere French province, a +dependency of the House of Plantagenet reigning at Paris. But the +victor of Agincourt, like all the sovereigns of his line, died young, +comparatively speaking, and left his dominions to a child who was not a +year old, the ill-fated Henry VI. Then would have broken out the +quarrel that came to a head at the beginning of the next generation, +but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were +able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that +foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal +troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer +party had no leader. + +There is a strange episode in the history of Henry V., which shows how +unstable was the foundation of that monarch's throne. While he was +preparing, at Southampton, for the invasion of France, a conspiracy was +discovered to have been formed to take the throne from him. The chief +actor in it was the Earl of Cambridge, who was speedily tried, +convicted, and beheaded, sharing the fate of his associates. Cambridge +was a son of the Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III., and he had +married Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger Earl of March; and the +intention of the conspirators was to have raised that lady's brother, +Edmund Earl of March, to Henry's place. March was a feeble character, +and Cambridge is believed to have looked to his own wife's becoming +Queen-Regnant of England. The plot, according to one account, was +betrayed by March to the King, and the latter soon got rid of one whose +daring character and ambitious purpose showed that he must be dangerous +as an opposition chief. Henry's enemies were thus left without a head, +in consequence of their leader's having lost his head; and the French +war rapidly absorbing men's attention, all doubts as to Henry's title +were lost sight of in the blaze of glory that came from the field of +Agincourt. The spirit of opposition, however, revived as soon as the +anti-Lancastrians obtained a leader, and public discontent had been +created by domestic misrule and failure in France. That leader was the +Duke of York, son of that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for +his part in the Southampton conspiracy, which conspiracy has been +called by an eminent authority the first spark of the flame which in +the course of time consumed the two Houses of York and Lancaster. Left +an infant of three years, it was long before York became a +party-leader, and probably he never would have disputed the succession +but for the weakness of Henry VI, which amounted to imbecility, and the +urging of stronger-minded men than himself. As it was, the open +struggle began in 1455, and did not end until the defeat and capture of +the person called Perkin Warbeck, in 1497. The greatest battles of +English history took place in the course of these campaigns, and the +greater part of the royal family and most of the old nobility perished +in them, or by assassination, or on the scaffold. + +But the Yorkist party, though vanquished, was far from extinguished by +the military and political successes of Henry VII. It testifies +emphatically to the original strength of that party, and to the extent +and the depth of its influence, that it should be found a powerful +faction as late as the last quarter of Henry VIII.'s reign, fifty years +after the Battle of Stoke. "The elements of the old factions were +dormant," says Mr. Froude, "but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's +reign a White-Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open +success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but +formidable in a high degree, if opportunity to strike should offer +itself. Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been +killed at Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than +weakened it, for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his +personal character was without energy; while he made place for the +leadership of a far more powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered +Earl of Warwick, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. +This lady had inherited, in no common degree, the fierce nature of the +Plantagenets; born to command, she had rallied round her the +Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful kindred of Richard the +King-Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent was purer than the +King's; and on his death, without a male child, half England was likely +to declare either for one of her sons, or for the Marquis of Exeter, +the grandson of Edward IV." Of the general condition of the English +mind at about the date of the fall of Wolsey Mr. Froude gives us a very +accurate picture. "The country," he says, "had collected itself; the +feuds of the families had been chastened, if they had not been subdued; +while the increase of wealth and material prosperity had brought out +into obvious prominence those advantages of peace which a hot-spirited +people, antecedent to experience, had not anticipated, and had not been +able to appreciate. They were better fed, better cared for, more justly +governed, than they had ever been before; and though, abundance of +unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of the nation, looking +back from their new vantage-ground, were able to recognize the past in +its true hatefulness. Henceforward a war of succession was the +predominating terror with English statesmen, and the safe establishment +of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which it is possible +that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the determining +principle of their action. It was therefore with no little anxiety that +the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their +hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within +a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When +the Queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further +offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising +aspect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was +precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, +her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not +live, and the King had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. +At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an immediate and +simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal family; the +crown would descend with even more facility than the property of an +intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been +recognized, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next +heir in blood was James of Scotland; and gravely as statesmen desired +the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the +very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a +king of Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the +Parliament itself declared in formal language that they would resist +any attempt on the part of the Scotch king 'to the uttermost of their +power.'" + +There can be no doubt that Mr. Froude has made out his case, and that +"the predominating terror," not only of English statesmen, but of the +English people and their King, was a war of succession. If we were not +convinced by what the historian says, we should only have to look over +the reign of Elizabeth, and observe how anxious the statesmen of that +time were to have the succession question settled, and how singular was +the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on +the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and +the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by +Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not +simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth +century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed +throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of +a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of +material prosperity and moral excellence as had been the Wars of the +Roses,--a fear which the existence of the contest between Catholicism +and Protestantism was well calculated to exaggerate to a very alarming +extent. The coquetry and affectation of the Queen, which have been held +to detract largely from her claim to be considered a woman of sense and +capacity, become natural in her and intelligible to us when we consider +them in connection with the succession question. She could not +positively declare that she would under no circumstances become a +wife, but at the same time she was firm in her heart never to have a +husband. So she followed the politician's common plan: she compromised. +She allowed her hand to be sought by every empty-handed and +empty-headed and hollow-hearted prince or noble in Europe, determined +that each in his turn should go empty away; and so she played off +princes against her own people, until the course of years had left no +doubt that she had become, and must ever remain, indeed "a barren +stock." Her conduct, which is generally regarded as having been +ridiculous, and which may have been so in its details, and looked upon +only from its feminine side, throws considerable light upon the entire +field of English politics under the Tudor dynasty. + +If it could be established that the conduct of Henry VIII. toward his +people, his church, his nobles, and his wives was regulated solely with +reference to the succession question, and by his desire to preserve +the peace of his kingdom, we believe that few men would be disposed to +condemn most of those of his acts that have been long admitted to +blacken his memory, and which have placed him almost at the very head +of the long roll of heartless tyrants. That the end justifies the +means is a doctrine which everybody condemns by word of mouth, but the +practice founded upon which almost all men approve in their hearts, +whenever it applies to their own schemes, or to schemes the success of +which promises to benefit them, either individually or in the mass. As +the apologists of the French Jacobins have argued that their favorites +were cruel as the grave against Frenchmen only that they might +preserve France from destruction, so might the admirers of Henry plead +that he was vindictively cruel only that the English masses might live +in peace, and be protected in quietly tilling their fields, manuring +them after their own fashion, and not having them turned up and +fertilized after the fashion of Bosworth and Towton and Barnet. Surely +Henry Tudor, second of that name, is entitled to the same grace that is +extended to Maximilien Robespierre, supposing the facts to be in his +favor. + +But are the facts, when fairly stated, in his favor? They are not. His +advocates must find themselves terribly puzzled to reconcile his +practice with their theory. They prove beyond all dispute that the +succession question was the grand thought of England in Henry's time; +but they do not prove, because they cannot prove, that the King's +action was such as to show that he was ready, we will not say to make +important sacrifices to lessen the probabilities of the occurrence of a +succession war, but to do anything in that way that required him to +control any one of the gross passions or grosser appetites of which he +was throughout his loathsome life the slave and the victim. He seems to +have passed the last twenty years of his reign in doing deeds that give +flat contradiction to the theory set up by his good-natured admirers of +after-times, that he was the victim of circumstances, and that, though +one of the mildest and most merciful of men in fact, those villanous +circumstances did compel him to become a tyrant, a murderer, a +repudiator of sacramental and pecuniary and diplomatic obligations, a +savage on a throne, and a Nebuchadnezzar for pride and arrogance, only +that, unfortunately for his subjects in general, and for his wives in +particular, he was not turned out to grass. A beast in fact, he did not +become a beast in form. Scarcely one of his acts, after the divorce of +Catharine of Aragon, was of a character to favor the continuance of +peace in England, while many of them were admirably calculated to +bring about a war for the regal succession. Grant that he was justified +in putting away his Spanish wife,--a most excellent and eminently +disagreeable woman, a combination of qualities by no means +uncommon,--where was the necessity of his taking Anne Boleyn to wife? +Why could he not have given his hand to some foreign princess, and so +have atoned to his subjects for breaking up the Spanish alliance, in +the continuance of which the English people had no common political +interest, and an extraordinary commercial interest? Why could he not +have sent to Germany for some fair-haired princess, as he did years +later, and got Anne of Cleves for his pains, whose ugly face cost poor +Cromwell his head, which was giving the wisest head in England for +the worst one out of it? Henry, Mr. Froude would have us believe, +divorced Catharine of Aragon because he desired to have sons, as one +way to avoid the breaking out of a civil war; and yet it was a sure way +to bring Charles V. into an English dispute for the regal succession, +as the supporter of any pretender, to repudiate the aunt of that +powerful imperial and royal personage. The English nation, Mr. Froude +truly tells us, was at that time "sincerely attached to Spain. The +alliance with the House of Burgundy" (of which Charles V. was the head) +"was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was +enormous,--Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as +many as fifteen thousand Flemings were settled in London. Charles +himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the +late French war; and when, in his supposed character of leader of the +anti-Papal party in Europe, he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate +Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was +fomenting in the population." Was it not a strange way to proceed for +the preservation of peace in England to offend a foreign sovereign who +stood in so strong and influential a position to the English people? +Charles was not merely displeased because of the divorce of his +relative, his mother's sister, a daughter of the renowned Isabella, who +had wrought such great things for Christendom,--promoting the discovery +of America, and conquering Granada,--but he was incensed at the mere +thought of preferring to her place a private gentlewoman, who would +never have been heard of, if Henry had not seen fit to raise her from +common life, first to the throne, and then to the scaffold. That was an +insult to the whole Austro-Burgundian family, whose dominions rivalled +those of the Roman Caesars, and whose chief had just held a King of +France captive and a Pope of Rome besieged. The Emperor might, perhaps, +have been sooted, had his relative's place been bestowed upon some lady +of corresponding blueness of blood; but it offended his pride, when he +reflected on her being supplanted by Mrs. Boleyn. The aristocratical +_morgue_ was too strong in him to bear such an insult with +fortitude. Yet none other than Mrs. Boleyn would Henry have, +notwithstanding the certainty of enraging Charles, and with the equal +certainty of disgusting a majority of his own subjects. If it had been +simply a wife that he desired, and if he was thinking merely of the +succession, and so sought only for an opportunity to beget legitimate +children, why did he so pertinaciously insist upon having no one but +"Mistress Anne" for the partner of his throne and bed? + +When he married Jane Seymour on the 20th of May, 1536, having had +Anne's head cut off on the 19th, Mr. Froude sees in that infamous +proceeding--a proceeding without parallel in the annals of villany, +and which would have disgraced the worst members of Sawney Bean's +unpromising family--nothing but a simple business-transaction. The +Privy Council and the peers, troubled about the succession, asked +Henry to marry again without any delay, when Anne had been prepared for +condemnation. The King was graciously pleased to comply with this +request, which was probably made in compliance with suggestions from +himself,--the marriage with Jane Seymour having been resolved upon +long before it took place, and the desire to effect it being the cause +of the legal assassination of Anne Boleyn, which could be brought about +only through the "cooking" of a series of charges that could have +originated nowhere out of her husband's vile mind, and which led to the +deaths of six innocent persons. "The indecent haste" of the King's +marriage with the Seymour, Mr. Froude says, "is usually considered a +proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin. To +myself the haste is an evidence of something very different. Henry, who +waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, was not without some control over +his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, +he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his +conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which +he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a +proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which +his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which +was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the +absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among +contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth another judgment was +passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an Act of Parliament must +be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture." +[Footnote: Mr. Froude mentions that a request that the King would +marry, similar to that which he received after the fall of Anne +Boleyn, was urged by the Council on the death of Jane Seymour; but, as +he allowed more than two years to elapse between the date of Jane's +death and the date of his marriage with Anne of Cleves, which marriage +he refused to consummate, is not the inference unavoidable that he +wedded Jane Seymour so hurriedly merely to gratify his desire to +possess her person, and that in 1537-39 he was singularly indifferent +to the claims of a question upon his attention?] + +We submit that the approving action of men who were partakers of +Henry's guilt is no proof of his innocence. Their conduct throughout +the Boleyn business simply proves that they were slaves, and that the +slaves were as brutal as their master. If Henry was so indifferent in +the matter of matrimony as to look upon all women with the same +feelings, if he married officially as the King, and not lovingly as a +man, how came it to pass that he was thrown into such an agony of rage, +when, being nearly fifty years old, ugly Anne of Cleves was provided +for him? His disappointment and mortification were then so great that +they hastened that political change which led to Cromwell's fall and +execution. When Henry first saw the German lady, he was as much +affected as George, Prince of Wales, was when he first saw Caroline of +Brunswick, but he behaved better than George in the lady's presence. +Much as he desired children, he never consummated his marriage with +Anne of Cleves, though he must have known that the world would be but +ill-peopled, if none but beautiful women were to be married. Had he +fulfilled the contract made with her, he might have had many sons and +daughters, and the House of Tudor might have been reigning over England +at this day. Both his fifth and sixth wives, Catharine Howard and +Catharine Parr, were fine women; and if he had lived long enough to get +rid of the latter, he would, beyond all question, have given her place +to the most beautiful woman whom he could have prevailed upon to risk +his perilous embraces preliminarily to those of the hangman. + +If Henry had married solely for the purpose of begetting children, he +never would have divorced and slaughtered Anne Boleyn. During her brief +connection with him, she gave birth to two children, one a still-born +son, and the other the future Queen Elizabeth, who lived to her +seventieth year, and whose enormous vitality and intellectual energy +speak well for the physical excellence of her mother. The miscarriage +that Anne experienced in February, 1536, was probably the occasion of +her repudiation and murder in the following May, as Henry was always +inclined to attribute disappointments of this kind to his wives, who +ever dwelt in the valley of the shadow of death.[Footnote: Henry +thought of divorcing Catharine of Aragon some years before she had +become too old to bear children. She was born in the last month of +1485, and the "King's secret matter," as the divorce question was +called, was in agitation as early as the first half of 1527, and +probably at an earlier period. Catharine was the mother of five +children, but one of whom lived, namely, the Princess Mary, afterward +Mary I.] The most charitable view that can be taken of Henry's +abominable treatment of his second wife is, that he was led by his +superstitious feelings, which _he_ called religion, to sacrifice +her to the manes of his first wife, whom Anne had badly treated, and +who died on the 7th of January, 1536. Henry, after his fashion, was +much moved by Catharine's death, and by perusal of the letter which she +wrote him from her dying bed; and so he resolved to make the only +atonement of which his savage nature was capable, and one, too, which +the bigoted Spanish woman would have been satisfied with, could she +have foreseen it. As the alliance between the royal houses of England +and Spain was sealed with the blood of the innocent Warwick, who was +sent to the scaffold by Henry VII. to satisfy Catharine's father, +Ferdinand of Aragon, so were the wrongs of Catharine to be acknowledged +by shedding the innocent blood of Anne Boleyn. The connection, as it +were, began with the butchery of a boy, reduced to idiocy by +ill-treatment, on Tower Hill, and it ended with the butchery of a +woman, who had been reduced almost to imbecility by cruelty, on the +Tower Green. Heaven's judgement would seem to have been openly +pronounced against that blood-cemented alliance, formed by two of the +greatest of those royal ruffians who figured in the fifteenth century, +and destined to lead to nothing but misery to all who were brought +together in consequence of it's having been made. If one were seeking +for proofs of the direct and immediate interposition of a Higher Power +in the ordering of human affairs, it would be no difficult matter to +discover them in the history of the royal houses of England during +the existence of the Lancastrian, the York, and the Tudor families. +Crime leads to crime therein in regular sequence, the guiltless +suffering with the guilty, and because of their connection with the +guilty, until the palaces of the Henries and the Edwards become as +haunted with horrors as were the halls of the Atridae. The "pale +nurslings that had perished by kindred hands," seen by Cassandra when +she passed the threshold of Agamemnon's abode, might have been +paralleled by similar "phantom dreams," had another Cassandra +accompanied Henry VII. when he came from Bosworth Field to take +possession of the royal abodes at London. She, too, might have spoken, +taking the Tower for her place of denunciation, of "that human +shamble-house, that bloody floor, that dwelling abhorred by Heaven, +privy to so many horrors against the most sacred ties." And she might +have seen in advance the yet greater horrors that were to come, and +that hung "over the inexpiable threshold; the curse passing from +generation to generation." + +Mr. Froude thinks that Catharine Howard, the fifth of Henry's wives, +was not only guilty of antenuptial slips, but of unfaithfulness to the +royal bed. It is so necessary to establish the fact of her infidelity, +in order to save the King's reputation,--for he could not with any +justice have punished her for the irregularities of her unmarried +life, and not even in this age, when we have organized divorce, could +such slips be brought forward against a wife of whom a husband had +become weary,--that we should be careful how we attach credit to what +is called the evidence against Catharine Howard; and her +contemporaries, who had means of weighing and criticizing that +evidence, did not agree in believing her guilty. Mr. Froude, who would, +to use a saying of Henry's time, find Abel guilty of murder of Cain, +were that necessary to support his royal favorite's hideous cause, not +only declares that the unhappy girl was guilty throughout, but lugs God +into the tragedy, and makes Him responsible for what was, perhaps, the +cruellest and most devilish of all the many murders perpetrated by +Henry VIII. The luckless lady was but a child at the time she was +devoured by "the jaws of darkness." At most she was but in her +twentieth year, and probably she was a year or two younger than that +age. Any other king than Henry would have pardoned her, if for no other +reason, then for this, that he had coupled her youth with his age, and +so placed her in an unnatural position, in which the temptation to +error was all the greater, and the less likely to be resisted, because +of the girl's evil training,--a training that could not have been +unknown to the King, and on the incidents of which the Protestant plot +for her ruin, and that of the political party of which she was the +instrument, had been founded. But of Henry VIII., far more truly than +of James II., could it have been said by any one of his innumerable +victims, that, though it was in his power to forgive an offender, it +was not in his nature to do so. + +No tyrant ever was preceded to the tomb by such an array of victims as +Henry VIII. If Shakspeare had chosen to bring the highest of those +victims around the last bed that Henry was to press on earth, after the +fashion in which he sent the real or supposed victims of Richard III. +to haunt the last earthly sleep of the last royal Plantagenet, he would +have had to bring them up by sections, and not individually, in +battalions, and not as single spies. Buckingham, Wolsey, More, Fisher, +Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Rocheford, Cromwell, Catharine +Howard, Exeter, Montague, Lambert, Aske, Lady Salisbury, +Surrey,--these, and hundreds of others, selected principally from the +patrician order, or from the officers of the old church, might have led +the ghostly array which should have told the monarch to die and to +despair of redemption; while an innumerable host of victims of lower +rank might have followed these more conspicuous sufferers from the +King's "jealous rage." Undoubtedly some of these persons had justly +incurred death, but it is beyond belief that they were all guilty of +the crimes laid to their charge; yet Mr. Froude can find as little +good in any of them as of evil in Henry's treatment of them. He would +have us believe that Henry was scrupulously observant of the law! and +that he allowed Cromwell to perish because he had violated the laws of +England, and sought to carry out that "higher law" which politicians +out of power are so fond of appealing to, but which politicians in +power seldom heed. And such stuff we are expected to receive as +historical criticism, and the philosophy of history! And pray, of what +breach of the law had the Countess of Salisbury been guilty, that she +should be sent to execution when she had arrived at so advanced an age +that she must soon have passed away in the course of Nature? She was +one of Cromwell's victims, and as he had been deemed unfit to live +because of his violations of the laws of the realm, it would follow +that one whose attainder had been procured through his devices could +not be fairly put to death. She suffered ten months after Cromwell, and +could have committed no fresh offence in the interval, as she was a +prisoner in the Tower at the time of her persecutor's fall, and so +remained until the day of her murder. The causes of her death, +however, are not far to seek: she was the daughter of George +Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Henry hated +every member of that royal race which the Tudors had supplanted; and +she was the mother of Reginald Pole, whom the King detested both for +his Plantagenet blood and for the expositions which he made of the +despot's crimes. + +One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch +even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered +up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all +redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so +assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are +few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard, +Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the +high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English +literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of +expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant, +who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped--for he could no +longer write--the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to +endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies +are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets +the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet +was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much +as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case +he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as +summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King. +Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, +his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, +and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of +patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey +upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a +dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were +all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial +murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated +above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of +snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then +alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both +Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey +most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there +could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had +been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head +ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political +offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr. +Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against +Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to +be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common +decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude +has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the +man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of +Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a +foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest +intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a +useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of +England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond, +whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died, +leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin +Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the +King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby +in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame +d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most +notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if +Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part +assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old +aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the +King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's +story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had +complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, +and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should +all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would +consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also +confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who, +'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is +the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at +first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the +witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid +in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious +a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,--the English +people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic +decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes. +Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of +the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be +guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support +it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's +brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that +brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had +perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to +have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far +the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is +room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the +charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt +which is his due. + +The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting +one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the +space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another +time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that +Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else--dreadful +alternative!--we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not +the just man made perfect on earth. + + + * * * * * + + + +WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED. + + +Bedded in stone, a toad lived well, + Cold and content as toad could be; +As safe from harm as monk in cell, + Almost as safe from good was he + +And "What is life?" he said, and dozed; + Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he: +"Each creature God in stone hath closed, + That each may have tranquillity. + +"And God Himself lies coiled in stone, + Nor wakes nor moves to any call; +Each lives unto himself alone, + And cold and night envelop all." + +He said, and slept. With curious ear + Close to the stone, a serpent lay. +"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer, + "For well I know God wakes alway. + +"And what is life but wakefulness, + To glide through snares, alert and wise,-- +With plans too deep for neighbors' guess, + And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes? + +"For all the earth is thronged with foes, + And dark with fraud, and set with toils: +Each lies in wait, on each to close, + And God is bribed with share of spoils." + +High in the boughs a small bird sang, + And marvelled such a creed should be. +"How strange and false!" his comment rang; + "For well I know that life is glee. + +"For all the plain is flushed with bloom, + And all the wood with music rings, +And in the air is scarcely room + To wave our myriad flashing wings. + +"And God, amid His angels high, + Spreads over all in brooding joy; +On great wings borne, entranced they lie, + And all is bliss without alloy." + +"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?" + Thus mused a man, the trees among: +"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know + That life must not be spent in song. + +"For what is life, but toil of brain, + And toil of hand, and strife of will,-- +To dig and forge, with loss and pain, + The truth from lies, the good from ill,-- + +"And ever out of self to rise + Toward love and law and constancy? +But with sweet love comes sacrifice, + And with great law comes penalty. + +"And God, who asks a constant soul, + His creatures tries both sore and long: +Steep is the way, and far the goal, + And time is small to waste in song." + +He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned: + With equal love his glances fell +Upon the man with soul upturned, + Upon the toad within its cell. + +And, strange! upon that wondrous face + Shone pure all natures, well allied: +There subtlety was turned to grace, + And slow content was glorified; + +And labor, love, and constancy + Put off their dross and mortal guise, +And with the look that is to be + They looked from those immortal eyes. + +To the faint man the angel strong + Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain: +The one in tears, the one in song, + The cross was borne betwixt them twain. + +He sang the careless bliss that lies + In wood-bird's heart, without alloy; +He sang the joy of sacrifice; + And still he sang, "_All_ life is joy." + +But how, while yet he clasped the pain, + Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled, +I know not, with my human brain, + Nor how the two he reconciled. + + + * * * * * + + +PRESENCE. + + +It was a long and terrible conflict,--I will not say where, because +that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no +match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought +with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as +they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against +oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people +against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great +principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more +enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the +sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in +execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether +blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed +down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or +stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three +hundred. + +Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the +death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time, +though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the +quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the +brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery +ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified +interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend +Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of +brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom +beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now +compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy +eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable +fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other +mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in +a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of +mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and +spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding +minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a +brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the +fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now +imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed +positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with +marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible _coup-de-main_, and +all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no +choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless +inspiration. + +After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on +his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued +with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of +his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was +abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact. + +Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our +relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively, +even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and +position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high +mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that +the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were +all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular +indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more +interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable +reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained. +He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife +was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another +soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my +friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its +solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his +mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat +the story because it is literally _true_, and because some of its +incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form +the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all +departments of human knowledge. + +During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our +interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country +home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his +still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his +face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same +deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest +things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity +of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman +self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that +"are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines +which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the +veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,--the "soft, guileless +consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other +incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon +the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening +hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found +a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the +heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its +inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious +thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting +shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts +warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness, +or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,--that +veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but +souls,--that causes the letters in which loved names are written to +appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on _fire_, while day, in +their cloudy traces, they but _smoke_?" + +Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of +psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and +illusion hold contested sway,--where the relations between spirit and +matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can +only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words +created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would +a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle. + +"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long +rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the +ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea +implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet +would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more +unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the +thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be +found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no +mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of +palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to +crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental +phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or +creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern +lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before +the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the +battalions into a stream of electricity." + +"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know +it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means +incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it +may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the +actual power which one human being may exert over another without the +intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted +scientists concede even more than this." + +"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent +grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed +to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between +soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort +to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night +bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' +I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or +to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood." + +"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the +later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of +modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind +to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical +impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and +perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of +the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by +fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but +which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical +clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and +generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both +assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the +soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the +jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through +the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs +of hope and gladness." + +His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a +pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the +starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the +battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his +frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint +smile of recognition brightened his features. + +"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery +of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a +mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can +touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not +necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case +are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our +entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in +absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, +in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the +barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the +individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We +are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other +hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring +the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being, +infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and +imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then, +those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though +they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why +may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more +subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness +in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of +spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I +refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the +brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher +faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a +chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and +obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be +filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing." + +"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is +based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess +that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a +point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than +the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever +persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material +intervention." + +"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason +about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. +But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid +abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, +there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim +of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the +Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is +commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no +testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I +have received. + +"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second +time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are +a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?" + +"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the +pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from +the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others +from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that +theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves +the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative +interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will +have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain +how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears +to you unphilosophical, if not absurd." + +"I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel +the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation." + +Vilalba smiled slightly. + +"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, +myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am +about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy. + +"It happened to me many years ago,--how flatteringly that little +phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!--when I had just +entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to +New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of +friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French +families of that _quasi_ Parisian city, and in the reception of +their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a +stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I +had health, friends, education, position,--youth, as well, which then +seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of +years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it +not, I am telling you, to-night, this story. + +"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an +aristocratic subject of the old French _regime_. I did not know +the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the +invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the +messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may +be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After +greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my +attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly +veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely, +living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal +light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious, +the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of +graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the +coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful +according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the +same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and +blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of +what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,--that they were +enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life +multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was +mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the +significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering +the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller +revelation. + +"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced, +and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my +host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened +romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium +to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world +began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision; +their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or +harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those +whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's +optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the +first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the +gift rarely accorded to us here,--the fulfilment of a promise hidden +in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing +self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had +been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay +triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when +in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice +inspired, that new birth of + + 'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,' + +had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher +and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be +forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest +and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom +we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures +which precedes reason and asks no leave of the understanding, is not a +gradual and cautious attraction, like the growth of a coral reef, but +sudden and magnetic as the coalescence of two drops of mercury. + +"During several following weeks we met many times, and yet, in looking +back to that dream of heaven, I cannot tell how often, nor for how +long. Time is merely the measure given to past emotions, and those +emotions flowed over me in a tidal sweep which merged all details in +one continuous memory. The lone hemisphere of my life was rounded into +completeness, and its feverish unrest changed to deep tranquillity, as +if a faint, tremulous star were transmuted into a calm, full-orbed +planet. Do you remember that story of Plato's--I recall the air-woven +subtilties of the delightful idealist, to illustrate, not to +prove--that story of the banquet where the ripe wines of the Aegean +Isles unchained the tongues of such talkers as Pausanias and Socrates +and others as witty and wise, until they fell into a discourse on the +origin of Love, and, whirling away on the sparkling eddies of fancy, +were borne to that preexistent sphere which, in Plato's opinion, +furnished the key to all the enigmas of this? There they beheld the +complete and original souls, the compound of male and female, dual and +yet one, so happy and so haughty in their perfection of beauty and of +power that Jupiter could not tolerate his godlike rivals, and therefore +cut them asunder, sending the dissevered halves tumbling down to earth, +bewildered and melancholy enough, until some good fortune might restore +to each the _alter ego_ which constituted the divine unity. 'And +thus,' says Plato, 'whenever it happens that a man meets with his other +half, the very counterpart of himself, they are both smitten with +strong love; they recognize their ancient union; they are powerfully +attracted by the consciousness that they belong to each other; and they +are unwilling to be again parted, even for a short time. And if Vulcan +were to stand over them with his fire and forge, and offer to melt them +down and run them together, and of two to make them one again, they +would both say that this was just what they desired!' + +"I dare say you have read--unless your partiality for the soft Southern +tongues has chased away your Teutonic taste--that exquisite poem of +Schiller's, 'Das Geheimnitz der Reminiscenz,' the happiest possible +crystallization of the same theory. I recall a few lines from Bulwer's +fine translation:-- + +"'Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart? +Is it because its native home thou art? +Or were they brothers in the days of yore, +Twin-bound both souls, and in the links they bore +Sigh to be bound once more? + +"'Were once our beings blent and intertwining, +And therefore still my heart for thine is pining? +Knew we the light of some extinguished sun,-- +The joys remote of some bright realm undone, +Where once our souls were ONE? + +"'Yes, it is so! And thou wert bound to me +In the long-vanished eld eternally! +In the dark troubled tablets which enroll +The past my Muse beheld this blessed scroll,-- +'One with thy love, my soul'!" + +"Now the Athenian dreamer builded better than he knew. That phantom +which perpetually attends and perpetually evades us,--the inevitable +guest whose silence maddens and whose sweetness consoles,--whose filmy +radiance eclipses all beauty,--whose voiceless eloquence subdues all +sound,--ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and +unchanging,--this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, +because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response in a +living form, its rapturous welcome ignores the old imperfect being, and +the union only is recognized as Self indeed, complete and undivided. +And that fulness of human love becomes a faint type and interpreter of +the Infinite, as through it we glide into grander harmonies and +enlarged relations with the Universe, urged on forever by insatiable +desires and far-reaching aspirations which testify our celestial +origin and intimate our immortal destiny. + +"'Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade, +From the rude Mongol to the starry Greek, +everywhere we seek +Union and bond, till in one sea sublime +Of love be merged all measure and all time!" + +"I never disclosed in words my love to Blanche. Through the lucid +transparency of Presence, I believed that she knew all and +comprehended all, without the aid of those blundering symbols. We never +even spoke of the future; for all time, past and to come, seemed to +converge and centre and repose in that radiant present. In the +enchantment of my new life, I feared lest a breath should disturb the +spell, and send me back to darkness and solitude. + +"Of course, this could not last forever. There came a time when I found +that my affairs would compel me to leave New Orleans for a year, or +perhaps a little longer. With the discovery my dream was broken. The +golden web which had been woven around me shrank beneath the iron hand +of necessity, and fell in fragments at my feet. I knew that it was +useless to speak to Blanch of marriage, for her father, a stern and +exacting man in his domestic relations, had often declared that he +would never give his daughter to a husband who had no fortune. If I +sought his permission to address her now, my fate was fixed. There was +no alternative, therefore, but to wait until my return, when I hoped to +have secured, in sufficient measure, the material passport to his +favor. Our parting was necessarily sudden, and, strange as it may seem, +some fatal repression sealed my lips, and withheld me from uttering the +few words which would have made the future wholly ours, and sculptured +my dream of love in monumental permanance. Ah! with what narrow and +trembling planks do we bridge the abyss of misery and despair! But be +patient while I linger for a moment here. The evening before my +departure, I went to take leave of her. There were other guests in the +drawing-room, the atmosphere was heated and oppressive, and after a +little time I proposed to her to retreat with me, for a few moments, to +the fragrant coolness of the garden. We walked slowly along through +clustering flowers and under arching orange-trees, which infolded us +tenderly within their shining arms, as in tremulous silence we waited +for words that should say enough and yet not too much. The glories of +all summer evenings seemed concentred in this one. The moon now +silvered leaf and blossom, and then suddenly fled behind a shadowing +cloud, while the stars shone out with gladness brief and bright as the +promises of my heart. Skilful artists in the music-room thrilled the +air with some of those exquisite compositions of Mendelssohn which +dissolve the soul in sweetness or ravish it with delight, until it +seems as if all past emotions of joy were melted in one rapid and +comprehensive reexperience, and all future inheritance gleamed in +promise before our enraptured vision, and we are hurried on with +electric speed to hitherto unsealed heights of feeling, whence we catch +faint glimpses of the unutterable mysteries of our being, and +foreshadowings of a far-off, glorified existence. The eloquence of +earth and sky and air breathed more than language could have uttered, +and, as my eyes met the eyes of Blanche, the question of my heart was +asked and answered, once for all. I recognized the treasured ideal of +my restless, vagrant heart, and I seemed to hear it murmuring gently, +as if to a long-lost mate, _'Where hast thou stayed so long?'_ I +felt that henceforth there was for us no real parting. Our material +forms might be severed, but our spirits were one and inseparate. + +"'On the fountains of our life a seal was set +To keep their waters clear and bright +Forever.' + +"And thus, with scarce a word beside, I said the 'God be with you!' and +went out into the world alone, yet henceforth not alone. + +"Two years passed away. They had been years of success in my worldly +affairs, and were blessed by memories and hopes which grew brighter +with each day. I had not heard of Blanche, save indirectly through a +friend in New Orleans, but I never doubted that the past was as sacred, +the future as secure, in her eyes as in my own. I was now ready to +return, and to repeat in words the vows which my heart had sworn long +before. I fixed the time, and wrote to my friend to herald my coming. +Before that letter reached him, there came tidings which, like a storm +of desolation, swept me to the dust. Blanche was in France, and +married,--how or when or to whom, I knew not, cared not. The +relentless fact was sufficient. The very foundations of the earth +seemed to tremble and slide from beneath me. The sounds of day +tortured, the silence of night maddened me. I sought forgetfulness in +travel, in wild adventure, in reckless dissipation. With that strange +fatality which often leads us to seek happiness or repose where we have +least chance of finding it, I, too, married. But I committed no +perjury. I offered friendship, and it sufficed. Love I never professed +to give, and the wife whom I merely esteemed had not the mental or the +magnetic ascendancy which might have triumphed for a time over the +image shrined in my inmost heart. I sought every avenue through which +I might fly from that and from myself. I tried mental occupation, and +explored literature and science, with feverish ardor and some reward. I +think it is Coleridge who recommends to those who are suffering from +extreme sorrow the study of a new language. But to a mind of deep +feeling diversion is not relief. If we fly from memory, we are pursued +and overtaken like fugitive slaves, and punished with redoubled +tortures. The only sure remedy for grief is self-evolved. We must +accept sorrow as a guest, not shun it as a foe, and, receiving it into +close companionship, let the mournful face haunt our daily paths, even +though it shut out all friends and dim the light of earth and heaven. +And when we have learned the lesson which it came to teach, the fearful +phantom brightens into beauty, and reveals an 'angel unawares,' who +gently leads us to heights of purer atmosphere and more extended +vision, and strengthens us for the battle which demands unfaltering +heart and hope. + +"Do you remember the remark of the child Goethe, when his young reason +was perplexed by attempting to reconcile the terrible earthquake at +Lisbon with the idea of infinite goodness? 'God knows very well that an +immortal soul cannot suffer from mortal accident.' With similar faith +there came to me tranquil restoration. The deluge of passion rolled +back, and from the wreck of my Eden arose a new and more spiritual +creation. But forgetfulness was never possible. In the maddening +turbulence of my grief and the ghastly stillness of its reaction, the +lovely spirit which had become a part of my life seemed to have fled to +the inner temple of my soul, breaking the solitude with glimmering +ray and faint melodious murmur. And when I could bear to look and +listen, it grew brighter and more palpable, until at last it attended +me omnipresently, consoling, cheering, and stimulating to nobler +thought and action. + +"Nor was it a ghost summoned by memory, or the airy creation of fancy. +One evening an incident occurred which will test your credulity, or +make you doubt my sanity. I sat alone, and reading,--nothing more +exciting, however, than a daily newspaper. My health was perfect, my +mind unperturbed. Suddenly my eye was arrested by a cloud passing +slowly back and forth several times before me, not projected upon the +wall, but floating in the atmosphere. I looked around for the cause, +but the doors and windows were closed, and nothing stirred in the +apartment. Then I saw a point of light, small as a star at first, but +gradually enlarging into a luminous cloud which filled the centre of +the room. I shivered with strange coldness, and every nerve tingled as +if touched by a galvanic battery. From the tremulous waves of the cloud +arose, like figures in a dissolving view, the form and features of my +lost love,--not radiant as when I last looked upon them, but pale and +anguish-stricken, with clasped hands and tearful eyes; and upon my ears +fell, like arrows of fire, the words, _You have been the cause of all +this; oh, why did you not'_--The question was unfinished, and from +my riveted gaze, half terror, half delight, the vision faded, and I was +alone. + +"Of course you will pronounce this mere nervous excitement, but, I pray +you, await the sequel. Those burning words told the story of that +mistake which had draped in despair our earthly lives. They were no +reflection from my own mind. In the self-concentration of my +disappointment, I had never dreamed that I alone was in fault,--that I +should have anchored my hope on somewhat more defined than the +voiceless intelligence of sympathy. But the very reproach of the +mysterious visitor brought with it a conviction, positive and +indubitable, that the spiritual portion of our being possesses the +power to act upon the material perception of another, without aid from +material elements. From time to time I have known, beyond the +possibility of deception, that the kindred spirit was still my +companion, my own inalienable possession, in spite of all factitious +ties, of all physical intervention. + +"Have you heard that among certain tribes of the North-American Indians +are men who possess an art which enables them to endure torture and +actual death without apparent suffering or even consciousness? I once +chanced to fall in with one of these tribes, then living in Louisiana, +now removed to the far West, and was permitted to witness some +fantastic rites, half warlike, half religious, in which, however, +there was nothing noticeable except this trance-like condition, which +some of the warriors seemed to command at pleasure, manifested by a +tense rigidity of the features and muscles, and a mental exaltation +which proved to be both clairvoyant and clairoyant: a state analogous +to that of hypnotism, or the artificial sleep produced by gazing +fixedly on a near, bright object, and differing only in degree from +the nervous or imaginative control which has been known to arrest and +cure disease, which chained St. Simeon Stylites to his pillar, and +sustains the Hindoo fakirs in their apparently superhuman vigils. These +children of Nature had probed with direct simplicity some of the deep +secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous +devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a +concentrative energy of the will, which riveted the faculties upon a +single purpose or idea, and held every nerve and sense in absolute +abeyance. We are so little accustomed to test the potency of the will +out of the ordinary plane of its operation, that we have little +conception how mighty a lever it may be made, or to what new exercise +it may be directed; and yet we are all conscious of periods in our +lives when, like a vast rock in ocean, it has suddenly loomed up firm +and defiant amid our petty purposes and fretful indecisions, waxing +grander and stronger under opposition, a something apart from, yet a +conscious portion of ourselves,--a master, though a slave,--another +revelation of the divinity within. + +"I will confess that curiosity led me long ago to slight experiments in +the direction in which you say the diabolic lies, but my mind was +never concentrated on any one idea of sufficient interest to command +success, until, in some periods of mingled peril and excitement, the +memory of Blanche, and the conscious, even startling nearness of that +sweet presence, have lent to my will unwonted energy and inspiration. + +"Twenty years passed slowly away. It is common to speak of the +_flight_ of time. For me, time has no wings. The days and years +are faltering and tardy-footed, laden with the experiences of the +outer and the problems of the inner world, which seem perpetually +multiplied by reflection, like figures in a room mirrored on all +sides. Meanwhile, my wife had died. I have never since sought women +beyond the formal pale of the drawing-room: not from insensibility to +loveliness, but because the memory, 'dearer far than bliss,' of one +irretrievable affection shut out all inferior approach,--like a +solitary planet, admitting no dance of satellites within its orbit. + +"At last the long silence was broken. I heard that Blanche was free, +and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The +ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved +a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a +glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was in +Louisiana, and in the very dwelling and at the same hour which had +witnessed our parting. Again was it a soft summer evening. The same +faint golden rays painted the sun's farewell, and the same silver moon +looked eloquent response, as on the evening breeze floated sweet +remembered odors of jessamine and orange. Again the ideal beauty of the +lovely portrait met my gaze and seemed to melt into my heart; and +once more, softly, lightly, fell a footstep, and the Presence by which +I had never been forsaken, which I could never forsake, stood before me +in 'palpable array of sense.' It was indeed the living Blanche, calm +and stately as of old,--no longer radiant with the flush of youth, but +serene in tenderest grace and sweet reserve, and beautiful through the +lustre of the inner light of soul. She uttered a faint cry of joy, and +placing her trembling hand in mine, we stood transfixed and silent, +with riveted gaze, reading in each other's eyes feelings too sacred for +speech, too deep for smiles or tears. In that long, burning look, it +seemed as if the emotions of each were imparted to the other, not in +slow succession as through words and sentences, but daguerreotyped or +electrotyped in perfected form upon the conscious understanding. No +language could have made so clear and comprehensible the revelation of +that all-centring, unconquerable love which thrilled our inmost being, +and pervaded the atmosphere around us with subtile and tremulous +vibrations. In that moment all time was fused and forgotten. There was +for us no Past, no Future; there was only the long-waited, +all-embracing Now. I could willingly have died then and there, for I +knew that all life could bring but one such moment. My heart spoke +truly. A change passed over the countenance of Blanche,--an expression +of unutterable grief, like Eve's retrospective look at Eden. Quivering +with strange tremor, again she stood before me, with clasped hands and +tearful eyes, in the very attitude of that memorable apparition, and +again fell upon my ears the mysterious plaint and the uncompleted +question,--_'You have been the cause of all this; oh, why did you +not'_-- + +"Now, my friend, can your philosophy explain this startling +verification, this reflex action of the vision, or the fantasy, or +whatever else you may please to term it, whose prophetic shadow fell +upon my astonished senses long years before? In all the intervening +time, we were separated by great distance, no word or sign passed +between us, nor did we even hear of each other except indefinitely and +through chance. Is there, then, any explanation of that vision more +rational than that the spirit thus closely affined with my own was +enabled, through its innate potencies, or through some agency of which +we are ignorant, to impress upon my bodily perceptions its +uncontrollable emotions? That this manifestation was made through what +physiologists call the unconscious or involuntary action of the mind +was proved by the incredulity and surprise of Blanche when I told her +of the wonderful coincidence. + +"I need not relate, even if I could do so, the outpouring of long-pent +emotions which relieved the yearning love and haunting memories of sad, +silent, lingering years. It is enough to tell you briefly of the +story which was repeated in fragments through many hours of unfamiliar +bliss. Soon after my departure from New Orleans, the father of Blanche, +with the stern authority which many parents exercise over the +matrimonial affairs of their daughters, insisted upon her forming an +alliance to which the opposition of her own heart was the only +objection. So trifling an impediment was decisively put aside by him, +and Blanche, having delayed the marriage as long as possible, until the +time fixed for my return was past, and unable to plead any open +acknowledgment on my part which could justify her refusal, had no +alternative but to obey. 'I confess,' said she, in faltering tones, +'that, after my fate was fixed, and I was parted from you, as I +believed for life, I tried to believe that the love which had given so +slight witness in words to its truth and fervor must have faded +entirely away, and that I was forgotten, and perhaps supplanted. And +therefore, in the varied pursuits and pleasures of my new sphere, and +in the indulgence and kindness which ministered to the outer, but, +alas! never to the inner life, I sought happiness, and I, too, like +yourself, strove to forget. Ah! that art of forgetting, which the +Athenian coveted as the best of boons,--when was it ever found through +effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the +allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still +turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its +master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for +expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the +material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, +sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I +was lost to sights and sounds around me, with a sense of having been +in your actual presence. I was aware of an effect rather than of an +immediate consciousness,--as if the magnetism of your touch had swept +over me, cooling the fever of my brain, and charming to deep +tranquillity my troubled heart. And thus I learned, through similar +experience, the same belief as yours. I have felt the continuous +nearness, the inseparable union of our spirits, as plainly as I feel +it now, with my hand clasped in yours, and reading in your eyes the +unutterable things which we can never hope to speak, because they are +foreshadowings of another existence. + +"What I possess I see afar off lying, +And what I lost is real and undying." + +The material presence is indeed very dear, but I believe that it is not +essential to the perpetuity of that love which is nurtured through +mutual and perfect understanding.' + +"'It is not essential,' I replied, 'but it is, as you say, very, very +dear, because it is an exponent and participant of the hidden life +which it was designed to aid and to enframe. Blanche, it was you who +first wakened my soul to the glorious revelation, the heavenly +heritage of love. It was you who opened to me the world which lies +beyond the mere external, who gently allured me from the coarse and +clouding elements of sense, and infolded me in the holy purity of that +marriage of kindred natures which alone is hallowed by the laws of +God, and which no accidents of time or place can rend asunder. Apart +from the bitterness of this long separation, the lesson might not have +been learned; but now that it is ineffaceably engraven on both our +hearts, and confirmed in the assurance of this blessed reunion, may I +not hope that for the remainder of our earthly lives we may study +together in visible companionship such further lessons as may be held +in reserve for us?' + +"Her face glowed with a soft crimson flush, and again her eyes were +suffused with tears, through which beamed a look of sweet, heavenly +sorrow,--such as might have shone in the orbs of the angel who enforced +upon Adam the sentence of expulsion from Paradise, and who, while +sharing the exile's grief, beheld in the remote horizon, far beyond the +tangled wilderness of Earth, another gate, wide opening to welcome him +to the Immortal Land. She was silent for a little time, and then she +murmured, lingering gently on the words, 'No, it must not be. We are, +indeed, inalienably one, in a nearer and dearer sense than can be +expressed by any transient symbol. Let us not seek to quit the +spiritual sphere in which we have long dwelt and communed together, for +one liable to discord and misinterpretation. I have an irresistible +impression that my life here will be very brief. While I remain, come +to me when you will, let me be the Egeria of your hours of leisure, and +a consoler in your cares,--but let us await, for another and a higher +life, the more perfect consummation of our love. For, oh, believe, as I +believe, faith is no mockery, nor is the heart's prophecy a lie. We +were not born to be the dupes of dreams or the sport of chance. The +voice which whispered to me long ago the promise fulfilled in this hour +tells me that in a bright Hereafter we shall find compensation for +every sorrow, reality for every ideal, and that there at last shall be +resolved in luminous perception the veiled and troubled mystery of +PRESENCE!'" + + + * * * * * + +CHIEFLY ABOUT WAR-MATTERS. + +BY A PEACEABLE MAN. + + +There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically sealed +seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the +disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the +general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, +and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain +fantasies, to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring +to give a sufficiently life-like aspect to admit of their figuring in a +romance. As I make no pretensions to state-craft or soldiership, and +could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed, +at first, a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial +business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was +to be substituted for it. But I magnanimously considered that there is +a kind of treason in insulating one's self from the universal fear and +sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil +war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better +deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way +thither on the score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I +remembered the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that +rural squire the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's +ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and +constitution of England were to be set at stake. So I gave myself up to +reading newspapers and listening to the click of the telegraph, like +other people; until, after a great many months of such pastime, it grew +so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely +at matters with my own eyes. + +Accordingly we set out--a friend and myself--towards Washington, while +it was still the long, dreary January of our Northern year, though +March in name; nor were we unwilling to clip a little margin off the +five months' winter, during which there is nothing genial in New +England save the fireside. It was a clear, frosty morning, when we +started. The sun shone brightly on snow-covered hills in the +neighborhood of Boston, and burnished the surface of frozen ponds; and +the wintry weather kept along with us while we trundled through +Worcester and Springfield, and all those old, familiar towns, and +through the village-cities of Connecticut. In New York the streets were +afloat with liquid mud and slosh. Over New Jersey there was still a +thin covering of snow, with the face of Nature visible through the +rents in her white shroud, though with little or no symptom of reviving +life. But when we reached Philadelphia, the air was mild and balmy; +there was but a patch or two of dingy winter here and there, and the +bare, brown fields about the city were ready to be green. We had met +the Spring half-way, in her slow progress from the South; and if we +kept onward at the same pace, and could get through the Rebel lines, we +should soon come to fresh grass, fruit-blossoms, green peas, +strawberries, and all such delights of early summer. + +On our way, we heard many rumors of the war, but saw few signs of it. +The people were staid and decorous, according to their ordinary +fashion; and business seemed about as brisk as usual,--though, I +suppose, it was considerably diverted from its customary channels into +warlike ones. In the cities, especially in New York, there was a rather +prominent display of military goods at the shopwindows,--such as +swords with gilded scabbards and trappings, epaulets, carabines, +revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon at the edge of the +pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there, +while hurrying to the field. As railway-companions, we had now and then +a volunteer in his French-gray great-coat, returning from furlough, or +a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment, in his new-made +uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had +about him,--but proud of his eagle-buttons, and likely enough to do +them honor before the gilt should be wholly dimmed. The country, in +short, so far as bustle and movement went, was more quiet than in +ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements +had been drawn towards the seat of conflict. But the air was full of a +vague disturbance. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a +solitude as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and +indefinable presentiments, since I had not lived, like other men, in +an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily +expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither +side of the river, all of us were looking towards the mysterious and +terrible Manassas, with the idea that somewhere in its neighborhood +lay a ghastly battlefield, yet to be fought, but foredoomed of old to +be bloodier than the one where we had reaped such shame. Of all haunted +places, methinks such a destined field should be thickest thronged with +ugly phantoms, ominous of mischief through ages beforehand. + +Beyond Philadelphia there was a much greater abundance of military +people. Between Baltimore and Washington a guard seemed to hold every +station along the railroad; and frequently, on the hill-sides, we saw a +collection of weather-beaten tents, the peaks of which, blackened with +smoke, indicated that they had been made comfortable by stove-heat +throughout the winter. At several commanding positions we saw +fortifications, with the muzzles of cannon protruding from the +ramparts, the slopes of which were made of the yellow earth of that +region, and still unsodded; whereas, till these troublous times, there +have been no forts but what were grass-grown with the lapse of at least +a lifetime of peace. Our stopping-places were thronged with soldiers, +some of whom came through the cars, asking for newspapers that +contained accounts of the battle between the Merrimack and Monitor, +which had been fought the day before. A railway-train met us, conveying +a regiment out of Washington to some unknown point; and reaching the +capital, we filed out of the station between lines of soldiers, with +shouldered muskets, putting us in mind of similar spectacles at the +gates of European cities. It was not without sorrow that we saw the +free circulation of the nation's life-blood (at the very heart, +moreover) clogged with such strictures as these, which have caused +chronic diseases in almost all countries save our own. Will the time +ever come again, in America, when we may live half a score of years +without once seeing the likeness of a soldier, except it be in the +festal march of a company on its summer tour? Not in this generation, +I fear, nor in the next, nor till the Millennium; and even that blessed +epoch, as the prophecies seem to intimate, will advance to the sound +of the trumpet. + +One terrible idea occurs, in reference to this matter. Even supposing +the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the +population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will +there be of military titles and pretensions for at least half a century +to come! Every country-neighborhood will have its general or two, its +three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without +end,--besides non-commissioned officers and privates, more than the +recruiting-offices ever knew of,--all with their campaign-stories, +which will become the staple of fireside-talk forevermore. Military +merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military +notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction. One +bullet-headed general will succeed another in the Presidential chair; +and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in +Congress and the State legislatures, and fill all the avenues of public +life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, +it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many +shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public +regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects +in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late. + +We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of +our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march +towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia +mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, +before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite +away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a +gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered +to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously +swollen bladder. There are instances of a similar character in old +romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of +necromancers, who build airy towers and battlements, and muster +warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming +impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes +forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him +melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the +march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole business, though +connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of +the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material,--the +majestic patience and docility with which the people waited through +those weary and dreary months,--the martial skill, courage, and +caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,--and, at last, +the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against +nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, +but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, +when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel +artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect. + +The troops being gone, we had the better leisure and opportunity to +look into other matters. It is natural enough to suppose that the +centre and heart of Washington is the Capitol; and certainly, in its +outward aspect, the world has not many statelier or more beautiful +edifices, nor any, I should suppose, more skilfully adapted to +legislative purposes, and to all accompanying needs. But, etc., etc. +[Footnote: We omit several paragraphs here, in which the author speaks +of some prominent Members of Congress with a freedom that seems to have +been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he +admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly +recognize his qualification to estimate these gentlemen, in their +legislative and oratorical capacities.] + + * * * * * + +We found one man, however, at the Capitol, who was satisfactorily +adequate to the business which brought him thither. In quest of him, we +went through halls, galleries, and corridors, and ascended a noble +staircase, balustraded with a dark and beautifully variegated marble +from Tennessee, the richness of which is quite a sufficient cause for +objecting to the secession of that State. At last we came to a barrier +of pine boards, built right across the stairs. Knocking at a rough, +temporary door, we thrust a card beneath; and in a minute or two it was +opened by a person in his shirt-sleeves, a middle-aged figure, neither +tall nor short, of Teutonic build and aspect, with an ample beard of a +ruddy tinge and chestnut hair. He looked at us, in the first place, +with keen and somewhat guarded eyes, as if it were not his practice to +vouchsafe any great warmth of greeting, except upon sure ground of +observation. Soon, however, his look grew kindly and genial, (not that +it had ever been in the least degree repulsive, but only reserved,) and +Leutze allowed us to gaze at the cartoon of his great fresco, and +talked about it unaffectedly, as only a man of true genius can speak +of his own works. Meanwhile the noble design spoke for itself upon the +wall. A sketch in color, which we saw afterwards, helped us to form +some distant and flickering notion of what the picture will be, a few +months hence, when these bare outlines, already so rich in thought and +suggestiveness, shall glow with a fire of their own,--a fire which, I +truly believe, will consume every other pictorial decoration of the +Capitol, or, at least, will compel us to banish those stiff and +respectable productions to some less conspicuous gallery. The work +will be emphatically original and American, embracing characteristics +that neither art nor literature have yet dealt with, and producing new +forms of artistic beauty from the natural features of the +Rocky-Mountain region, which Leutze seems to have studied broadly and +minutely. The garb of the hunters and wanderers of those deserts, too, +under his free and natural management, is shown as the most +picturesque of costumes. But it would be doing this admirable painter +no kind office to overlay his picture with any more of my colorless +and uncertain words; so I shall merely add that it looked full of +energy, hope, progress, irrepressible movement onward, all represented +in a momentary pause of triumph; and it was most cheering to feel its +good augury at this dismal time, when our country might seem to have +arrived at such a deadly stand-still. + +It was an absolute comfort, indeed, to find Leutze so quietly busy at +this great national work, which is destined to glow for centuries on +the walls of the Capitol, if that edifice shall stand, or must share +its fate, if treason shall succeed in subverting it with the Union +which it represents. It was delightful to see him so calmly +elaborating his design, while other men doubted and feared, or hoped +treacherously, and whispered to one another that the nation would +exist only a little longer, or that, if a remnant still held together, +its centre and seat of government would be far northward and westward +of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, +drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and +idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have +an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest +truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what +with Leutze's undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly +encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries to weigh against a +sinister omen that was pointed out to me in another part of the +Capitol. The freestone walls of the central edifice are pervaded with +great cracks, and threaten to come thundering down, under the immense +weight of the iron dome,--an appropriate catastrophe enough, if it +should occur on the day when we drop the Southern stars out of our +flag. + +Everybody seems to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth +of imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are +half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, +wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn +round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,--a +pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided +originality of gait and aspect, and a cigar in his mouth,--etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are again compelled to interfere with our friend's +license of personal description and criticism. Even Cabinet Ministers +(to whom the next few pages of the article were devoted) have their +private immunities, which ought to be conscientiously observed,--unless, +indeed, the writer chanced to have some very piquant motives for +violating them.] + + * * * * * + +Of course, there was one other personage, in the class of statesmen, +whom I should have been truly mortified to leave Washington without +seeing; since (temporarily, at least, and by force of circumstances) +he was the man of men. But a private grief had built up a barrier about +him, impeding the customary free intercourse of Americans with their +chief magistrate; so that I might have come away without a glimpse of +his very remarkable physiognomy, save for a semi-official opportunity +of which I was glad to take advantage. The fact is, we were invited to +annex ourselves, as supernumeraries, to a deputation that was about to +wait upon the President, from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with a +present of a splendid whip. + +Our immediate party consisted only of four or five, (including Major +Ben Perley Poore, with his note-book and pencil.) but we were joined +by several other persons, who seemed to have been lounging about the +precincts of the White House, under the spacious porch, or within the +hall, and who swarmed in with us to take the chances of a presentation. +Nine o'clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the +deputation, and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the +President, who sent us word that he was eating his breakfast, and would +come as soon as he could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must +have been a pretty fair one; for we waited about half an hour in one of +the antechambers, and then were ushered into a reception-room, in one +corner of which sat the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, +expecting, like ourselves, the termination of the Presidential +breakfast. During this interval there were several new additions to +our group, one or two of whom were in a working-garb, so that we formed +a very miscellaneous collection of people, mostly unknown to each +other, and without any common sponsor, but all with an equal right to +look our head-servant in the face. By-and-by there was a little stir on +the staircase and in the passageway, etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the +author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal +appearance and deportment of the President. The sketch appears to have +been written in a benign spirit, and perhaps conveys a not inaccurate +impression of its august subject; but it lacks _reverence_, and it +pains us to see a gentleman of ripe age, and who has spent years under +the corrective influence of foreign institutions, falling into the +characteristic and most ominous fault of Young America.] + + * * * * * + +Good Heavens! what liberties have I been taking with one of the +potentates of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important +consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of +the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a +liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above +allusions to President Lincoln's little peculiarities (already well +known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem +it proper to say a word or two, in regard to him, of unfeigned respect +and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties, +and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to +his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never +deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a +considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he +adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, +at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume +there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to +himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his +own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the +good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development +of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such +designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a +year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, +capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies +and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to +Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself +into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime-minister. + +Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the +neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a +little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves and docks, +resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the +respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it +no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness; but it was +now thronged with the Northern soldiery, whose stir and bustle +contrasted strikingly with the many closed warehouses, the absence of +citizens from their customary haunts, and the lack of any symptom of +healthy activity, while army-wagons trundled heavily over the +pavements, and sentinels paced the sidewalks, and mounted dragoons +dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very +disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town +of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at +the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the +sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with +rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human +life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from +their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly, +thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive persons have +joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal for the cause, but because, +between two conflicting loyalties, they chose that which necessarily +lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other Government against +which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by such plausible +arguments as against that of the United States. The anomaly of two +allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's +feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General +Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no +symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; +for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to +themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad +cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast +extent of our country,--too vast by far to be taken into one small +human heart,--we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, +to our own section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which +renders an Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the +dignity and well-being of his little island, that one hostile foot, +treading anywhere upon it, would make a bruise on each individual +breast. If a man loves his own State, therefore, and is content to be +ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an +honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not +thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, +but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency +impolitic in the present stage of our national difficulties.] + +In Alexandria, we visited the tavern in which Colonel Ellsworth was +killed, and saw the spot where he fell, and the stairs below, whence +Jackson fired the fatal shot, and where he himself was slain a moment +afterwards; so that the assassin and his victim must have met on the +threshold of the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better +understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. +Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like +that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters +have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with +their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well +as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the +walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having +been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a +metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists. + +Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to +inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a +very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church where +Washington used sometimes to attend service,--a pre-Revolutionary +edifice, with ivy growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly. +Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of +the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were +raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a +log-hut, or driven vertically into the soil in a circle,--thus forming +a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the +pyramidal shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the +occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: +some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the +open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by +gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; +and many were cleaning their arms and accoutrements,--the more +carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the +Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while +their comrades cut their hair,--it being a soldierly fashion (and for +excellent reasons) to crop it within an inch of the skull; others, +finally, lay asleep in breast-high tents, with their legs protruding +into the open air. + +We paid a visit to Fort Ellsworth, and from its ramparts (which have +been heaped up out of the muddy soil within the last few months, and +will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a +beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the +surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this +region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will +remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of +an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country +dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to +root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where +blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old +ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century +hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a +worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with +our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the +past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: +so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in +sacrificing good institutions to passionate impulses and impracticable +theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, may be found in the old +footprints of the war. + +Even in an aesthetic point of view, however, the war has done a great +deal of enduring mischief, by causing the devastation of great tracts +of woodland scenery, in which this part of Virginia would appear to +have been very rich. Around all the encampments, and everywhere along +the road, we saw the bare sites of what had evidently been tracts of +hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps of well-grown +trees, not smoothly felled by regular axe-men, but hacked, haggled, and +unevenly amputated, as by a sword, or other miserable tool, in an +unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army +destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for +the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like +those of the squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is +allowed to grow. As to other symptoms of devastation and obstruction, +such as deserted houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of +nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of +neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even +upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have +spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The +carcasses of horses were scattered along the way-side. + +One very pregnant token of a social system thoroughly disturbed was +presented by a party of contrabands, escaping out of the mysterious +depths of Secessia; and its strangeness consisted in the leisurely +delay with which they trudged forward, as dreading no pursuer, and +encountering nobody to turn them back. They were unlike the specimens +of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my +judgment, were far more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,--as if +their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,--so picturesquely natural +in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity, (which is +quite polished away from the Northern black man,) that they seemed a +kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite +as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I +wonder whether I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this. It is no +great matter. At all events, I felt most kindly towards these poor +fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in +the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent +in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt +almost as reluctant, on their own account, to hasten them forward to +the stranger's land; and I think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever +may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present +generation of negroes, the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, +and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world, on very +unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope +that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties. + +There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the +children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia, in a very +singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from +the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth +a brood of Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, +spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,--a monstrous birth, but with +which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an +irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood +and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little +by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark +one,--and two such portents never sprang from an identical source +before. + +While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly +into the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; +so he rode along by our side, and we pestered him with queries and +observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He +was on General McClellan's staff, and a gallant cavalier, high-booted, +with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which +trotted hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed +seat. His face had a healthy hue of exposure and an expression of +careless hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the +war had brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none +beside; since they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and +handle a sword, instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, +occupations, pleasures--all tedious alike--to which the artificial +state of society limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the +camp and the smoke of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the +hardy virtues flourish in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted weed. +The enervating effects of centuries of civilization vanish at once, +and leave these young men to enjoy a life of hardship, and the +exhilarating sense of danger,--to kill men blamelessly, or to be +killed gloriously,--and to be happy in following out their native +instincts of destruction, precisely in the spirit of Homer's heroes, +only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes +not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, +with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter one +another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as +in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no +wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's skull. Indeed, +if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that +old-fashioned kind of goblet has again come into use, at the expense of +our Northern head-pieces,--a costly drinking-cup to him that furnishes +it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!--only, +it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find +ourselves just here! [Footnote: We hardly expected this outbreak in +favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justice of our cause +makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in our outward life. We +have heard of twenty Quakers in a single company of a Pennsylvania +regiment.] + +We now approached General McClellan's head-quarters, which, at that +time, were established at Fairfield Seminary. The edifice was situated +on a gentle elevation, amid very agreeable scenery, and, at a +distance, looked like a gentleman's seat. Preparations were going +forward for reviewing a division of ten or twelve thousand men, the +various regiments composing which had begun to array themselves on an +extensive plain, where, methought, there was a more convenient place +for a battle than is usually found in this broken and difficult +country. Two thousand cavalry made a portion of the troops to be +reviewed. By-and-by we saw a pretty numerous troop of mounted officers, +who were congregated on a distant part of the plain, and whom we +finally ascertained to be the Commander-in-Chief's staff, with +McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself +in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we +had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, +with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss +nor pretension beyond what his character and rank inevitably gave him. + +Now, at that juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there +was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and +low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, +cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his +ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was +this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a +general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an +enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own +troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, +whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer +itself in the very asking. Nevertheless, being most profoundly +ignorant of the art of war, like the majority of the General's critics, +and, on the other hand, having some considerable impressibility by +men's characters, I was glad of the opportunity to look him in the +face, and to feel whatever influence might reach me from his sphere. So +I stared at him, as the phrase goes, with all the eyes I had; and the +reader shall have the benefit of what I saw,--to which he is the more +welcome, because, in writing this article, I feel disposed to be +singularly frank, and can scarcely restrain myself from telling truths +the utterance of which I should get slender thanks for. + +The General was dressed in a simple, dark-blue uniform, without +epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, +at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of +particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age +and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very +compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical +vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,--he and Beauregard having +been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. +His complexion is dark and sanguine, with dark hair. He has a strong, +bold, soldierly face, full of decision; a Roman nose, by no means a +thin prominence, but very thick and firm; and if he follows it, (which +I should think likely,) it may be pretty confidently trusted to guide +him aright. His profile would make a more effective likeness than the +full face, which, however, is much better in the real man than in any +photograph that I have seen. His forehead is not remarkably large, but +comes forward at the eyebrows; it is not the brow nor countenance of a +prominently intellectual man, (not a natural student, I mean, or +abstract thinker,) but of one whose office it is to handle things +practically and to bring about tangible results. His face looked +capable of being very stern, but wore, in its repose, when I saw it, an +aspect pleasant and dignified; it is not, in its character, an American +face, nor an English one. The man on whom he fixes his eye is conscious +of him. In his natural disposition, he seems calm and self-possessed, +sustaining his great responsibilities cheerfully, without shrinking, +or weariness, or spasmodic effort, or damage to his health, but all +with quiet, deep-drawn breaths; just as his broad shoulders would bear +up a heavy burden without aching beneath it. + +After we had had sufficient time to peruse the man, (so far as it could +be done with one pair of very attentive eyes,) the General rode off, +followed by his cavalcade, and was lost to sight among the troops. They +received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar of which--now near, +now in the centre, now on the outskirts of the division, and now +sweeping back towards us in a great volume of sound--we could trace his +progress through the ranks. If he is a coward, or a traitor, or a +humbug, or anything less than a brave, true, and able man, that mass of +intelligent soldiers, whose lives and honor he had in charge, were +utterly deceived, and so was this present writer; for they believed in +him, and so did I; and had I stood in the ranks, I should have shouted +with the lustiest of them. Of course I may be mistaken; my opinion on +such a point is worth nothing, although my impression may be worth a +little more; neither do I consider the General's antecedents as +bearing very decided testimony to his practical soldiership. A +thorough knowledge of the science of war seems to be conceded to him; +he is allowed to be a good military critic; but all this is possible +without his possessing any positive qualities of a great general, just +as a literary critic may show the profoundest acquaintance with the +principles of epic poetry without being able to produce a single +stanza of an epic poem. Nevertheless, I shall not give up my faith in +General McClellan's soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his +courage and integrity even then. + +Another of our excursions was to Harper's Ferry,--the Directors of the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad having kindly invited us to accompany +them on the first trip over the newly laid track, after its breaking up +by the Rebels. It began to rain, in the early morning, pretty soon +after we left Washington, and continued to pour a cataract throughout +the day; so that the aspect of the country was dreary, where it would +otherwise have been delightful, as we entered among the hill-scenery +that is formed by the subsiding swells of the Alleghanies. The latter +part of our journey lay along the shore of the Potomac, in its upper +course, where the margin of that noble river is bordered by gray, +overhanging crags, beneath which--and sometimes right through them--the +railroad takes its way. In one place the Rebels had attempted to arrest +a train by precipitating an immense mass of rock down upon the track, +by the side of which it still lay, deeply imbedded in the ground, and +looking as if it might have lain there since the Deluge. The scenery +grew even more picturesque as we proceeded, the bluffs becoming very +bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper's Ferry, +presents as striking a vista among the hills as a painter could desire +to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown +away amid discomfort; and when we alighted into the tenacious mud and +almost fathomless puddle, on the hither side of the Ferry, (the +ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge +had been destroyed by the Rebels,) I cannot remember that any very +rapturous emotions were awakened by the scenery. + +We paddled and floundered over the ruins of the track, and, scrambling +down an embankment, crossed the Potomac by a pontoon-bridge, a thousand +feet in length, over the narrow line of which--level with the river, +and rising and subsiding with it--General Banks had recently led his +whole army, with its ponderous artillery and heavily laden wagons. Yet +our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a +little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers, in the +rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which the Rebels had +precipitated there. + +As we passed over, we looked towards the Virginia shore, and beheld the +little town of Harper's Ferry, gathered about the base of a round hill +and climbing up its steep acclivity; so that it somewhat resembled the +Etruscan cities which I have seen among the Apennines, rushing, as it +were, down an apparently break-neck height. About midway of the ascent +stood a shabby brick church, towards which a difficult path went +scrambling up the precipice, indicating, one would say, a very fervent +aspiration on the part of the worshippers, unless there was some easier +mode of access in another direction. Immediately on the shore of the +Potomac, and extending back towards the town, lay the dismal ruins of +the United States arsenal and armory, consisting of piles of broken +bricks and a waste of shapeless demolition, amid which we saw +gun-barrels in heaps of hundreds together. They were the relics of the +conflagration, bent with the heat of the fire, and rusted with the +wintry rain to which they had since been exposed. The brightest +sunshine could not have made the scene cheerful, nor have taken away +the gloom from the dilapidated town; for, besides the natural +shabbiness, and decayed, unthrifty look of a Virginian village, it has +an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and +its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less +striking contrast between Southern and New-England villages, if the +former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is +prodigiously efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter. + +There was one small shop, which appeared to have nothing for sale. A +single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except +the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts +regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house +stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base +were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities, +to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly +sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown +seized upon as his fortress, and which, after it was stormed by the +United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old +engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man's hands in +this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a +short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the +pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each +side of the door, are two or three ragged loop-holes which John Brown +perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as +to give himself and his garrison a sight over their rifles. Through +these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief +among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting +against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not +pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy +with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect +ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose +happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that +saying, (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source,) that the +death of this blood-stained fanatic has "made the Gallows as venerable +as the Cross!" Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his +martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded, (such +was his natural integrity,) would have acknowledged that Virginia had a +right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would +have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could +generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its +enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at +the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual +satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his +preposterous miscalculation of possibilities. [Footnote: Can it be a +son of old Massachusetts who utters this abominable sentiment? For +shame!] + +But, coolly as I seem to say these things, my Yankee heart stirred +triumphantly when I saw the use to which John Brown's fortress and +prison-house has now been put. What right have I to complain of any +other man's foolish impulses, when I cannot possibly control my own? +The engine-house is now a place of confinement for Rebel prisoners. + +A Massachusetts soldier stood on guard, but readily permitted our whole +party to enter. It was a wretched place. A room of perhaps twenty-five +feet square occupied the whole interior of the building, having an +iron stove in its centre, whence a rusty funnel ascended towards a hole +in the roof, which served the purposes of ventilation, as well as for +the exit of smoke. We found ourselves right in the midst of the Rebels, +some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving +no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, +huddled close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the +visitors; two were astride of some planks, playing with the dirtiest +pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in +the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,--a man with +a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, +which he had contrived to arrange with a degree of soldierly smartness, +though it had evidently borne the brunt of a very filthy campaign. He +stood erect, and talked freely with those who addressed him, telling +them his place of residence, the number of his regiment, the +circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their +Northern inquisitiveness prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness of +his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the +slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious, but bore himself as +if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the +battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon in +his hand. + +Neither could I detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, +words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were +simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces +singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of +men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, +although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They +were peasants, and of a very low order: a class of people with whom our +Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were +exceedingly respectful,--more so than a rustic New-Englander ever +dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had +they worn any hats, they would probably have been self-constrained to +take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to +hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a +single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had +the remotest comprehension of what they had been fighting for, or how +they had deserved to be shut up in that dreary hole; nor, possibly, did +they care to inquire into this latter mystery, but took it as a godsend +to be suffered to lie here in a heap of unwashed human bodies, well +warmed and well foddered to-day, and without the necessity of bothering +themselves about the possible hunger and cold of to-morrow. Their dark +prison-life may have seemed to them the sunshine of all their lifetime. + +There was one poor wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with +greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one +of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been +capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular +individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or +skirmish, a wounded Union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his +feet, and besought his assistance,--not dreaming that any creature in +human shape, in the Christian land where they had so recently been +brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you prefer to +call him so, though I would not advise it) flung a bitter curse at the +poor Northerner, and absolutely trampled the soul out of his body, as +he lay writhing beneath his feet. The fellow's face was horribly ugly; +but I am not quite sure that I should have noticed it, if I had not +known his story. He spoke not a word, and met nobody's eye, but kept +staring upward into the smoky vacancy towards the ceiling, where, it +might be, he beheld a continual portraiture of his victim's +horror-stricken agonies. I rather fancy, however, that his moral sense +was yet too torpid to trouble him with such remorseful visions, and +that, for his own part, he might have had very agreeable reminiscences +of the soldier's death, if other eyes had not been bent reproachfully +upon him and warned him that something was amiss. It was this reproach +in other men's eyes that made him look aside. He was a wild-beast, as I +began with saying,--an unsophisticated wild-beast,--while the rest of +us are partially tamed, though still the scent of blood excites some of +the savage instincts of our nature. What this wretch needed, in order +to make him capable of the degree of mercy and benevolence that exists +in us, was simply such a measure of moral and intellectual development +as we have received; and, in my mind, the present war is so well +justified by no other consideration as by the probability that it will +free this class of Southern whites from a thraldom in which they +scarcely begin to be responsible beings. So far as the education of the +heart is concerned, the negroes have apparently the advantage of them; +and as to other schooling, it is practically unattainable by black or +white. + +Looking round at these poor prisoners, therefore, it struck me as an +immense absurdity that they should fancy us their enemies; since, +whether we intend it so or no, they have a far greater stake on our +success than we can possibly have. For ourselves, the balance of +advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, +all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for +thence would come the regeneration of a people,--the removal of a foul +scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps them in a state of +disease and decrepitude, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, +the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine +themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has +ever yet resulted according to the purpose of its projectors. The +advantages are always incidental. Man's accidents are God's purposes. +We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for. +[Footnote: The author seems to imagine that he has compressed a great +deal of meaning into these little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic +wisdom. We disagree with him. The counsels of wise and good men are +often coincident with the purposes of Providence; and the present war +promises to illustrate our remark.] + +Our Government evidently knows when and where to lay its finger upon +its most available citizens; for, quite unexpectedly, we were joined +with some other gentlemen, scarcely less competent than ourselves, in +a commission to proceed to Fortress Monroe and examine into things in +general. Of course, official propriety compels us to be extremely +guarded in our description of the interesting objects which this +expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in +stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a +kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a +humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent peculiarities, yet +of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin old gentleman, set off by a +large pair of brilliant epaulets,--the only pair, so far as my +observation went, that adorn the shoulders of any officer in the Union +army. Either for our inspection, or because the matter had already +been arranged, he drew out a regiment of Zouaves that formed the +principal part of his garrison, and appeared at their head, sitting on +horseback with rigid perpendicularity, and affording us a vivid idea +of the disciplinarian of Baron Steuben's school. + +There can be no question of the General's military qualities; he must +have been especially useful in converting raw recruits into trained and +efficient soldiers. But valor and martial skill are of so evanescent a +character, (hardly less fleeting than a woman's beauty,) that +Government has perhaps taken the safer course in assigning to this +gallant officer, though distinguished in former wars, no more active +duty than the guardianship of an apparently impregnable fortress. The +ideas of military men solidify and fossilize so fast, while military +science makes such rapid advances, that even here there might be a +difficulty. An active, diversified, and therefore a youthful, +ingenuity is required by the quick exigencies of this singular war. +Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its +ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence +that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is +now pronounced absolutely incapable of resisting the novel modes of +assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the +flexible talent of a young man that will evolve a new efficiency out of +its obsolete strength. + +It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their +incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous +tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent +disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial +atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human +existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right +to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their +juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. In case of +death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative +sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of +a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood +in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit +to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such +a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the +opportunity to be exhaled! If I had the ordering of these matters, +fifty should be the tenderest age at which a recruit might be accepted +for training; at fifty-five or sixty, I would consider him eligible for +most kinds of military duty and exposure, excluding that of a forlorn +hope, which no soldier should be permitted to volunteer upon, short of +the ripe age of seventy. As a general rule, these venerable combatants +should have the preference for all dangerous and honorable service in +the order of their seniority, with a distinction in favor of those +whose infirmities might render their lives less worth the keeping. +Methinks there would be no more Bull Runs; a warrior with gout in his +toe, or rheumatism in his joints, or with one foot in the grave, would +make a sorry fugitive! + +On this admirable system, the productive part of the population would +be undisturbed even by the bloodiest war; and, best of all, those +thousands upon thousands of our Northern girls, whose proper mates will +perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid +their doom of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be +pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be +more disastrous than the one on which we began the war, when a young +army was struck with paralysis through the age of its commander. + +The waters around Fortress Monroe were thronged with a gallant array of +ships of war and transports, wearing the Union flag,--"Old Glory," as I +hear it called in these days. A little withdrawn from our national +fleet lay two French frigates, and, in another direction, an English +sloop, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red +portent in the air, wherever there is strife. In pursuance of our +official duty, (which had no ascertainable limits,) we went on board +the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her +depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful armament, her mighty +engines, and her furnaces, where the fires are always kept burning, as +well at midnight as at noon, so that it would require only five minutes +to put the vessel under full steam. This vigilance has been felt +necessary ever since the Merrimack made that terrible dash from +Norfolk. Splendid as she is, however, and provided with all but the +very latest improvements in naval armament, the Minnesota belongs to a +class of vessels that will be built no more, nor ever fight another +battle,--being as much a thing of the past as any of the ships of Queen +Elizabeth's time, which grappled with the galleons of the Spanish +Armada. + +On her quarter-deck, an elderly flag-officer was pacing to and fro, +with a self-conscious dignity to which a touch of the gout or +rheumatism perhaps contributed a little additional stiffness. He seemed +to be a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous school of +naval worthies, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette +which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are +somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of +nautical heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which +they fought valorously and strutted most intolerably. How can an +admiral condescend to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and +elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck dignity in the cramped lookout +of the Monitor, or even in the twenty-feet diameter of her cheese-box? +All the pomp and splendor of naval warfare are gone by. Henceforth +there must come up a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, +who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single +pair of eyes; and even heroism--so deadly a gripe is Science laying on +our noble possibilities--will become a quality of very minor +importance, when its possessor cannot break through the iron crust of +his own armament and give the world a glimpse of it. + +At no great distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking +craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with +the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse +of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular +structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no +great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a +machine,--and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed +in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it +looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable, suspicious, +evidently mischievous,--nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; +for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the +same breed, to annihilate whole navies and batter down old supremacies. +The wooden walls of Old England cease to exist, and a whole history of +naval renown reaches its period, now that the Monitor comes smoking +into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms +bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, +oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has +betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often +indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with +simply saying that she looked very queer. + +Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her +interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten +feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and +sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and +ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft, +(for it is impossible to tell stem from stern,) the crew are relatively +quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a +palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility, +the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most +satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in +the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they +see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man +whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages +them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made +by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron +tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost +imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior +surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may +not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in +impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being +sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but +stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in +this new craft. It was pleasant to see their benign exultation in her +powers of mischief, and the delight with which they exhibited the +circumvolutory movement of the tower, the quick thrusting forth of the +immense guns to deliver their ponderous missiles, and then the +immediate recoil, and the security behind the closed port-holes. Yet +even this will not long be the last and most terrible improvement in +the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is +to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no +other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming, and gush of +smoke, and belch of smothered thunder out of the yeasty waves, there +shall be a deadly fight going on below,--and, by-and-by, a sucking +whirlpool, as one of the ships goes down. + +The Monitor was certainly an object of great interest; but on our way +to Newport News, whither we next went, we saw a spectacle that +affected us with far profounder emotion. It was the sight of the few +sticks that are left of the frigate Congress, stranded near the +shore,--and still more, the masts of the Cumberland rising midway out +of the water, with a tattered rag of a pennant fluttering from one of +them. The invisible hull of the latter ship seems to be careened over, +so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite +unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The +flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under +the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, +although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide, +instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man +the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface. + +That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of +Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he +heard that his son's ship was surrendered? "Then Joe's dead!" said he; +and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring +renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of +the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and +himself out of inevitable disaster and defeat. That last gun from the +Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem of +many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe, and our +own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights +became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave +countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that +includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners of England, and other +mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance. +There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and +manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is +certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from +the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of +machinery, which by-and-by will fight out our wars with only the clank +and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging +nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the +tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as +manhood retains any part of its pristine value, no country can afford +to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, any more than that +of the brave Worden, pass unhonored and unrewarded. If the Government +do nothing, let the people take the matter into their own hands, and +cities give him swords, gold boxes, festivals of triumph, and, if he +needs it, heaps of gold. Let poets brood upon the theme, and make +themselves sensible how much of the past and future is contained within +its compass, till its spirit shall flash forth in the lightning of a +song! + +From these various excursions, and a good many others, (including one +to Manassas,) we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; +but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and +parlors of Willard's Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if +we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of +interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly +called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, +the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. +It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the +country,--not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take +a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into +the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither +by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest +atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this +life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but +all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a +miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign +States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; +you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You +are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, +poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, +_attaches_ of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, +diplomatists, mail-contractors, railway-directors, until your own +identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you +have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a +thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure +than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal +habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a +gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the +conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I +had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all +these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A +constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, +and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk +more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke +in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring +about more valuable results. + +It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes +sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with +frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment +passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It +is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad. I see no way of +accounting for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety +of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have +disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of +the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated +and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are +not altogether extinguished in their ashes,--in their throats, I might +rather say;--for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such +a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be +loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where +these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many +remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and +forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken +by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement +put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the +matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces +than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an +extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the +rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an +interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come +hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of +finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in +its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to +not a few. + +We saw at Willard's many who had thus found out for themselves, that, +when Nature gives a young man no other utilizable faculty, she must be +understood as intending him for a soldier. The bulk of the army had +moved out of Washington before we reached the city; yet it seemed to +me that at least two-thirds of the guests and idlers at the hotel wore +one or another token of the military profession. Many of them, no +doubt, were self-commissioned officers, and had put on the buttons and +the shoulder-straps, and booted themselves to the knees, merely +because captain, in these days, is so good a travelling-name. The +majority, however, had been duly appointed by the President, but might +be none the better warriors for that. It was pleasant, occasionally, +to distinguish a grizzly veteran among this crowd of carpet-knights, +--the trained soldier of a lifetime, long ago from West Point, +who had spent his prime upon the frontier, and very likely could +show an Indian bullet-mark on his breast,--if such decorations, won in +an obscure warfare, were worth the showing now. + +The question often occurred to me,--and, to say the truth, it added an +indefinable piquancy to the scene,--what proportion of all these +people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, +and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies +and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. Traitors +there were among them,--no doubt of that,--civil servants of the +public, very reputable persons, who yet deserved to dangle from a cord; +or men who buttoned military coats over their breasts, hiding perilous +secrets there, which might bring the gallant officer to stand +pale-faced before a file of musketeers, with his open grave behind him. +But, without insisting upon such picturesque criminality and punishment +as this, an observer, who kept both his eyes and heart open, would find +it by no means difficult to discern that many residents and visitors of +Washington so far sided with the South as to desire nothing more nor +better than to see everything reestablished on a little worse than its +former basis. If the cabinet of Richmond were transferred to the +Federal city, and the North awfully snubbed, at least, and driven back +within its old political limits, they would deem it a happy day. It is +no wonder, and, if we look at the matter generously, no unpardonable +crime. Very excellent people hereabouts remember the many dynasties in +which the Southern character has been predominant, and contrast the +genial courtesy, the warm and graceful freedom of that region, with +what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity of +our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They +have a conscientious, though mistaken belief, that the South was +driven out of the Union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we +are responsible for having compelled true patriots to love only half +their country instead of the whole, and brave soldiers to draw their +swords against the Constitution which they would once have died +for,--to draw them, too, with a bitterness of animosity which is the +only symptom of brotherhood (since brothers hate each other best) that +any longer exists. They whisper these things with tears in their eyes, +and shake their heads, and stoop their poor old shoulders, at the +tidings of another and another Northern victory, which, in their +opinion, puts farther off the remote, the already impossible chance of +a reunion. + +I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. +Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on +winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another +generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the +present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo +the South "as the Lion wooes his bride"; it is a rough courtship, but +perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we +stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as +Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded +from its golden palaces,--and perhaps all the more heavenly, because +so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive hearts, had gone to plot +ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere. [Footnote: We regret the +innuendo in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to +terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We +hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it +by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally +within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily +efficacious. In truth, the work is already done. + +We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man's loyalty, but +he will allow us to say that we consider him premature in his kindly +feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author +himself says of John Brown, (and, so applied, we thought it an +atrociously cold-blooded _dictum_,) "any common-sensible man +would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it +only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." There +are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and +affect us like an intolerable crime,--which this Rebellion is, into +the bargain.] + + + + +THE MINUTE-GUNS. + + +I stood within the little cove, +Full of the morning's life and hope, +While heavily the eager waves +Charged thundering up the rocky slope. + +The splendid breakers! how they rushed, +All emerald green and flashing white, +Tumultuous in the morning sun, +With cheer, and sparkle, and delight! + +And freshly blew the fragrant wind, +The wild sea-wind, across their tops, +And caught the spray and flung it far, +In sweeping showers of glittering drops. + +Within the cove all flashed and foamed, +With many a fleeting rainbow hue; +Without, gleamed, bright against the sky, +A tender, wavering line of blue, + +Where tossed the distant waves, and far +Shone silver-white a quiet sail, +And overhead the soaring gulls +With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. + +And all my pulses thrilled with joy, +Watching the wind's and water's strife,-- +With sudden rapture,--and I cried, +"Oh, sweet is Life! Thank God for Life!" + +Sailed any cloud across the sky, +Marring this glory of the sun's? +Over the sea, from distant forts, +There came the boom of minute-guns! + +War-tidings! Many a brave soul fled, +And many a heart the message stuns!-- +I saw no more the joyous waves, +I only heard the minute-guns. + + + + +ORIGINALITY. + + +A great contemporary writer, so I am told, regards originality as much +rarer than is commonly supposed. But, on the contrary, is it not far +more frequent than is commonly supposed? For one should not identify +originality with mere primacy of conception or utterance, as if a +thought could be original but once. In truth, it may be so thousands or +millions of times; nay, from the beginning to the end of man's times +upon the earth, the same thoughts may continue rising from the same +fountains in his spirit. Of the central or stem thoughts of +consciousness, of the imperial presiding imaginations, this is actually +true. Ceaseless re-origination is the method of Nature. This alone +keeps history alive. For if every Mohammedan were but a passive +appendage to the dead Mohammed, if every disciple were but a copy in +plaster of his teacher, and if history were accordingly living and +original only in such degree as it is an unprecedented invention, the +laws of decay should at once be made welcome to the world. + +The fact is otherwise. As new growths upon the oldest cedar or baobab +do not merely spin themselves out of the wood already formed,--as they +thrive and constitute themselves only by original conversation with +sun, earth, and air,--that is, in the same way with any seed or +sapling,--so generations of Moslems, Parsees, or Calvinists, while +obeying the structural law of their system, yet quaff from the mystical +fountains of pure Life the sustenance by which they live. Merely out +of itself the tree can give nothing,--literally, nothing. True, if cut +down, it may, under favorable circumstances, continue for a time to +feed the growing shoots out of its own decay. Yet not even at the cost +of decay and speedy exhaustion could the old trunk accomplish this +little, but for the draft made upon it by the new growths. It is +_their_ life, it is the relationship which they assert with sun +and rain and all the elements, which is foremost in bringing about even +this result. So it is with the great old literatures, with the old +systems of philosophy and faith. They are simply avenues, or structural +forms, through which succeeding generations of souls come into +conversation with eternal Nature, and express their original life. + +Observe, again, that the tree lives only while new shoots are produced +upon it. The new twigs and leaves not only procure sustenance for +themselves, but even keep the trunk itself alive: so that the chief +order of support is just opposite what it seems; and the tree lives +from above, down,--as do men and all other creatures. So in history, it +requires a vast amount of original thought or sentiment to sustain the +old structural forms. This gigantic baobab of Catholicism, for example, +is kept alive by the conversion of Life into Belief, which takes place +age after age in the bosoms of women and men. The trunk was long ago in +extensive decay; every wind menaces it with overthrow; but the hearts +that bud and blossom upon it yearly send down to the earth and up to +the sky such a claim for resource as surrounds the dying trunk with +ever new layers of supporting growth. Equally are the thought, poetry, +rhetoric of by-gone times kept in significance by the perceiving, the +imagining, and the sense of a flowing symbolism in Nature, which our +own time brings to them. To make Homer alive to this age,--what an +expenditure of imagination, of pure feeling and penetration does it +demand! Let the Homeric heart or genius die out of mankind, and from +that moment the "Iliad" is but dissonance, the long melodious roll of +its echoes becomes a jarring chop of noises. What chiefly makes Homer +great is the vast ideal breadth of relationship in which he establishes +human beings. But he in whose narrow brain is no space for high +Olympus and deep Orcus,--he whose coarse fibre never felt the +shudder of the world at the shaking of the ambrosial locks, nor a +thrill in the air when a hero fails,--what can this grand stoop of the +ideal upon the actual world signify to him? To what but an ethical +genius in men can appeal for guest-rites be made by the noble +"Meditations" of Marcus Antoninus, or the exquisite, and perhaps +incomparable, "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Browne? +Appreciative genius is centrally the same with productive +genius; and it is the Shakspeare in men alone that prints Shakspeare +and reads him. So it is that the works of the masters are, as it were, +perpetually re-written and renewed in life by the genius of mankind. + +In saying that constant re-origination is the method of Nature, I do +not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. +This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. +By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and +traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the +matrix of the household; after infancy the glowing youth is held in +that of society; and processes kindred with those which bestowed +likeness to father and mother go on to assimilate him with a social +circle or an age. Complaint is made, and by good men, of that implicit +acquiescence which keeps in existence Islam, Catholicism, and the like, +long after their due time has come to die; yet, abolish the law of +imitation which causes this, and the immediate disintegration of +mankind will follow. Mortar is much in the way, when we wish to take +an old building to pieces and make other use of the bricks; do you +therefore advise its disuse? + +But imitation would preserve nothing, did not the law of re-origination +keep it company. We are not born from our parents alone, but from the +loins of eternal Nature no less. Was Orpheus the grandson of Zeus and +Mnemosyne,--of sovereign Unity and immortal Memory? Equally is +Shakspeare and every genuine bard. Could the heroes of old Greece +trace their derivation from the gods? + +Little of a hero is he, even in these times of ours, who is not of the +like lineage. And indeed, one and all, we have a father and mother +whose marriage-morn is of more ancient date than our calendars, and of +whose spousal solemnities this universe is the memorial. All life, +indeed, whatsoever be its form and rank, has, along with connections of +pedigree and lateral association, one tap-root that strikes straight +down into the eternal. + +Because Life is of this unsounded depth, it may well afford to repeat +the same forms forever, nor incurs thereby any danger of exhausting its +significance and becoming stale. Vital repetition, accordingly, goes +on in Nature in a way not doubtful and diffident, but frank, open, +sure, as if the game were one that could not be played out. It is now a +very long while that buds have burst and grass grown; yet Spring comes +forward still without bashfulness, fearing no charge of having +plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its +blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from +the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll +without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the +bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful +that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks +were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night +after night forever the stars, and age after age the eyes of women and +men, shine on without apology, or the least promise that this shall be +positively their last appearance. Life knows itself original always, +nor a whit the less so for any repetition of its elected and +significant forms. Youth and newness are, indeed, inseparable from it. +Death alone is senile; and we become physically aged only by the +presence and foothold of this dogged intruder in our bodies. The body +is a fortress for the possession of which Death is perpetually +contending; only the incessant activity of Life at every foot of the +rampart keeps him at bay; but, with, the advance of years, the +assailants gain, here and there a foothold, pressing the defenders +back; and just in proportion as this defeat take a place the man +becomes _old_. But Life sets out from the same basis of mystery to +build each new body, no matter how many myriads of such forms have been +built before; and forsaking it finally, is no less young, inscrutable, +enticing than before. + +Now Thought, as part of the supreme flowering of Life, follows its law. +It cannot be anticipated by any anticipation of its forms and results. +There were hazel-brown eyes in the world before my boy was born; but +the light that shines in these eyes comes direct from the soul +nevertheless. The light of true thought, in like manner, issues only +from an inward sun; and shining, it carries always its perfect +privilege, its charm and sacredness. Would you have purple or yellow +eyes, because the accustomed colors have been so often repeated? Black, +blue, brown, gray, forever! May the angels in heaven have no other! +Forever, too, and equally, the perpetual loves, thoughts, and melodies +of men! Let them come out of their own mystical, ineffable haunts,--let +them, that is, be _real_,--and we ask no more. + +The question of originality is, therefore, simply one of vitality. Does +the fruit really grow on the tree? does it indeed come by vital +process?--little more than this does it concern us to know. Truths +become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's +bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying +is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the +throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the +honors that are not theirs, the throne and government are disgraced. + +Truisms are corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every +stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an +impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step +nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude +me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does +he draw a film of eclipse over the sun, and cast a shadow on city and +field, but he throws over the salutation itself a more permanent +shadow; and were the words never to reach us save from such lips, they +would, in no long time, become terms of insult or of malediction. But +so often as the sweet greeting comes from wife, child, or friend, its +proper savors are restored. A jesting editor says that "You tell a +telegram" is the polite way of giving the lie; and it is quite possible +that his witticism only anticipates a serious use of language some +century hence. Terms and statements are perpetually saturated by the +uses made of them. Etymology and the dictionary resist effects in vain. +And as single words may thus be discharged of their lawful meaning, so +the total purport of words, that is, truths themselves, may in like +manner be disgraced. If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously +patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or +feeble pietist repeat the word _God_ or recite the raptures of +adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie +are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn +atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest +of morality aver that he writes for money alone. + +But Truth does not share the fortunes of her verbal body. The grand +ideas, the master-imaginations and moving faiths of men, run in the +blood of the race; and a given degree of pure human heat infallibly +brings them out. Not more surely does the rose appear on the rose-bush, +or the apple, pear, or peach upon the trees of the orchard, than these +fruits of the soul upon nations of powerful and thrifty spirit. For +want of vitality the shrub may fail to flower, the tree to bear fruit, +and man to bring forth his spiritual product; but if Thought be +attained, certain thoughts and imaginations will come of it. Let two +nations at opposite sides of the globe, and without intercommunication +arrive at equal stages of mental culture, and the language of the one +will, on the whole, be equivalent to that of the other, nay, the very +rhetoric, the very fancies of the one will, in a broad way of +comparison, be tantamount to those of the other. The nearer we get to +any past age, the more do we find that the totality of its conceptions +and imaginings is much the same with that of our own. There are +specific variation and generic unity; and he whom the former blinds to +the latter reads the old literatures without eyes, and knows neither +his own time nor any other. Owen, Agassiz, Carpenter explain the +homologies of anatomy and physiology; but a doctrine of the homologies +of thought is equally possible, and will sometime be set forth. + +The basis, then, of any sufficient doctrine of literature and literary +production is found in two statements:-- + +First, that the perfect truth of the universe issues, by vital +representation, into the personality of man. + +Secondly, that this truth _tends_ in every man, though often in +the obscurest way, toward intellectual and artistic expression. + +Now just so far as by any man's speech we feel ourselves brought into +direct relationship with this ever-issuing fact, so far the impressions +of originality are produced. That all his words were in the dictionary +before he used them,--that all his thoughts, under some form of +intimation, were in literature before he arrived at them,--matters not; +it is the verity, the vital process, the depth of relationship, which +concerns us. + +Nay, in one sense, the older his truth, the _more_ do the effects +of originality lie open to him. The simple, central, imperial elements +of human consciousness are first in order of expression, and continue +forever to be first in order of power and suggestion. The great +purposes, the great thoughts and melodies issue always from these. This +is the quarry which every masterly thinker or poet must work. Homer is +Homer because he is so simply true alike to earth and sky,--to the +perpetual experience and perpetual imagination of mankind. Had he gone +working around the edges, following the occasional _detours_ and +slips of consciousness, there would have been no "Iliad" or "Odyssey" +for mankind to love and for Pope to spoil. The great poets tell us +nothing new. They remind us. They bear speech deep into our being, and +to the heart of our heart lend a tongue. They have words that +correspond to facts in all men and women. But they are not newsmongers. + +Yesterday, I read in a prose translation of the "Odyssey" the exquisite +idyl of Nausicaa and her Maids, and the discovery of himself by +Ulysses. Perhaps the picture came out more clearly than ever before; at +any rate, it filled my whole day with delight, and to-day I seem to +have heard some sweetest good tidings, as if word had come from an old +playmate, dear and distant in memory, or a happy and wealthy letter had +arrived from a noble friend. Whence this enrichment? There was nothing +in this idyl, to which, even on a first reading, I could give the name +of "new truth." The secret is, that I _have_ indeed had tidings of +old playmates, dear and distant in memory,--of those bright-eyed, +brave, imaging playmates of all later ages, the inhabitants of Homer's +world. And little can one care for novelties of thought, in comparison +with these tones from the deeps of undying youth. Bring to our lips +these cups of the fresh wine of life, if you would do good. Bring us +these; for it is by perpetual rekindlings of the youth in us that our +life grows and unfolds. Each advancing epoch of the inward life is no +less than this,--a fresh efflux of adolescence from the immortal and +exhaustless heart. Everywhere the law is the same,--Become as a little +child, to reach the heavenly kingdoms. This, however, we become not by +any return to babyhood, but by an effusion or emergence from within of +pure life,--of life which takes from years only their wisdom and their +chastening, and gives them in payment its perfect renewal. + +This, then, is the proof of originality,--that one shall utter the pure +consciousness of man. If he live, and live humanly, in his speech, the +speech itself will live; for it will obtain hospitality in all wealthy +and true hearts. + +But if the most original speech be, as is here explained, of that which +is oldest and most familiar in the consciousness of man, it +nevertheless does not lack the charm of surprise and all effects of +newness. For, in truth, nothing is so strange to men as the very facts +they seem to confess every day of their lives. Truisms, I have said, +are the corpses of truths; and they are as far from the fact they are +taken to represent as the perished body from the risen soul. The +mystery of truth is hidden behind them; and when next it shall come +forth, it will bring astonishment, as at first. Every time the grand +old truths are livingly uttered, the world thinks it never heard them +before. The news of the day is hardly spoken before it is antiquated. +For this an hour too late is a century, is forever, too late. But truth +of life and the heart, the world-old imaginations, the root-thoughts of +human consciousness,--these never lose their privilege to surprise, and +at every fresh efflux are wellnigh sure to be persecuted by some as +unlawful impositions upon the credence of mankind. Nay, the same often +happens with the commonest truths of observation. Mr. Ruskin describes +leaves and clouds, objects that are daily before all eyes; and the very +artists cry, "Fie upon him!" as a propounder of childish novelties: +slowly they perceive that it was leaves and clouds which were novel. +Luther thunders in the ears of the Church its own creed; the Pope asks, +"Is it possible that he believes all this?" and the priesthood scream, +"To the stake with the heretic!" A poet prints in the "Atlantic +Monthly" a simple affirmation of the indestructibility of man's true +life; numbers of those who would have been shocked and exasperated to +hear questioned the Church dogma of immortality exclaim against this as +a ridiculous paradox. Once in a while there is grown a heart so +spacious that Nature finds in it room to chant aloud the word +_God_, and set its echoes rolling billowy through one man's being; +and he, lifting up his voice to repeat it among men from that inward +hearing, invariably astounds, and it may be infuriates his +contemporaries. The simple proposition, GOD IS, could it once be +_wholly_ received, would shake our sphere as no earthquake ever +did, and would leave not one stone upon another, I say not merely of +some city of Lisbon, but of entire kingdoms and systems of +civilization. The faintest inference from this cannot be vigorously +announced in modern senates without sending throbs of terror over half +a continent, and eliciting shrieks of remonstrance from the very +shrines of worship. + +The ancient perpetual truths prove, at each fresh enunciation, not only +surprising, but incredible. The reason is, that they overfill the +vessels of men's credence. If you pour the Atlantic Ocean into a pint +basin, what can the basin do but refuse to contain it, and so spill it +over? Universal truths are as spacious and profound as the universe +itself; and for the cerebral capacity of most of us the universe is +really somewhat large! + +But as the major numbers of mankind are too little self-reverent to +dispense with the services of self-conceit, they like to think +themselves equal, and very easily equal, to any truth, and habitually +assume their extempore, off-hand notion of its significance as a +perfect measure of the fact. As if a man hollowed his hand, and, +dipping it full out of Lake Superior, said, "Lake Superior just fills +my hand!" To how many are the words _God, Love, Immortality_ just +such complacent handfuls! And when some mariner of God seizes them with +loving mighty arms, and bears them in his bark beyond sight of their +wonted shores, what wonder that they perceive not the identity of this +sky-circled sea with their accustomed handful? Yet, despite egotism and +narrowness of brain and every other limitation, the spirit of man will +claim its privilege and assert its affinity with all truth; and in such +measure as one utters the pure heart of mankind, and states the real +relationships of human nature, is he sure of ultimate audience and +sufficing love. + + + + +ERICSSON AND HIS INVENTIONS. + + +No events of the present war will be longer remembered, or will hold a +more prominent place in History, than those which took place on the +eighth and ninth of March in Hampton Roads, when the Rebel steamer +Merrimack attacked the Federal fleet. We all know what havoc she made +in her first day's work. When the story of her triumphs flashed over +the wires, it fell like a thunderbolt upon all loyal hearts. + +The Cumberland, manned by as gallant a crew as ever fought under the +Stars and Stripes, had gone down helplessly before her. The Congress, +half-manned, but bravely defended, had been captured and burnt. +Sailing frigates, such as were deemed formidable in the days of Hull +and Decatur, and which some of our old sea-dogs still believed to be +the main stay of the navy, were found to be worse than useless against +this strange antagonist. Our finest steam-frigates, though +accidentally prevented from getting fairly into action, seemed likely, +however skilfully handled, to have proved almost as inefficient; for +all our batteries and broadsides had produced no effect on this +iron-clad monster. She had gone back to her lair uninjured. What was to +prevent her from coming out again to break the blockade, bombard our +seaports, sink and destroy everything that came in her way? + +But we had only seen the first act of the drama. The curtain was to +rise again, and a new character was to appear on the stage. The +champion of the Union, in complete armor, was about to enter the lists. +When the Merrimack steamed out defiantly on Sunday morning, the Monitor +was there to meet her. Then, for the first time in naval warfare, two +iron-clad vessels were pitted against each other. The Merrimack was +driven back disabled. We breathed freely again at this +_denouement_, and congratulated ourselves that the nation had +been saved from enormous damage and disgrace. We did not foresee that +the great Rebel monster, despairing of a successful encounter with her +antagonist, was to end her career by suicide. We thought only of the +vast injury which she might have done, and might yet be capable of +doing, to the Union cause, but from which we had so providentially +escaped. It was indeed a narrow escape. Nothing but the opportune +arrival of the Monitor saved us; and for this impregnable vessel we +are indebted to the genius of Ericsson. + +This distinguished engineer and inventor, although a foreigner by +birth, has long been a citizen of the United States. His first work in +this country--by which, as in the present instance, he added honor and +efficiency to the American navy--was the steam-frigate Princeton, a +vessel which in her day was almost as great a novelty as the Monitor is +now. The improvements in steam machinery and propulsion and in the arts +of naval warfare, which he introduced in her, formed the subject of a +lecture delivered before the Boston Lyceum by John O. Sargent, in 1844, +from which source we derive some interesting particulars concerning +Ericsson's early history. + +John Ericsson was born in 1803, in the Province of Vermeland, among the +iron mountains of Sweden. His father was a mining proprietor, so that +the youth had ample opportunities to watch the operation of the +various engines and machinery connected with the mines. These had been +erected by mechanicians of the highest scientific attainments, and +presented a fine study to a mind of mechanical tendencies. Under such +influences, his innate mechanical talent was early developed. At the +age of ten years, he had constructed with his own hands, and after his +own plans, a miniature sawmill, and had made numerous drawings of +complicated mechanical contrivances, with instruments of his own +invention and manufacture. + +In 1814 he attracted the attention of the celebrated Count Platen, who +had heard of his boyish efforts, and desired an interview with him. +After carefully examining various plans and drawings which the youth +exhibited, the Count handed them back to him, simply observing, in an +impressive manner, "Continue as you have commenced, and you will one +day produce something extraordinary." + +Count Platen was the intimate personal friend of Bernadotte, the King +of Sweden, and was regarded by him with a feeling little short of +veneration. It was Count Platen who undertook and carried through, in +opposition to the views of the Swedish nobility, and of nearly the +whole nation, that gigantic work, the Grand Ship Canal of Sweden, which +connects the North Sea with the Baltic. He died Viceroy of Norway, and +left behind him the reputation of one of the greatest men of the +century. The few words of kind encouragement which he spoke, on the +occasion to which we have referred, sank deeply into the mind of the +young mechanician, and confirmed him in the career on which he had +entered. + +Immediately after this interview young Ericsson was made a cadet in the +corps of engineers, and, after six months' tuition, at the age of +twelve years, was appointed _niveleur_ on the Grand Ship Canal +under Count Platen. In this capacity, in the year 1816, he was required +to set out the work for more than six hundred men. The canal was +constructed by soldiers. He was at that time not tall enough to look +through the levelling-instrument; and in using it, he was obliged to +mount upon a stool, carried by his attendants for that purpose. As the +discipline in the Swedish army required that the soldier should always +uncover the head in speaking to his superior, gray-headed men came, cap +in hand, to receive their instructions from this mere child. + +While thus employed in the summer months, he was constantly occupied +during the winter with his pencil and pen; and there are many +important works on the canal constructed after drawings made by +Ericsson at this early age. During his leisure hours, he measured up +and made working-drawings of every implement and piece of machinery +connected with this great enterprise; so that at the age of fifteen he +was in possession of accurate plans of the whole work, drawn by his own +hand. + +His associations with military men on the canal had given him an +inclination for military life; and at the age of seventeen he entered +the Swedish army as an ensign, without the knowledge of his friend and +patron, Count Platen. This step excited the indignation of the Count, +who tried to prevail upon him to change his resolution; but finding all +his arguments useless, he terminated an angry interview by bidding +the young ensign "go to the Devil." The affectionate regard which he +entertained for the Count, and gratitude for the interest taken by him +in his education, caused the circumstances of this interview to make a +deep impression upon Ericsson, but were not sufficient to shake his +determination. + +Soon after the young ensign had entered upon his regimental duties, an +affair occurred which threatened to obscure his hitherto bright +prospects. His Colonel, Baron Koskull, had been disgraced by the King, +about the time that he had recommended Ericsson for promotion. This +circumstance induced the King to reject the recommendation. The Colonel +was exceedingly annoyed by this rejection; and having in his possession +a military map made by the expectant ensign, he took it to his Royal +Highness the Crown Prince Oscar, and besought him to intercede for the +young man with the King. The Prince received the map very kindly, +expressing great admiration of its beautiful finish and execution, and +presented himself in person with it to the King, who yielded to the +joint persuasion of the Prince and the map, and promoted the young +ensign to the lieutenancy for which he had been recommended. + +About the time of this promotion, the Government had ordered the +northern part of Sweden to be accurately surveyed. It being the desire +of the King that officers of the army should be employed in this +service, Ericsson, whose regiment was stationed in the northern +highlands, proceeded to Stockholm, for the purpose of submitting +himself to the severe examination then a prerequisite to the +appointment of Government surveyor. + +The mathematical education which he had received under Count Platen now +proved very serviceable. He passed the examination with great +distinction, and in the course of it, to the surprise of the examiners, +showed that he could repeat Euclid _verbatim_,--not by the +exercise of the memory, which in Ericsson is not remarkably retentive, +but from his perfect mastery of geometrical science. There is no doubt +that it is this thorough knowledge of geometry to which he is indebted +for his clear conceptions on all mechanical subjects. + +Having returned to the highlands, he entered on his new vocation with +great assiduity; and, supported by an unusually strong constitution, he +mapped a larger extent of territory than any other of the numerous +surveyors employed on the work. There are yet in the archives of Sweden +detailed maps of upwards of fifty square miles made by his hand. + +Neither the great labors attending these surveys, nor his military +duties, could give sufficient employment to the energies of the young +officer. In connection with a German engineer, Major Pentz, he now +began the arduous task of compiling a work on Canals, to be illustrated +by sixty-four large plates, representing the various buildings, +machines, and instruments connected with the construction of such +works. The part assigned to him in this enterprise was nothing less +than that of making all the drawings, as well as of engraving the +numerous plates; and as all the plates were to be executed in the style +of what is called machine-engraving, he undertook to construct a +machine for the purpose, which he successfully accomplished. This work +he prosecuted with so much industry, in the midst of his other various +labors, that, within the first year of its commencement, he had +executed eighteen large plates, which were pronounced by judges of +machine-engraving to be of superior merit. + +While thus variously occupied, being on a visit to the house of his +Colonel, Ericsson on one occasion showed his host, by a very simple +experiment, how readily mechanical power may be produced, independently +of steam, by condensing flame. His friend was much struck by the beauty +and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give +more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The +young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, +and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a +steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from +the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively +small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once +bringing it out in England, the great field for all mechanical +inventions. + +Ericsson accordingly obtained, leave from the King to visit England, +where he arrived on the eighteenth of May, 1826. He there proceeded to +construct a working engine on the principle above mentioned, but soon +discovered that his _flame-engine_, when worked by the combustion +of mineral coals, was a different thing from the experimental model he +had tried in the highlands of Sweden, with fuel composed of the +splinters of fine pine wood. Not only did he fail to produce an +extended and vivid flame, but the intense heat so seriously affected +all the working parts of the machine as soon to cause its destruction. + +These experiments, it may well be supposed, were attended with no +trifling expenditure; and, to meet these demands upon him, our young +adventurer was compelled to draw on his mechanical resources. + +Invention now followed invention in rapid succession, until the records +of the Patent-Office in London were enriched with the drawings of the +remarkable steam-boiler on the principle of _artificial draught_; +to which principle we are mainly indebted for the benefits conferred on +civilization by the present rapid communication by railways. In +bringing this important invention before the public, Ericsson thought +it advisable to join some old and established mechanical house in +London; and accordingly he associated himself with John Braithwaite, a +name favorably known in the mechanical annals of England. This +invention was hardly developed, when an opportunity was presented for +testing it in practice. + +The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, before erecting +the stationary engines by which they had intended to draw their +passenger and freight carriages, determined to appeal to the mechanical +talent of the country, in the hope of securing some preferable form of +motor. A prize was accordingly offered, in the autumn of 1829, for the +best locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then +completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, +until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not +deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies +to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had +the whole machine constructed within the seven weeks. + +The day of trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the +prize,--namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by +Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the +railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of +spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for +inanimate matter was to be put in motion, and that moves only in +accordance with immutable laws. The signal was given for the start. +Instead of the application of whip and spur, the gentle touch of the +steam-valve gave life and motion to the novel machine. + +Up to that period, the greatest speed at which man had been carried +along the ground was that of the race-horse; and no one of the +multitude present on this occasion expected to see that speed +surpassed. It was the general belief that the maximum attainable by the +locomotive engine would not much exceed ten miles. To the surprise and +admiration of the crowd, however, the Novelty steam-carriage, the +_fastest_ engine started, guided by its inventor Ericsson, +assisted by John Braithwaite, darted along the track at the rate of +upwards of fifty miles an hour! + +The breathless silence of the multitude was now broken by thunders of +hurras, that drowned the hiss of the escaping steam and the rolling of +the engine-wheels. To reduce the surprise and delight excited on this +occasion to the universal standard, and as an illustration of the +extent to which the value of property is sometimes enhanced by the +success of a mechanical invention, it may be stated, that, when the +Novelty had run her two miles and returned, the shares of the Liverpool +and Manchester Railway had risen _ten per cent_. + +But how easily may the just expectations of an inventor be +disappointed! Although the principle of _artificial draught_--the +principle which gave to the Novelty such decided superiority in +speed--is yet retained in all locomotive engines, the mode of producing +this draught in our present engines is far different from that +introduced by Ericsson, and was discovered by the merest accident; and +so soon was this discovery made, after the successful display of the +Novelty engine, that Ericsson had no time to derive the least advantage +from its introduction. To him, however, belongs the credit of having +disproved the correctness of the once established theory, that it was +absolutely necessary that a certain _extensive_ amount of +_surface_ should be exposed to the fire, to generate a given +quantity of steam. + +The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by +Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it +had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the +steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. +Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, and which excited so +much interest in London at the time the Argyle Rooms were on fire. A +similar engine of greater power was subsequently constructed by +Ericsson and Braithwaite for the King of Prussia, which was mainly +instrumental in saving several valuable buildings at a great fire in +Berlin. For this invention Ericsson received, in 1842, the large gold +medal offered by the Mechanics' Institute of New York for the best plan +of a steam fire-engine. + +In the year 1833 Ericsson brought before the scientific world in London +his invention of the Caloric-Engine, which had been a favorite subject +of speculation and reflection with him for many years. From the +earliest period of his mechanical labors, he had been in the habit of +regarding heat as an agent, _which, whilst it exerts mechanical +force, undergoes no change._ The steam in the cylinder of a +steam-engine, after having lifted the weight of the piston, contains +just as much heat as it did before leaving the boiler,--minus only the +loss by radiation. Yet in the low-pressure engine we turn the steam, +after having performed its office, into a condensing-apparatus, where +the heat is in a manner annihilated; and in the high-pressure engine we +throw it away into the atmosphere. + +The acting medium employed in the Caloric-Engine is atmospheric air; +and the leading peculiarity of the machine, as originally designed by +Ericsson, is, that by means of an apparatus styled the Regenerator the +heat contained in the air which escapes from the working cylinder is +taken up by the air which enters it at each stroke of the piston and +used over and over again. + +The machine constructed by Ericsson in London was a working engine of +five-horse power, the performance of which was witnessed by many +gentlemen of scientific pretensions in that metropolis. Among others, +the popular author, Sir Richard Phillips, examined it; and in his +"Dictionary of the Arts of Life and of Civilization," he thus notices +the result of this experiment:--"The author has, with inexpressible +delight, seen the first model machine of five-horse power at work. With +a handful of fuel, applied to the very sensible medium of atmospheric +air, and a most ingenious disposition of its differential powers, he +beheld a resulting action in narrow compass, capable of extension to as +great forces as ever can be wielded or used by man." Dr. Andrew Ure +went so far as to say that the invention would "throw the name of his +great countryman, James Watt, into the shade." Professor Faraday gave +it an earnest approval. But, with these and some other eminent +exceptions, the scientific men of the day condemned the principle on +which the invention was based as unsound and untenable. + +The interest which the subject excited did not escape the British +Government. Before many days had elapsed, the Secretary of the Home +Department, accompanied by Mr. Brunel, the constructor of the Thames +Tunnel, made his appearance in the engine-room where the new motive +power was in operation. Mr. Brunel, who was at that time somewhat +advanced in years, conceived at the outset an erroneous notion of the +nature of the new power, which he would not suffer to be corrected by +explanations. A discussion sprang up between him and the inventor, +which was followed by a long correspondence. The result was, that an +unfavorable impression of the invention was communicated to the British +Government. + +The invention fared little better at the hands of Professor Faraday, +from whose efficient advocacy the most favorable results might have +been anticipated. This gentleman had announced that he would deliver a +lecture on the subject in London, in the spacious theatre of the Royal +Institution. The novelty of the invention, combined with the +reputation of the lecturer, had attracted a very large audience, +including many individuals of eminent scientific attainments. Just +half an hour, however, before he was expected to enlighten this +distinguished assembly, the celebrated lecturer discovered that he had +mistaken the expansive principle which is the very life of the +machine. Although he had spent many hours in studying the +Caloric-Engine in actual operation, and in testing its absolute force +by repeated experiments, Professor Faraday was compelled to inform his +hearers, at the very outset, that he did not know why the engine worked +at all. He was obliged to confine himself, therefore, to the +explanation of the Regenerator, and the process by which the heat is +continually returned to the cylinder, and re-employed in the +production of force. To this part of the invention he rendered ample +justice, and explained it in that felicitous style to which he is +indebted for the reputation he deservedly enjoys, as the most agreeable +and successful lecturer in England. + +Other causes than the misconception of a Brunel and a Faraday operated +to retard the practical success of this beautiful invention. The high +temperature which it was necessary to keep up in the circulating medium +of the engine, and the consequent oxidation, soon destroyed the +pistons, valves, and other working parts. These difficulties the +inventor endeavored to remedy, in an engine, which he subsequently +constructed, of much larger powers, but without success. His failure in +this respect, however, did not deter him from prosecuting his +invention. He continued his experiments from time to time, as +opportunity permitted, confident that he was gradually, but surely, +approaching the realization of his great scheme. + +Meanwhile he applied himself with his accustomed energy to the +practical working out of another favorite idea. The principle of the +Ericsson propeller was first suggested to the inventor by a study of +the means employed to propel the inhabitants of the air and deep. He +satisfied himself that all such propulsion in Nature is produced by +oblique action; though, in common with all practical men, he at first +supposed that it was inseparably attended by a loss of power. But when +he reflected that this was the principle invariably adopted by the +Great Mechanician of the Universe, in enabling the birds, insects, and +fishes to move through their respective elements, he knew that he must +be in error. This he was soon able to demonstrate, and he became +convinced, by a strict application of the laws which govern matter and +motion, that no loss of power whatever attends the oblique action of +the propelling surfaces applied to Nature's locomotives. After +having satisfied himself on the theory of the subject, the first step +of the inventor was the construction of a small model, which he tried +in the circular basin of a bath in London. To his great delight, so +perfectly was his theory borne out in practice, that this model, though +less than two feet long, performed its voyage about the basin at the +rate of three English miles an hour. + +The next step in the invention was the construction of a boat forty +feet long, eight feet beam, and three feet draught of water, with two +propellers, each of five feet three inches in diameter. So successful +was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the +boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without +a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she +attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was +found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons' +burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and +the American packet-ship Toronto was towed in the river Thames by this +miniature steamer at the rate of more than five English miles an hour. +This feat excited no little interest among the boatmen of the Thames, +who were astonished at the sight of this novel craft moving against +wind and tide without any visible agency of propulsion, and, ascribing +to it some supernatural origin, united in giving it the name of the +_Flying Devil_. But the engineers of London Hoarded the +experiment with silent neglect; and the subject, when laid before the +Lords of the British Admiralty, failed to attract any favorable notice +from that august body. + +Perceiving its peculiar and admirable fitness for ships of war, +Ericsson was confident that their Lordships would at once order the +construction of a war-steamer on the new principle. He invited them, +therefore, to take an excursion in tow of his experimental boat. +Accordingly, the gorgeous and gilt Admiralty Barge was ordered up to +Somerset House, and the little steamer was lashed along-side. The barge +contained Sir Charles Adam, Senior Lord of the Admiralty,--Sir William +Simonds, Chief Constructor of the British Navy,--Sir Edward Parry, the +celebrated Arctic navigator,--Captain Beaufort, the Chief of the +Topographical Department of the British Admiralty,--and others of +scientific and naval distinction. + +In the anticipation of a severe scrutiny from so distinguished a +personage as the Chief Constructor of the British Navy, the inventor +had carefully prepared plans of his new mode of propulsion, which were +spread on the damask cloth of the magnificent barge. To his utter +astonishment, as we may well imagine, this scientific gentleman did not +appear to take the slightest interest in his explanations. On the +contrary, with those expressive shrugs of the shoulder and shakes of +the head which convey so much to the bystander without absolutely +committing the actor,--with an occasional sly, mysterious, undertone +remark to his colleagues,--he indicated very plainly, that, though his +humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause for so much +unhappiness, yet that "he could, an if he would," demonstrate by a +single word the utter futility of the whole invention. + +Meanwhile the little steamer, with her precious charge, proceeded at a +steady progress of ten miles an hour, through the arches of the lofty +Southwark and London bridges, towards Limehouse, and the steam-engine +manufactory of the Messrs. Seaward. Their Lordships having landed, and +inspected the huge piles of ill-shaped cast-iron, misdenominated marine +engines, intended for some of His Majesty's steamers, with a look at +their favorite propelling--apparatus, the Morgan paddle-wheel, they +reembarked, and were safely returned to Somerset House by the +disregarded, noiseless, and unseen propeller of the new steamer. + +On parting, Sir Charles Adam, with a sympathizing air, shook the +inventor cordially by the hand, and thanked him for the trouble he had +been at in showing him and his friends this _interesting_ +experiment, adding that he feared he had put himself to too great an +expense and trouble on the occasion. Notwithstanding this somewhat +ominous _finale_ of the day's excursion, Ericsson felt confident +that their Lordships could not fail to perceive the great importance of +the invention. To his surprise, however, a few days afterwards, a +friend put into his hands a letter written by Captain Beaufort, at the +suggestion, probably, of the Lords of the Admiralty, in which that +gentleman, who had himself witnessed the experiment, expressed regret +to state that their Lordships had certainly been very much disappointed +at its result. The reason for the disappointment was altogether +inexplicable to the inventor; for the speed attained at this trial far +exceeded anything that had ever been accomplished by any paddle-wheel +steamer on so small a scale. + +An accident soon relieved his astonishment, and explained the +mysterious givings-out of Sir William Simonds on the day of the +excursion. The subject having been started at a dinner-table where a +friend of Ericsson's was present, Sir William ingeniously and +ingenuously remarked, that, "even if the propeller had the power of +propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, +_because_, the power being applied in the _stern_, it would +be _absolutely impossible_ to make the vessel steer." It may not +be obvious to every one how our naval philosopher derived his +conclusion from his premises; but his hearers doubtless readily +acquiesced in the oracular proposition, and were much amused at the +idea of undertaking to steer a vessel when the power was applied in her +stern. + +But we may well excuse the Lords of the British Admiralty for +exhibiting no interest in the invention, when we reflect that the +engineering corps of the empire were arrayed in opposition to +it,--alleging that it was constructed upon erroneous principles, and +full of practical defects, and regarding its failure as too certain to +authorize any speculations even as to its success. The plan was +specially submitted to many distinguished engineers, and was publicly +discussed in the scientific journals; and there was no one but the +inventor who refused to acquiesce in the truth of the numerous +demonstrations proving the vast loss of mechanical power which must +attend this proposed substitute for the old-fashioned paddle-wheel. + +While opposed by such a powerful array of English scientific wisdom, +the inventor had the satisfaction of submitting his plan to a citizen +of the New World, Mr. Francis B. Ogden,--for many years Consul of the +United States at Liverpool,--who was able to understand its philosophy +and appreciate its importance. Though not an engineer by profession, +Mr. Ogden was distinguished for his eminent attainments in mechanical +science, and is entitled to the honor of having first applied the +important principle of the expansive power of steam, and of having +originated the idea of employing right-angular cranks in marine +engines. His practical experience and long study of the subject--for he +was the first to stem the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam alone--enabled him at +once to perceive the truth of the inventor's demonstrations. And not +only did he admit their truth, but he also joined Ericsson in +constructing the experimental boat to which we have alluded, and +which the inventor launched into the Thames with the name of the +"Francis B. Ogden," as a token of respect to his Transatlantic friend. + +Other circumstances soon occurred which consoled the inventor for his +disappointment in the rejection of the propeller by the British +Admiralty. The subject had been brought to the notice of an officer of +the United States navy. Captain Robert F. Stockton, who was at that +time on a visit to London, and who was induced to accompany him in one +of his experimental excursions on the Thames. Captain Stockton is +entitled to the credit of being the first naval officer who heard, +understood, and dared to act upon the suggestions of Ericsson, as to +the application of the propeller to ships of war. At the first glance, +he saw the important bearings of the invention; and his acute judgment +enabled him at once to predict that it was destined to work a +revolution in naval warfare. After making a single trip in the +experimental steamboat, from London Bridge to Greenwich, he ordered +the inventor to build for him forthwith two iron boats for the United +States, with steam-machinery and propeller on the plan of this rejected +invention. "I do not want," said Stockton, "the opinions of your +scientific men; what I have seen this day satisfies me." He at once +brought the subject before the Government of the United States, and +caused numerous plans and models to be made, at his own expense, +explaining the peculiar fitness of the invention for ships of war. So +completely persuaded was he of its great importance in this aspect, +and so determined that his views should be carried out, that he boldly +assured the inventor that the Government of the United States would +test the propeller on a large scale; and so confident was Ericsson +that the perseverance and energy of Captain Stockton would sooner or +later accomplish what he promised, that he at once abandoned his +professional engagements in England, and came to the United States, +where he fixed his residence in the city of New York. This was in the +year 1839. + +Circumstances delayed, for some two years, the execution of their plan. +With the change of the Federal Administration, Stockton was first able +to obtain a favorable hearing; and having at length received the +necessary authority, the Princeton was built under his superintendence, +from the designs of Ericsson. She was completed and ready for sea +early in 1844, when she was pronounced by Stockton "the cheapest, +fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world." + +In this vessel, in addition to the propeller, Ericsson introduced his +semicylindrical steam-engine, a beautiful invention, so compact that +it occupied only one-eighth of the bulk of the British marine engine +of corresponding power, and was placed more than four feet below the +water-line. The boilers were also below the water-line, having a +peculiar heating-apparatus attached which effected a great saving of +fuel, and with their furnaces and flues so constructed as to burn +anthracite as well as bituminous coal. Instead of the ordinary tall +smoke-pipe,--an insuperable objection to a steamer as a ship of +war,--he constructed a smoke-pipe upon the principle of the telescope, +which could be elevated or depressed at pleasure; and in order to +provide a draught independent of the height of the smoke-pipe, he +placed centrifugal blowers in the bottom of the vessel, which were +worked by separate small engines,--an arrangement originally applied +by him to marine engines in the steam-packet Corsair in 1831. Thus the +steam-machinery of the Princeton fulfilled the most important +requisites for a war-steamer, combining lightness, compactness, +simplicity, and efficiency, and being placed wholly out of reach of the +enemy's fire. + +The armament of the ship also exhibited many peculiarities. "By the +application of the various arts to the purposes of war on board of the +Princeton," says Captain Stockton, in his report to the Navy +Department, "it is believed that the art of gunnery for sea-service +has, for the first time, been reduced to something like mathematical +certainty. The distance to which the guns can throw their shot at every +necessary angle of elevation has been ascertained by a series of +careful experiments. The distance from the ship to any object is +readily ascertained with an instrument on board, contrived for that +purpose, by an observation which it requires but an instant to make, +and by inspection without calculation. By self-acting locks, the guns +can be fired accurately at the necessary elevation,--no matter what +the motion of the ship may be." The instruments here referred to, +namely, the Distance-Instrument and the Self-Acting Gun-Lock, and also +the wrought-iron gun-carriage, by means of which Captain Stockton's +enormous guns were readily handled and directed, all were the +productions of Ericsson's fertile mechanical genius. + +A committee of the American Institute, by whom this remarkable vessel +was examined, thus concluded their report:--"Your Committee take leave +to present the Princeton as every way worthy the highest honors of the +Institute. She is a sublime conception, most successfully +realized,--an effort of genius skilfully executed,--a grand +_unique_ combination, honorable to the country, as creditable to +all engaged upon her. Nothing in the history of mechanics surpasses the +inventive genius of Captain Ericsson, unless it be the moral daring of +Captain Stockton, in the adoption of so many novelties at one time." We +may add that in the Princeton was exhibited the first successful +application of screw-propulsion to a ship of war, and that she was the +first steamship ever built with the machinery below the water-line and +out of the reach of shot. + +Ericsson spent the best part of two years in his labors upon the +Princeton. Besides furnishing the general plan of the ship and +supplying her in every department with his patented improvements, he +prepared, with his own hand, the working-drawings for every part of +the steam-machinery, propelling-apparatus, and steering-apparatus in +detail, and superintended their whole construction and arrangement, +giving careful and exact instructions as to the most minute +particulars. In so doing, he was compelled to make frequent journeys +from New York to Sandy Hook and Philadelphia, involving no small amount +of trouble and expense. For the use of his patent rights in the engine +and propeller, he had, at the suggestion of Captain Stockton, refrained +from charging the usual fees, consenting to accept, as full +satisfaction, whatever the Government, after testing the inventions, +should see fit to pay. He never imagined, however, that his laborious +services as engineer were to go unrequited, or that his numerous +inventions and improvements, unconnected with the engine and propeller, +were to be furnished gratuitously. Yet, when, after the Princeton, as +we have seen, had been pronounced on all hands a splendid success, +Ericsson presented his bill to the Navy Department,--not for the +patent-fees in question, but for the bare repayment of his +expenditures, and compensation for his time and labor in the service +of the United States,--he was informed that his claim could not be +allowed; it could not be recognized as a "legal claim." It was not +denied that the services alleged had been rendered,--that the work for +which compensation was asked had been done by Ericsson, and well +done,--nor that the United States were in the enjoyment of the unpaid +results of his labor and invention. A claim based upon such +considerations might, it would seem, have been brought within the +definition of a legal claim. But if not admissible under the strict +rules of the Navy Department, it was certainly an equitable demand +against the United States; and Ericsson could not believe that the +representatives of the great American people would stand upon +technicalities. He accordingly made a direct appeal to them in a +Memorial to Congress. + +We may as well here give the further history of this claim. It met with +the usual delays and obstructions that private claims, having nothing +but their intrinsic merits to support them, are compelled to +encounter. It called forth the usual amount of legislative +pettifogging. Session after session passed away, and still it hung +between the two Houses of Congress, until the very time which had +elapsed since it was first presented began to be brought up as an +argument against it. At length, when Congress established the Court of +Claims, a prospect opened of bringing it to a fair hearing and a +final decision. It was submitted to that tribunal six years ago. The +Court decided in its favor,--the three judges (Gilchrist, Scarborough, +and Blackford) being unanimous in their judgment. A bill directing its +payment was reported to the Senate,--and there it is still. Although +favorably reported upon by two committees at different sessions, and +once passed by the Senate, without a vote recorded against it, it has +never yet got through both Houses of Congress. For furnishing this +Government with the magnificent war-steamer which was pronounced by +Captain Stockton "the cheapest, fastest, and most certain ship of war +in the world," Ericsson has never been paid a dollar. It remains to be +seen whether the present Congress will permit this stain upon the +national good faith to continue. If it does, its "votes of thanks" are +little better than a mockery. + +The efficiency and utility of the propeller having been established +beyond a doubt, it went at once into extensive use. But the inventor +was again disappointed in his just expectation of reaping an adequate +pecuniary benefit from his exertions. Upon the strength of some +attempts at screw-propulsion,--made and abandoned by various +experimenters,--which had never resulted, and probably never would +have resulted, in any practical application, rival machines, which +conflicted with Ericsson's patent, soon made their appearance. A long +litigation followed, during which all attempts to collect patent-fees +were necessarily suspended; and the result was, that the invention was +virtually abandoned to the public. But no one can take from Ericsson +the honor of having first introduced the screw-propeller into actual +use, and demonstrated its value,--an honor which is now freely +accorded to him by the highest scientific authorities at home and +abroad. + +Although the first five years of his American experience had been less +profitable, in a pecuniary sense, than he had anticipated, he +continued to reside in the city of New York, where he found an ample +field for the exercise of his great powers in the line of his +profession. He planned the war-steamer Pomone, the first screw-vessel +introduced into the French navy. He planned revenue-cutters for the +United States Government, taking care always to have his contracts so +distinctly made that no question could again arise as to his "legal +claim." He invented a useful apparatus for supplying the boilers of +sea-going steamers with fresh water. He invented various modifications +of the steam-engine. + +In the American division of the London Industrial Exhibition of all +Nations in 1851, he exhibited the Distance-Instrument, for measuring +distances at sea,--the Hydrostatic Gauge, for measuring the volume of +fluids under pressure,--the Reciprocating Fluid-Metre, for measuring +the quantity of water which passes through pipes during definite +periods,--the Alarm-Barometer,--the Pyrometer, intended as a standard +measure of temperature, from the freezing-point of water up to the +melting-point of iron,--a Rotary Fluid-Metre, the principle of which +is the measurement of fluids by the velocity with which they pass +through apertures of different dimensions,--and a Sea-Lead, contrived +for taking soundings at sea without rounding the vessel to the wind, +and independently of the length of the lead-line. For these inventions +he received the prize-medal of the Exhibition. + +But while thus continually occupied with new enterprises and objects, +he did not lose sight of his great idea, the Caloric-Engine. All his +spare hours and spare funds were devoted to experiments with the view +of overcoming the practical difficulties which stood in the way of its +success. Towards the end of the year 1851 he seemed to be on the point +of realizing his hopes, having constructed a large stationary engine, +which was applied with great success, at the Phoenix Foundry in New +York, to the actual work of pumping water. Soon after, through the +liberality of Mr. John B. Kitching, a well-known merchant of New +York, he was enabled to test the invention on a magnificent scale. A +ship of two thousand tons, propelled by the power of caloric-engines, +was planned and constructed by him in the short space of seven months, +and in honor of the inventor received the name of the "Ericsson." + +Every one will remember the interest which this caloric-ship excited +throughout the country. She made a trip from New York to Alexandria on +the Potomac, in very rough weather, in the latter part of February, +1853. On this trip the engines were in operation for seventy-three +hours without being stopped for a moment, and without requiring the +slightest adjustment, the consumption of fuel being only five tons in +twenty-four hours. At Alexandria she was visited by the President and +President elect, the heads of the departments, a large number of naval +officers, and many members of both Houses of Congress, and +subsequently by the foreign ministers in a body, and by the Legislature +of Virginia, then in session. Ericsson was invited by a committee of +the Legislature to visit Richmond, as the guest of the State. The +Secretary of the Navy recommended, in a special communication to +Congress, the passage of a resolution authorizing him to contract for +the construction of a frigate of two thousand tons to be equipped with +caloric-engines, and to appropriate for this purpose five hundred +thousand dollars. This recommendation failed in consequence of the +pressure of business at the close of the session. + +But notwithstanding the surprise and admiration which this achievement +excited in the scientific world, the speed attained was not sufficient +to meet the practical exigencies of commerce; and the repetition of +the engines on this large scale could not be undertaken at the charge +of individuals. Ericsson accordingly wisely devoted himself to +perfecting the Calorie-Engine on a small scale, and in 1859 he +produced it in a form which has since proved a complete success. It is +no longer a subject of experiment, but exists as a perfect, practical +machine. More than five hundred of these engines, with cylinders +varying from a diameter of six inches to one of forty inches, are now +in successful operation. It is applied to purposes of pumping, +printing, hoisting, grinding, sawing, turning light machinery, working +telegraphic instruments and sewing-machines, and propelling boats. No +less than forty daily papers (among which we may mention the "National +Intelligencer") are printed by means of this engine. In Cuba it is +used for grinding sugar-cane, on Southern plantations for ginning +cotton; and there is an endless variety of domestic, agricultural, and +mechanical uses to which it may be advantageously applied. + +The extent of power attainable by this machine, consistently with its +application to practical uses, is not yet precisely defined. Within +the limit thus far given to it, its power is certain, uniform, and +entirely sufficient. It is not attended with the numerous perils that +make the steam-engine so uncomfortable a servant, but is absolutely +free from danger. It requires no engineering supervision. It consumes a +very small amount of fuel (about one-third of the amount required by +the steam-engine) and requires no water. These peculiarities not only +make it a very desirable substitute for the steam-engine, but render +it available for many purposes to which the steam-engine would never +be applied. + +In addition to his regular professional avocations, Ericsson was +industriously occupied in devising new applications of the +Calorie-Engine, when the attempted secession of the Southern States +plunged the country into the existing war and struck a blow at all the +arts of peace. Ills whole heart and mind were given at once to the +support of the Union. Liberal in all his ideas, he is warmly attached +to republican institutions, and has a hearty abhorrence of intolerance +and oppression in all their forms. His early military education and +his long study of the appliances of naval warfare increased the +interest with which he watched the progress of events. The abandonment +of the Norfolk navy-yard to the Rebels struck him as a disgrace that +might have been avoided. He foresaw the danger of a formidable +antagonist from that quarter in the steamship which we had so +obligingly furnished them. The building of gun-boats with +steam-machinery _above_ the water-line--where the first shot from +an enemy might render it useless--seemed to him, in view of what he +had done and was ready to do again, a very unnecessary error. Knowing +thoroughly all the improvements made and making in the war-steamers of +England and France, and feeling the liability of their interference in +our affairs, he could not appreciate the wisdom of building new +vessels according to old ideas. The blockade of the Potomac by Rebel +batteries, in the very face of our navy, seemed to him an indignity +which need not be endured, if the inventive genius of the North could +have fair play. + +An impregnable iron gun-boat was, in his judgment, the thing that was +needed; and he determined that the plan of such a vessel should be his +contribution towards the success of the war. The subject was not a +new one to him. He had given it much consideration, and his plan, in +all its essential features, had been matured long before. Proposals +for iron-clad vessels having been invited by the Navy Department, +Ericsson promptly submitted his plans and specifications. Knowing the +opposition that novelties always encounter, he had no great expectation +that his proposal would be accepted. "I have done my part," said he; "I +have offered my plan. It is for the Government to say whether I shall +be allowed to carry it out." He felt confident, however, that, if the +plan should be brought to the notice of the President, his practical +wisdom and sound common sense could not fail to decide in its favor. +Fortunately for the country, Ericsson's offer was accepted by the Navy +Department. He immediately devoted all his energies to the execution of +his task, and the result was the construction of the vessel to which he +himself gave the name of the "Monitor." What she is and what she has +accomplished, we need not here repeat. Whatever may be her future +history, we may safely say, in the words of the New York Chamber of +Commerce, that "the floating-battery Monitor deserves to be, and will +be, forever remembered with gratitude and admiration." + +We rejoice to believe that the merits and services of Ericsson are now +fully appreciated by the people of the United States. The thanks of the +nation have been tendered to him by a resolution of Congress. The +Boston Board of Trade and the New York Chamber of Commerce have passed +resolutions expressive of their gratitude. The latter body expressed +also their desire that the Government of the United States should make +to Captain Ericsson "such suitable return for his services as will +evince the gratitude of a great nation." Upon hearing this suggestion, +Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,--"All the remuneration +I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is +all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of +consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he +discountenanced the movement set on foot among the merchants of New +York for the subscription of a sum of money to be presented to him. He +asks nothing but fair remuneration for services rendered,--and that, it +is to be hoped, the people will take care that he shall receive. + +Ericsson is now zealously at work in constructing six new iron +gun-boats on the plan of the Monitor. If that remarkable structure can +be surpassed, he is the man to accomplish it. His ambition is to render +the United States impregnable against the navies of the world. "Give me +only the requisite means," he writes, "and in a very short time we can +say to those powers now bent on destroying republican institutions, +'_Leave the Gulf with your frail craft, or perish_!' I have all my +life asserted that mechanical science will put an end to the power of +England over the seas. The ocean is Nature's highway between the +nations. It should be free; and surely Nature's laws, when properly +applied, will make it so." + +His reputation as an engineer is worldwide. In 1852 he was made a +Knight of the Order of Vasa by King Oscar of Sweden. The following +extract from a poem "To John Ericsson" we translate from "Svenska +Tidningen," the Government journal of Stockholm. It is eloquently +expressive of the pride and admiration with which he is regarded in his +native country. + +"World-wide his fame, so gracefully adorning +His native Sweden with enduring radiance! +Not a king's crown could give renown so noble: +For his is Thought's great triumph, and the sceptre +He wields is over elements his subjects!" + +Although now in his sixtieth year, Ericsson has the appearance of a man +of forty. He is in the very maturity of a vigorous manhood, and retains +all the fire and enthusiasm of youth. He has a frame of iron, cast in a +large and symmetrical mould. His head and face are indicative of +intellectual power and a strong will. His presence impresses one, at +the first glance, as that of an extraordinary man. His bearing is +dignified and courteous, with a touch perhaps of military +_brusquerie_ in his mode of address. He has a keen sense of humor, +a kindly and generous disposition, and a genial and companionable +nature. He is a "good hater" and a firm friend. Like all men of strong +character and outspoken opinions, he has some enemies; but his chosen +friends he "grapples to his heart with hooks of steel." + +He is not a mere mechanician, but has great knowledge of men and of +affairs, and an ample fund of information on all subjects. His +conversation is engaging and instructive; and when he seeks to enlist +cooeperation in his mechanical enterprises, few men can withstand the +force of his arguments and the power of his personal magnetism. + +Although his earnings have sometimes been large, his heavy expenditures +in costly experiments have prevented him from acquiring wealth. Money +is with him simply a means of working out new ideas for the benefit of +mankind; and in this way he does not scruple to spend to the utmost +limit of his resources. He lives freely and generously, but is strictly +temperate and systematic in all his habits. + +The amount of labor which he is capable of undergoing is astonishing. +While engaged in carrying out his inventions, it is a common thing for +him to pass sixteen hours a day at his table, in the execution of +detailed mechanical drawings, which he throws off with a facility and +in a style that have probably never been surpassed. He does not seem to +need such recreation as other men pine after. He never cares to run +down to the seashore, or take a drive into the country, or spend a week +at Saratoga or at Newport. Give him his drawing-table, his plans, his +models, the noise of machinery, the clatter of the foundry, and he is +always contented. Week in and week out, summer and winter, he works on +and on,--and the harder he works, the more satisfied he seems to be. He +is as untiring as one of his own engines, which never stop so long as +the fire burns. Endowed with such a constitution, it is to be hoped +that new triumphs and many years of honor and usefulness are yet before +him. + + * * * * * + + +MOVING. + + +Man is like an onion. He exists in concentric layers. He is born a +bulb and grows by external accretions. The number and character of his +involutions certify to his culture and courtesy. Those of the boor are +few and coarse. Those of the gentleman are numerous and fine. But strip +off the scales from all and you come to the same germ. The core of +humanity is barbarism. Every man is a latent savage. + +You may be startled and shocked, but I am stating fact, not theory. I +announce not an invention, but a discovery. You look around you, and +because you do not see tomahawks and tattooing you doubt my assertion. +But your observation is superficial. You have not penetrated into the +secret place where souls abide. You are staring only at the outside +layer of your neighbors; just peel them and see what you will find. + +I speak from the highest possible authority,--my own. Representing the +gentler half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and +good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with +the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand +and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my +circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of +Americans,--and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the +moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten +that stand lower. Yet through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of +my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty +to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization +leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be +just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white +shores of Britain fifteen hundred years ago. + +For we have been moving. + +People who live in cities and move regularly every year from one good, +finished, right-side-up house to another will think I give a very small +reason for a very broad fact; but they do not know what they are +talking about. They have fallen into a way of looking upon a house only +as an exaggerated trunk, into which they pack themselves annually with +as much nonchalance as if it were only their preparation for a summer +trip to the seashore. They don't strike root anywhere. They don't have +to tear up anything. A man comes with cart and horses. There is a stir +in the one house,--they are gone;--there is a stir in the other +house,--they are settled,--and everything is wound up and set going to +run another year. We do these things differently in the country. We +don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, +then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, +and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then +it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then +it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,--but keep living in it all +the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just +such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown +like a fungus ever since there was anything to grow,--where your life +and luggage have crept into all the crevices and corners, and every +wall is festooned with associations thicker than the cobwebs, though +the cobwebs are pretty thick,--where the furniture and the pictures and +the knick-knacks are so become a part and parcel of the house, so grown +with it and into it, that you do not know they are chiefly rubbish till +you begin to move them and they fall to pieces, and don't know it then, +but persist in packing them up and carrying them away for the sake of +auld lang syne, till, set up again in your new abode, you suddenly find +that their sacredness is gone, their dignity has degraded into +dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only +comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has +suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and +the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this +tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the _debris_ of many +generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary +new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough +for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great +crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, +literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and +amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,--in short, all the +arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,--and on this +side--moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to +my thinking, all the discomforts short of absolute physical torture +that can be condensed into the human lot. Condensed, did I say? If it +were a condensed agony, I could endure it. One great, stunning, +overpowering blow is undoubtedly terrible, but you rally all your +fortitude to meet and resist it, and when it is over it is over and the +recuperative forces go to work; but a trouble that worries and baffles +and pricks and rasps you, that penetrates into all the ramifications of +your life, that fills you with profound disgust, and fires you with +irrepressible fury, and makes of you an Ishmaelite indeed, with your +hand against every man and every man's hand against you,--ah! that is +the _experimentum crucis_. Such is moving, in the country,--not an +act, but a process,--not a volition, but a fermentation. + +We will say that the first of September is the time appointed for the +transit. The day approaches. It is the twenty-ninth of August. I +prepare to take hold of the matter in earnest. I am nipped in the bud +by learning that the woman who was to help about the carpets cannot +come, because her baby is taken with the croup. I have not a doubt of +it. I never knew a baby yet that did not go and have the croup, or the +colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was imperatively necessary +that it should not have them. But there is no help for it. I shudder +and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at the heavy, bulky, +unwieldy carpets, and am covered with dust and abomination. I think +carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. +It is impossible to be clean with them under your feet. You may sweep +your carpet twenty times and raise a dust on the twenty-first. I am +sure I heard long ago of some new fashion that was to be +introduced,--some Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something of +the sort. I should welcome anything that would dispense with these vile +rags. I sigh over the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers +rejoiced in,--and so, apotheosizing the past and anathematizing the +present, I pull away, and the tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer +slips and lets me back with a jerk, and the dust fills my hair and nose +and eyes and mouth and lungs, and my hands grow red and coarse and +ragged and sore and begrimed, and I pull and choke and cough and +strangle and pull. + +So the carpets all come up and the curtains all come down. The bureaus +march out of the chamber-windows and dance on a tight-rope down into +the yard below. The chairs are set at "heads and points." The clothes +are packed into the trunks. The flour and meal and sugar, all the +wholesale edibles, are carted down to the new house and stored. The +forks are wrapped up and we eat with our fingers, and have nothing to +eat at that. Then we are informed that the new house will not be ready +short of two weeks at least. Unavoidable delays. The plasterers were +hindered; the painters misunderstood orders; the paperers have +defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no +matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total +depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their +word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised +reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of +it,--a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis +state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch +towards the new house, just sufficient to keep up the circulation. One +day I dreamily carry down a basket of wine-glasses. At another time I +listlessly stuff all my slippers into a huge pitcher and take up the +line of march. Again a bucket is filled with tea-cups, or I shoulder +the fire-shovel. The two weeks drag themselves away, and the cry is +still, "Unfinished!" To prevent petrifying into a fossil remain, or +relapsing into primitive barbarism, or degenerating into a dormouse, I +rouse my energies and determine to put my own shoulder to the wheel and +see if something cannot be accomplished. I rise early in the morning +and walk to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of "gumption," +"faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am told that he is in Beersheba. Nothing +daunted, I take a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding +manifold dangers from rickety stone-walls, strong enough to keep women +in, but not strong enough to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts +out,--toppling enough to play the mischief with draperies, but not +toppling enough to topple over when urgently pressed to do so. But I +secure my man, and remember no more my sorrow of bulls and stones for +joy at my success. From Beersheba I proceed to Padan-aram to buy seven +pounds of flour, thence to Galilee of the Gentiles for a pound of +cheese, thence to the land of Uz for a smoked halibut, thence to the +ends of the earth for a lemon to make life tolerable,--and the days +hobble on. + +"The flying gold of the ruined woodlands" drives through the air, the +signal is given, and there is no longer "quiet on the Potomac." The +unnatural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once more I bring myself +to bear on the furniture and the trumpery, and there is a small +household whirlpool. All that went before "pales its ineffectual +fires." Now comes the strain upon my temper, and my temper bends, and +quivers, and creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his spear; +all the integuments of my conventional, artificial, and acquired +gentleness peel off, and I stand revealed a savage. Everything around +me sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. Looking-glasses +are shivered by the dozen. A bit is nicked out of the best China +sugar-bowl. A pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around the +centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished +surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, +and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of +woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the +closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a +moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush +rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. +"I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his leg. A +fractured leg is easily mended; but who shall restore me the nose of +my nymph, marred into irremediable deformity and dishonor? + +Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart the darkness to keep me +back from rash deeds. Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of +dark, bright hair and gold and pearls, that I lost two years ago and +would not be comforted. O happy days woven in with the dark, bright +hair! O golden, pearly days, come back to me again! "Never mind your +gewgaws," interposes real life; "what is to be done with the things in +this drawer?" Lying atop of a heap of old papers in the front-yard, +waiting the match that is to glorify them into flame, I find a letter +that mysteriously disappeared long since and caused me infinite alarm +lest indelicate eyes might see it and indelicate hands make ignoble use +of its honest and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new and +interesting facts in mechanics. I become acquainted for the first time +with the _modus operandi_ of "roller-cloths." I never understood +before how the roller got inside the towel. It was one of those gentle +domestic mysteries that repel even while they invite investigation. I +shall not give the result of my discovery to the public. If you wish +very much to find out, you can move, as I did. + +But the rifts of sunshine disappear, the clouds draw together and close +in. The savage walks abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life. + +I have scarcely fallen asleep, when I am reluctantly, by short and +difficult stages, awakened. A rumbling, grating, strident noise first +confuses, then startles me. Is it robbers? Is it an earthquake? Is it +the coming of fate? I lie rigid, bathed in a cold perspiration. I hear +the tread of banditti on the moaning stairs. I see the flutter of +ghostly robes by the uncurtained windows. A chill, uncanny air rushes +in and grips at my damp hair. I am nerved by the extremity of my +terror. I will die of anything but fright. I jerk off the bedclothes, +convulse into an upright posture, and glare into the darkness. Nothing. +I rise softly, creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that always +creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. A light gleams through +the open door of the opposite room whence the sound issues. A familiar +voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It is Petronius, the +unprincipled scoundrel, who is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly +through innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail came near +giving me an epilepsy. My savage lets loose the dogs of war. Petronius +would fain defend himself by declaring that it is morning. I +indignantly deny it. He produces his watch. A fig for his watch! I +stake my consciousness against twenty watches, and go to bed again; but +Sleep, angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up +the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the +morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself +upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be +corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify +me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded +up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring +Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does +not mend his ways, I slowly emerge again into the world,--the dreary, +chaotic world,--the world that is never at rest. + +And there is hurrying to and fro, and a clang of many voices, and the +clatter of much crockery, and a lifting, and balancing, and battering +against walls and curving around corners, and sundry contusions, and a +great waste of expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of +patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, +steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of +something from upsetting with the other, and both arms stretched around +a very big and very square picture-frame that knocks against my nose or +my chin every time the cart goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and +the wind threatening to blow my hat off, and blowing it off, and my +"back-hair" tumbling down,--and the old house is at last despoiled. The +rooms stand bare and brown and desolate. The sun, a hand-breadth above +the horizon, pours in through the unblinking windows. The last load is +gone. The last man has departed. I am left alone to lock up the house +and walk over the hill to the new home. Then, for the first time, I +remember that I am leaving. As I pass through the door of my own room, +not regretfully, I turn. I look up and down and through and through the +place where I shall never rest again, and I rejoice that it is so. As I +stand there, with the red, solid sunshine lying on the floor, lying on +the walls, unfamiliar in its new profusion, the silence becomes +audible. In the still October evening there is an effort in the air. +The dumb house is striving to find a voice. I feel the struggle of its +insensate frame. The old timbers quiver with the unusual strain. The +strong, blind, vegetable energy agonizes to find expression, and, +wrestling like a pinioned giant, the soul of matter throws off the +weight of Its superincumbent inertia. Slowly, gently, most sorrowfully +through the golden air cleaves a voice that is somewhat a wail, yet not +untuned by love. Inarticulate at first, I catch only the low +mournfulness; but it clears, it concentrates, it murmurs into cadence, +it syllables into intelligence, and thus the old house speaks:-- + +"Child, my child, forward to depart, stay for one moment your eager +feet. Put off from your brow the crown which the sunset has woven, and +linger yet a little longer in the shadow which enshrouds me forever. I +remember, in this parting hour, the day of days which the tremulous +years bore in their bosom,--a day crimson with the woodbine's happy +flush and glowing with the maple's gold. On that day a tender, tiny +life came down, and stately Silence fled before the pelting of +baby-laughter. Faint memories of far-off olden time were softly +stirred. Blindly thrilled through all my frame a vague, dim sense of +swelling buds, and singing-birds, and summer-gales,--of the purple +beauty of violets, the smells of fragrant earth, and the sweetness of +summer dews and darks. Many a harvest-moon since then has filled her +yellow horn, and queenly Junes crowned with roses have paled before the +sternness of Decembers. But Decembers and Junes alike bore royal gifts +to you,--gifts to the busy brain and the awakening heart. In dell and +copse and meadow and gay green-wood you drank great draughts of life. +Yet, even as I watched, your eyes grew wistful. Your lips framed +questions for which the Springs found no reply, and the sacred mystery +of living brought its sweet, uncertain pain. Then you went away, and a +shadow fell. A gleam passed out of the sunshine and a note from the +robin's song. The knights that pranced on the household hearth grew +faint and still, and died for want of young eyes to mark their +splendor. But when your feet, ever and anon, turned homeward, they used +a firmer step, and I knew, that, though the path might be rough, you +trod it bravely. I saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler thing +than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burning in the holy place. But +now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the +sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The +summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And--O bitterest cup of +all!--the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I +totter down to the grave, while you go on from strength to strength. +The Junes that gave you life brought death to me, and you sorrow not. O +child of my tender care, look not so coldly on my pain! Breathe one +sigh of regret, drop one tear of pity, before we part!" + +The mournful murmur ceased. I am not adamant. My savage crouched out of +sight among the underbrush. I think something stirred in the back of my +eyes. There was even a suspicion of dampness in front. I thrust my hand +in my pocket to have my handkerchief ready in case of a catastrophe. It +was an unfortunate proceeding. My pocket was crammed full. I had to +push my fingers in between all manner of rubbish, to get at the +required article, and when I got hold of it, I had to pull with all my +might to get it out, and when it did come, out with it came a tin box +of mustard seed, a round wooden box of tooth-powder, a ball of twine, a +paper of picture-books, and a pair of gloves. Of course, the covers of +both the boxes came off. The seed scattered over the floor. The +tooth-powder puffed a white cloud into my face. The ball of twine +unrolled and trundled to the other side of the room. I gathered up what +I could, but, by the time order was restored and my handkerchief ready +for use, I had no use for it. The stirring in the back of my eyes had +stopped. The dewiness had disappeared. My savage sprang out from the +underbrush and brandished his tomahawk. And to the old house I made +answer as a Bushman of Caffraria might, or a Sioux of the +Prae-Pilgrimic Age:-- + +"Old House, hush up! Why do you talk stuff? 'Golden memories' indeed! +To hear you, one might suppose you were an ivied castle on the Rhine, +and I a fair-haired princess, cradled in the depths of regal luxury, +feeding on the blossoms of a thousand generations, and heroic from +inborn royalty. 'Tender care'! Did you not wake me in the middle of the +night, last summer, by trickling down water on my face from a passing +shower? and did I not have to get up at that unearthly hour to move the +bed, and step splash into a puddle, and come very near being floated +away? Did not the water drip, drip, drip upon my writing-desk, and soak +the leather and swell the wood, and stain the ribbon and spoil the +paper inside, and all because you were treacherous at the roof and let +it? Have you not made a perfect rattery of yourself, yawning at every +possible chink and crumbling at the underpinning, and keeping me awake +night after night by the tramp of a whole brigade of the Grand Army +that slaughtered Bishop Hatto? Whenever a breeze comes along stout +enough to make an aspen-leaf tremble, don't you immediately go into +hysterics, and rock, and creak, and groan, as if you were the shell of +an earthquake? Don't you shrivel at every window to let in the +northeasters and all the snow-storms that walk abroad? Whenever a +needle, or a pencil, or a penny drops, don't you open somewhere and +take it in? 'Golden memories'! Leaden memories! Wooden memories! Madden +memories!" + +My savage gave a war-whoop. I turned scornfully. I swept down the +staircase. I banged the front-door. I locked it with an accent, and +marched up the hill. A soft sighing breathed past me. I knew it was the +old house mourning for her departing child. The sun had disappeared, +but the western sky was jubilant in purple and gold. The cool evening +calmed me. The echoes of the war-whoop vibrated almost tenderly along +the hushed hillside. I paused on the summit of the hill and looked +back. Down in the valley stood the sorrowful house, tasting the first +bitterness of perpetual desolation. The maples and the oaks and the +beech-trees hung out their flaming banners. The pond lay dark in the +shadow of the circling hills. The years called to me,--the happy, +sun-ripe years that I had left tangled in the apple-blossoms, and +moaning among the pines, and tinkling in the brook, and floating in the +cups of the water-lilies. They looked up at me from the orchard, dark +and cool. They thrilled across from the hill-tops, glowing still with +the glowing sky. I heard their voice by the lilac-bush. They smiled at +me under the peach-trees, and where the blackberries had ripened +against the southern wall. I felt them once more in the clover-smells +and the new-mown hay. They swayed again in the silken tassels of the +crisp, rustling corn. They hummed with the bees in the garden-borders. +They sang with the robins in the cherry-trees, and their tone was +tender and passing sweet. They besought me not to cast away their +memory for despite of the black-browed troop whose vile and sombre +robes had mingled in with their silver garments. They prayed me to +forget, but not all. They minded me of the sweet counsel we had taken +together, when summer came over the hills and walked by the +watercourses. They bade me remember the good tidings of great joy which +they had brought me when my eyes were dim with unavailing tears. My +lips trembled to their call. The war-whoop chanted itself into a +vesper. A happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered out over the +valley, and a comfort settled on the sad old house as I stretched forth +my hands and from my inmost soul breathed down a _Benedicite!_ + + * * * * * + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +It may seem to some of my readers that I have wandered from my subject +and forgotten the title of these articles, which purport to be a series +of papers on "Methods of Study in Natural History." But some idea of +the progress of Natural History, of its growth as a science, of the +gradual evolving of general principles out of a chaotic mass of facts, +is a better aid to the student than direct instruction upon special +modes of investigation; and it is with the intention of presenting the +study of Natural History from this point of view that I have chosen my +title. + +I have endeavored thus far to show how scientific facts have been +systematized so as to form a classification that daily grows more true +to Nature, in proportion as its errors are corrected by a more intimate +acquaintance with the facts; but I will now attempt a more difficult +task, and try to give some idea of the mental process by which facts +are transformed into scientific truth. I fear that the subject may seem +very dry to my readers, and I would again ask their indulgence for +details absolutely essential to my purpose, but which would indeed be +very wearisome, did they not lead us up to an intelligent and most +significant interpretation of their meaning. + +I should be glad to remove the idea that science is the mere amassing +of facts. It is true that scientific results grow out of facts, but not +till they have been fertilized by thought The facts must be collected, +but their mere accumulation will never advance the sum of human +knowledge by one step;--it is the comparison of facts and their +transformation into ideas that lead to a deeper insight into the +significance of Nature. Stringing words together in incoherent +succession does not make an intelligible sentence; facts are the words +of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach +us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations and +recognize the thought that binds them together as a consistent whole. + +I have spoken of the plans that lie at the foundation of all the +variety of the Animal Kingdom as so many structural ideas which must +have had an intellectual existence in the Creative Conception +independently of any special material expression of them. Difficult +though it be to present these plans as pure abstract formulae, distinct +from the animals that represent them, I would nevertheless attempt to +do it, in order to show how the countless forms of animal life have +been generalized into the few grand, but simple intellectual +conceptions on which all the past populations of the earth as well as +the present creation are founded. In such attempts to divest the +thought of its material expression, especially when that expression is +multiplied in such thousand-fold variety of form and color, our +familiarity with living animals is almost an obstacle to our success. +For I shall hardly be able to allude to the formula of the Radiates, +for instance,--the abstract idea that includes all the structural +possibilities of that division of the Animal Kingdom,--without +recalling to my readers a Polyp or a Jelly-Fish, a Sea-Urchin or a +Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk +plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a +Cuttle-Fish,--or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the +form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,--or of the Vertebrate plan, +without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or +Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes +of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the +limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural +elements, though each branch is entirely distinct. If this be true, +and if these organic formulae have the precision of mathematical +formulae, with which I have compared them, they should be susceptible +of the same tests. + +The mathematician proves the identity of propositions that have the +same mathematical value and significance by their convertibility. If +they have the same mathematical quantities, it must be possible to +transform them, one into another, without changing anything that is +essential in either. The problem before us is of the same character. +If, for instance, all Radiates, be they Sea-Anemones, Jelly-Fishes, +Star-Fishes, or Sea-Urchins, are only various modes of expressing the +same organic formula, each having the sum of all its structural +elements, it should be possible to demonstrate that they are +reciprocally convertible. This is actually the case, and I hope to be +able to convince my readers that it is no fanciful theory, but may be +demonstrated as clearly as the problems of the geometer. The +naturalist has his mathematics, as well as the geometer and the +astronomer; and if the mathematics of the Animal Kingdom have a greater +flexibility than those of the positive sciences, and are therefore not +so easily resolved into their invariable elements, it is because they +have the freedom and pliability of life, and evade our efforts to bring +all their external variety within the limits of the same structural +law which nevertheless controls and includes them all. + +I wish that I could take as the illustration of this statement animals +with whose structure the least scientific of my readers might be +presumed to be familiar; but such a comparison of the Vertebrates, +showing the identity and relation of structural elements throughout +the Branch, or even in any one of its Classes, would be too extensive +and complicated, and I must resort to the Radiates,--that branch of the +Animal Kingdom which, though less generally known, has the simplest +structural elements. + +I will take, then, for the further illustration of my subject, the +Radiates, and especially the class of Echinoderms, Star-Fishes, +Sea-Urchins, and the like, both in the fossil and the living types; and +though some special description of these animals is absolutely +essential, I will beg my readers to remember that the general idea, +and not its special manifestations, is the thing I am aiming at, and +that, if we analyze the special parts characteristic of these +different groups, it is only that we may resolve them back again into +the structural plan that includes them all. + +I have already in a previous article named the different Orders of this +Class in their relative rank, and have compared the standing of the +living ones, according to the greater or less complication of their +structure, with the succession of the fossil ones. Of the five Orders, +Beches-de-Mer, Sea-Urchins, Star-Fishes, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--or, to name them all according to their scientific +nomenclature, Holothurians, Echinoids, Asteroids, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--the last-named are lowest in structure and earliest in time. +Cuvier was the first naturalist who detected the true nature of the +Crinoids, and placed them where they belong in the classification of +the Animal Kingdom. They had been observed before, and long and +laborious investigations had been undertaken upon them, but they were +especially baffling to the student, because they were known only in the +fossil condition from incomplete specimens; and though they still have +their representatives among the type of Echinoderms as it exists at +present, yet, partly owing to the rarity of the living specimens and +partly to the imperfect condition of the fossil ones, the relation +between them was not recognized. The errors about them certainly did +not arise from any want of interest in the subject among naturalists, +for no less than three hundred and eighty different authors have +published their investigations upon the Crinoids, and the books that +have been printed about these animals, many of which were written long +before their animal nature was suspected, would furnish a library in +themselves. The ancients knew little about them. The only one to be +found in the European seas resembles the Star-Fish closely, and they +called it Asterias; but even Aristotle was ignorant of its true +structural relations, and alludes only to its motion and general +appearance. Some account of the gradual steps by which naturalists have +deciphered the true nature of these lowest Echinoderms and their +history in past times may not be without interest, and is very +instructive as showing bow such problems may be solved. + +In the sixteenth century some stones were found bearing the impression +of a star on their surface. They received the name of Trochites, and +gave rise to much discussion. Naturalists puzzled their brains about +them, called them star-shaped crystals, aquatic plants, corals; and to +these last Linnaeus himself, the great authority of the time on all +such questions, referred them. Beside these stony stars, which were +found in great quantities when attention was once called to them, +impressions of a peculiar kind had been observed in the rocks, +resembling flowers on long stems, and called "stone lilies" naturally +enough, for their long, graceful stems, terminating either in a +branching crown or a closer cup, recall the lily tribe among flowers. +The long stems of these seeming lilies are divided transversely at +regular intervals;--the stem is easily broken at any of these natural +divisions, and on each such fragment is stamped a star-like impression +resembling those found upon the loose stones or Trochites. + +About a century ago, Guettard the naturalist described a curious +specimen from Porto Rico, so similar to these fossil lilies of the +rocks that he believed they must have some relation to each other. He +did not detect its animal nature, but from its long stem and branching +crown he called it a marine palm. Thus far neither the true nature of +the living specimen, nor of the Trochites, nor of the fossil lilies +was understood, but it was nevertheless an important step to have found +that there was a relation between them. A century passed away, and +Guettard's specimen, preserved at the Jardin des Plantes, waited with +Sphinx-like patience for the man who should solve its riddle. + +Cuvier, who held the key to so many of the secrets of Nature, detected +at last its true structure; he pronounced it to be a Star-Fish with a +stem, and at once the three series of facts respecting the Trochites, +the fossil lilies, and Guettard's marine palm assumed their true +relation to each other. The Troehites were recognized as simply the +broken portions of the stem of some of these old fossil Crinoids, and +the Crinoids themselves were seen to be the ancient representatives of +the present Comatulae and Star-Fishes with stems. So is it often with +the study of Nature; many scattered links are collected before the man +comes who sees the connection between them and speaks the word that +reconstructs the broken chain. + +I will begin my comparison of all Echinoderms with an analysis of the +Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, because I think I can best show the +identity of parts between them, notwithstanding the difference in +their external form; the Sea-Urchins having always a spherical body, +while the Star-Fishes are always star-shaped, though in some the star +is only hinted at, sketched out, as it were, in a simply pentagonal +outline, while in others the indentations between the rays are very +deep, and the rays themselves so intricate in their ramifications as to +be broken up into a complete net-work of branches. But under all this +variety of outline, our problem remains always the same: to build with +the same number of pieces a star and a sphere, having the liberty, +however, of cutting the pieces differently and changing their relative +proportions. Let us take first the Sea-Urchin and examine in detail +all parts of its external structure. I shall say nothing of the +internal structure of any of these animals, because it does not affect +the comparison of their different forms and the external arrangement of +parts, which is the subject of the present article. + +On the lower side is the mouth, and we may call that side and all the +parts that radiate from it the oral region. On the upper side is a +small area to which the parts converge, and which, from its position +just opposite the so-called mouth or oral opening, we may call the +_ab-oral region_. I prefer these more general terms, because, if +we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the +higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture +through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very +naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts +of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in +all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called +the mouth, though there is not the least structural relation between +the organs so designated, except within the limits of each different +branch or division. To speak of these opposite regions in the +Sea-Urchin as the upper and lower sides would equally mislead us, +since, as we have seen, there is, properly speaking, no above and +below, no right and left sides, no front and hind extremities in these +animals, all parts being evenly distributed around a vertical axis. I +will, therefore, although it has been my wish to avoid technicalities +as much as possible in these papers, make use of the unfamiliar terms +oral and ab-oral regions, to indicate the mouth with the parts +diverging from it and the opposite area towards which all these parts +converge. [Footnote: When reference is made to the whole structure, +including the internal organs as well as the solid parts of the +surface, the terms _actinal_ and _ab-actinal_ are preferable +to oral and ab-oral.] + +[Illustration: Sea-Urchin seen from the oral side, showing the zones +with the spines and suckers; for the ab-oral side, on the summit of +which the zones unite, see February Number, p. 216.] + +The whole surface of the animal is divided by zones,--ten in number, +five broader ones alternating with five narrower ones. The five broad +zones are composed of large plates on which are the most prominent +spines, attached to tubercles that remain on the surface even when the +spines drop off after death, and mark the places where the spines have +been. The five small zones are perforated with regular rows of holes, +and through these perforations pass the suckers or water-tubes which +are their locomotive appendages. For this reason these narrower zones +are called the _ambulacra_, while the broader zones intervening +between them and supporting the spines are called the +_interambulacra_. Motion, however, is not the only function of +these suckers; they are subservient also to respiration and +circulation, taking in water, which is conveyed through them into +various parts of the body. + +[Illustration: Portion of Sea-Urchin representing one narrow zone with +a part of the broad zones on either side and the ab-oral area on the +summit.] + +The oral aperture is occupied by five plates, which may be called jaws, +remembering always that here again this word signifies the function, +and not the structure usually associated with the presence of jaws in +the higher animals; and each of these jaws or plates terminates in a +tooth. Even the mode of eating in these animals is controlled by their +radiate structure; for these jaws, evenly distributed about the +circular oral aperture, open to receive the prey and then are brought +together to crush it, the points meeting in the centre, thus working +concentrically, instead of moving up and down or from right to left, +as in other animals. From the oral opening the ten zones diverge, +spreading over the whole surface, like the ribs on a melon, and +converging in the opposite direction till they meet in the small space +which we have called the ab-oral region opposite the starting-point. + +Here the broad zones terminate in five large plates differing somewhat +from those that form the zones in other parts of the body, and called +ovarian plates, because the eggs pass out through certain openings in +them; while the five narrow zones terminate in five small plates on +each of which is an eye, making thus five eyes alternating with five +ovarian plates. The centre of this area containing the ovarian plates +and the visual plates is filled up with small movable plates closing +the space between them. I should add that one of the five ovarian +plates is larger than the other four, and has a peculiar structure, +long a puzzle to naturalists. It is perforated with minute holes, +forming an exceedingly delicate sieve, and this is actually the purpose +it serves. It is, as it were, a filter, and opens into a canal which +conducts water through the interior of the body; closed by this sieve +on the outside, all the water that passes into it is purified from all +foreign substances that might be injurious to the animal, and is thus +fitted to pass into the water-system, from which arise the main +branches leading to the minute suckers which project through the holes +in the narrow zones of plates. + +[Illustration: Star-Fish from the ab-oral side.] + +Now in order to transform theoretically our Sea-Urchin into a +Star-Fish, what have we to do? Let the reader imagine for a moment that +the small ab-oral area closing the space between the ovarian plates and +the eye-plates is elastic and may be stretched out indefinitely; then +split the five broad zones along the centre and draw them down to the +same level with the mouth, carrying the ovarian plates between them. +We have then a star, just as, dividing, for instance, the peel of an +orange into five compartments, leaving them, of course, united at the +base, then stripping it off and spreading it out flat, we should have a +five-rayed star. + +[Illustration: One arm of Star-Fish from the oral side.] + +But in thus dividing the broad zones of the Sea-Urchins, we leave the +narrow zones in their original relation to them, except that every +narrow zone, instead of being placed between two broad zones, has now +one-half of each of the zones with which it alternated in the +Sea-Urchin on either side of it and lies between them. The adjoining +wood-cut represents a single ray of a Star-Fish, drawn from what we +call its lower side or the oral side. Along the centre of every such +ray, diverging from the central opening or the mouth, we have a +furrow, corresponding exactly to the narrower zones of the Sea-Urchin. +It is composed of comparatively small perforated plates through which +pass the suckers or locomotive appendages. On either side of the +furrows are other plates corresponding to the plates of the broad zones +in the Sea-Urchin. Where shall we look for the five eyes? Of course, at +the tip of every ray; exactly where they were when the rays were drawn +up to form the summit of a sphere, so that the eyes, which are now at +their extremities, were clustered together at their point of meeting. +Where shall we look for the ovarian plates? At each angle of the five +rays, because, when the broad zones of which they formed the summit +were divided, they followed the split, and now occupy the place which, +though it seems so different on the surface of the Star-Fish, is +nevertheless, relatively to the rest of the body, the same as they +occupied in the Sea-Urchin. Assuming, as we premised, that the central +area of the ab-oral region, forming the space between the plates at the +summit of the zones in the Sea-Urchin, is elastic, it has stretched +with the spreading out of the zones, following the indentation between +the rays, and now forms the whole upper surface of the body. All the +internal organs of the animal lie between the oral and ab-oral +regions, just as they did in the Sea-Urchin, only that in the Star- +Fish these regions are coequal in extent, while in the Sea-Urchin the +ab-oral region is very contracted, and the oral region with the parts +belonging to it occupies the greater part of its surface. + +Such being the identity of parts between a Star-Fish and a Sea-Urchin, +let us see now how the Star-Fish may be transformed into the +Pedunculated Crinoid, the earliest representative of its Class, or +into a Comatula, one of the free animals that represent the Crinoids in +our day. + +[Illustration: Crinoid with branching crown; oral side turned upward.] + +We have seen that in the Sea-Urchins the ab-oral region is very +contracted, the oral region and the parts radiating from it and forming +the sides being the predominant features in the structure; and we +shall find, as we proceed in our comparison, that the different +proportion of these three parts, the oral and ab-oral regions and the +sides, determines the different outlines of the various Orders in this +Class. In the Sea-Urchin the oral region and the sides are predominant, +while the ab-oral region is very small. In the Star-Fish, the oral and +ab-oral regions are brought into equal relations, neither +preponderating over the other, and the sides are compressed, so that, +seen in profile, the outline of the Star-Fish is that of a slightly +convex disk, instead of a sphere, as in the Sea-Urchin. But when we +come to the Crinoids, we find that the great preponderance of the +ab-oral region determines all that peculiarity of form that +distinguishes them from the other Echinoderms, while the oral region is +comparatively insignificant. The ab-oral region in the Crinoid rises +to form a sort of cup-like or calyx-like projection. The plates forming +it, which in the Star-Fish or the Sea-Urchin are movable, are soldered +together so as to be perfectly immovable in the Crinoid. Let this +seeming calyx be now prolonged into a stem, and we see at once how +striking is the resemblance to a flower; turn it downwards, an attitude +which is natural to these Crinoids, and the likeness to a drooping +lily is still more remarkable The oral region, with the radiating +ambulacra, is now limited to the small flat area opposite the juncture +of the stem with the calyx; and whether it stretches out to form long +arms, or is more compact, so as to close the calyx like a cup, it +seems in either case to form a flower-like crown. In these groups of +Echinoderms the interambulacral plates are absent; there are no rows +of plates of a different kind alternating with the ambulacral ones, as +in the Sea-Urchins and the Star-Fishes, but the ab-oral region closes +immediately upon the ambulacra. + +It seems a contradiction to say, that, though these Crinoids were the +only representatives of their Class in the early geological ages, +while it includes five Orders at the present time, Echinoderms were as +numerous and various then as now. But, paradoxical as it may seem, this +is nevertheless true, not only for this Class, but for many others in +the Animal Kingdom. The same numerical proportions, the same richness +and vividness of conception were manifested in the early creation as +now; and though many of the groups were wanting that are most prominent +in modern geological periods, those that existed were expressed in such +endless variety that the Animal Kingdom seems to have been as full +then as it is to-day. The Class of the Echinoderms is one of the most +remarkable instances of this. In the Silurian period, the Crinoids +stood alone; there were neither Ophiurans, Asteroids, Echinoids, nor +Holothurians; and yet in one single locality, Lockport, in the State +of New York, over an area of not more than a few square miles, where +the Silurian deposits have been carefully examined, there have been +found more different Species of Echinoderms than are living now along +our whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. + +There is nothing more striking in these early populations of the earth +than the richness of the types. It would seem as if, before the world +was prepared for the manifold existences that find their home here now, +when organic life was limited by the absence of many of the present +physical conditions, the whole wealth of the Creative Thought lavished +itself upon the forms already introduced upon the globe. After thirty +years' study of the fossil Crinoids, I am every day astonished by some +new evidence of the ingenuity, the invention, the skill, if I may so +speak, shown in varying this single pattern of animal life. When one +has become, by long study of Nature, in some sense intimate with the +animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate +action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties +it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis, +of reminiscence and prophecy, of that which has been in eternal harmony +with that which is to be; and while we stand in reverence before the +grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it +such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and +vividness of color, nay, even the ripple of mirthfulness,--for Nature +has its humorous side also,--that we lose our grasp of its completeness +in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its +marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus +characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from +the exercise of our own mental faculties; but it is nevertheless true, +that, the nearer we come to Nature, the more does it seem to us that +all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty +Mind, and that the eternal archetypes of all manifestations of thought +in man are found in the Creation of which he is the crowning work. + +In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more +striking than in the Crinoids. They seem like the productions of one +who handles his work with an infinite ease and delight, taking pleasure +in presenting the same thought under a thousand different aspects. +Some new cut of the plates, some slight change in their relative +position is constantly varying their outlines, from a close cup to an +open crown, from the long pear-shaped oval of the calyx in some to its +circular or square or pentagonal form in others. An angle that is +simple in one projects by a fold of the surface and becomes a fluted +column in another; a plate that was smooth but now has here a +symmetrical figure upon it drawn in beaded lines; the stem which is +perfectly unbroken in one, except by the transverse divisions common to +them all, in the next puts out feathery plumes at every such transverse +break. In some the plates of the stem are all rigid and firmly soldered +together; in others they are articulated upon each other in such a +manner as to give it the greatest flexibility, and allow the seeming +flower to wave and bend upon its stalk. It would require an endless +number of illustrations to give even a faint idea of the variety of +these fossil Crinoids. There is no change that the fancy can suggest +within the limits of the same structure that does not find expression +among them. Since I have become intimate with their wonderful +complications, I have sometimes amused myself with anticipating some +new variation of the theme, by the introduction of some undescribed +structural complication, and then seeking for it among the specimens +at my command, and I have never failed to find it in one or other of +these ever-changing forms. + +The modern Crinoid without stem, or the Comatula, though agreeing with +the ancient in all the essential elements of structure, differs from it +in some specific features. It drops its stem when full-grown, though +the ab-oral region still remains the predominant part of the body and +retains its cup-like or calyx-like form. The Comatulae are not +abundant, and though represented by a number of Species, yet the type +as it exists at present is meagre in comparison to its richness in +former times. Indeed, this group of Echinoderms, which in the earliest +periods was the exponent of all its kind, has dwindled gradually, in +proportion as other representatives of the Class have come in, and +there exists only one species now, the Pentacrinus of the West Indies, +which retains its stem in its adult condition. It is a singular fact, +to which I have before alluded, and which would seem to have especial +reference to the maintenance of the same numeric proportions in all +times, that, while a Class is represented by few types, those types are +wonderfully rich and varied, but in proportion as other expressions of +the same structure are introduced, the first dwindle, and, if they do +not entirely disappear, become at least much less prominent than +before. + +[Illustration: Ophiuran; showing one ray from the oral side.] + +There remain only two other Orders to be considered, the Ophiurans and +the Holothurians. The Ophiurans approach the Crinoids more nearly than +any other group of Echinoderms, and in our classifications are placed +next above them. In them the ab-oral region, which has such a +remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no +longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like +or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids,--though, +when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite +convex. The disk in the Ophiurans is small in comparison to the length +of the arms, and perfectly circular; it does not merge gradually in the +arms as in the Star-Fish, but the arms start abruptly from its +periphery. In these, as in the Crinoids, the interambulacral plates are +absent, and the interambulacral spaces are filled by an encroachment of +the ab-oral region upon them. There is an infinite variety and beauty +both of form and color in these Sea-Stars. The arms frequently measure +many times the diameter of the whole disk, and are so different in +size and ornamentation in the different Species that at first sight +one might take them for animals entirely distinct from each other. In +some the arms are comparatively short and quite simple,--in others +they are very long, and may be either stretched to their full length or +partly contracted to form a variety of graceful curves; in some they +are fringed all along the edges,--in others they are so ramified that +every arm seems like a little bush, as it were, and, intertwining with +each other, they make a thick network all around the animal. In the +geological succession, these Ophiurans follow the Crinoids, being +introduced at about the Carboniferous period, and perhaps earlier. +They have had their representatives in all succeeding times, and are +still very numerous in the present epoch. + +To show the correspondence of the Holothurians with the typical formula +of the whole class of Echinoderms, I will return to the Sea-Urchins, +since they are more nearly allied with that Order than with any of the +other groups. We have seen that the Sea-Urchins approach most nearly to +the sphere, and that in them the oral region and the sides predominate +so greatly over the ab-oral region that the latter is reduced to a +small area on the summit of the sphere. In order to transform the +Sea-Urchin into a Holothurian, we have only to stretch it out from end +to end till it becomes a cylinder, with the oral region or mouth at +one extremity, and the ab-oral region, which in the Holothurian is +reduced to its minimum, at the other. The zones of the Sea-Urchin now +extend as parallel rows on the Holothurian, running from one end to the +other of the long cylindrical body. On account of their form, some of +them have been taken for Worms, and so classified by naturalists; but +as soon as their true structure was understood, which agrees in every +respect with that of the other Echinoderms, and has no affinity +whatever with the articulated structure of the Worms, they found their +true place in our classifications. + +[Illustration: Holothurian.] + +The natural attitude of these animals is different from that of the +other Echinoderms: they lie on one side, and move with the oral +opening forward, and this has been one cause of the mistakes as to +their true nature. But when we would compare animals, we should place +them, not in the attitude which is natural to them in their native +element, but in what I would call their normal position,--that is, such +a position as brings the corresponding parts in all into the same +relation. For instance, the natural attitude of the Crinoid is with +the ab-oral region downward, attached to a stem, and the oral region or +mouth upward; the Ophiuran turns its oral region, along which all the +suckers or ambulacra are arranged, toward the surface along which it +moves; the Star-Fish does the same; the Sea-Urchin also has its oral +opening downward; but the Holothurian moves on one side, mouth +foremost, as represented in the adjoining wood-cut, dragging itself +onward, like all the rest, by means of its rows of suckers. If, now, we +compare these animals in the various attitudes natural to them, we may +fail to recognize the identity of parts, or, at least, it will not +strike us at once. But if we place them all--Holothurian, Sea-Urchin, +Star-Fish, Ophiuran, and Crinoid--with the oral or mouth side +downward, for instance, we shall see immediately that the small area at +the opposite end of the Holothurian corresponds to the area on the top +of the Sea-Urchin; that the upper side of the Star-Fish is the same +region enlarged; that, in the Ophiuran, that region makes one side of +the small circular disk; while in the Crinoid it is enlarged and +extended to make the calyx-like projection and stem. In the same way, +if we place them in the same attitude, we shall see that the long, +straight rows of suckers along the length of the Holothurian, and the +arching zones of suckers on the spherical body of the Sea-Urchin, and +the furrows with the suckers protruding from them along the arms of +the Star-Fish and Ophiuran, and the radiating series of pores from the +oral opening in the Crinoid are one and the same thing in all, only +altered somewhat in their relative proportion and extent. Around the +oral opening of the Holothurian there are appendages capable of the +most extraordinary changes, which seem at first to be peculiar to these +animals, and to have no affinity with any corresponding feature in the +same Class. But a closer investigation has shown them to be only +modifications of the locomotive suckers of the Star-Fish and +Sea-Urchin, but ramifying to such an extent as to assume the form of +branching feelers. The little tufts projecting from the oral side in +the Sea-Urchins, described as gills, are another form of the same kind +of appendage. + +The Holothurians have not the hard, brittle surface of the other +Echinoderms; on the contrary, their envelope is tough and leathery, +capable of great contraction and dilatation. No idea can be formed of +the beauty of these animals either from dried specimens or from those +preserved in alcohol. Of course, in either case, they lose their color, +become shrunken, and the movable appendages about the mouth shrivel up. +One who had seen the Holothurian only as preserved in museums would be +amazed at the spectacle of the living animal, especially if his first +introduction should be to one of the deep, rich crimson-colored +species, such as are found in quantities in the Bay of Fundy. I have +seen such an animal, when first thrown into a tank of sea-water, remain +for a while closely contracted, looking like a soft crimson ball. +Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as it becomes accustomed to its new +position, it begins to elongate; the fringes creep softly out, +spreading gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal +seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate +tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals +are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on +the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring +than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion +surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The +habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily growing constantly +more popular, and before long the beauty of these inhabitants of the +ocean will be as familiar to us as that of Birds and Insects. Many of +the most beautiful among them are, however, difficult to obtain, and +not easily kept alive in confinement, so that they are not often seen +in aquariums. + +Having thus endeavored to sketch each different kind of Echinoderm, let +us try to forget them all in their individuality, and think only of the +structural formula that applies equally to each. In all, the body has +three distinct regions, the oral, the ab-oral, and the sides; but by +giving a predominance to one or other of these regions, a variety of +outlines characteristic of the different groups is produced. In all, +the parts radiate from the oral opening, and join in the ab-oral +region. In all, this radiation is accompanied by rows of suckers +following the line of the diverging rays. It is always the same +structure, but, endowed with the freedom of life, it is never +monotonous, notwithstanding its absolute permanence. In short, drop +off the stem of the Crinoid, and depress its calyx to form a flat disk, +and we have an Ophiuran; expand that disk, and let it merge gradually +in the arms, and we have a Star-Fish; draw up the rays of the +Star-Fish, and unite them at the tips so as to form a spherical +outline, and we have a Sea-Urchin; stretch out the Sea-Urchin to form +a cylinder, and we have a Holothurian. + +And now let me ask,--Is it my ingenuity that has imposed upon these +structures the conclusion I have drawn from them?--have I so combined +them in my thought that they have become to me a plastic form, out of +which I draw a Crinoid, an Ophiuran, a Star-Fish, a Sea-Urchin, or a +Holothurian at will? or is this structural idea inherent in them all, +so that every observer who has a true insight into their organization +must find it written there? Had our scientific results anything to do +with our invention, every naturalist's conclusions would be colored +by his individual opinions; but when we find all naturalists +converging more and more towards each other, arriving, as their +knowledge increases, at exactly the same views, then we must believe +that these structures are the Creative Ideas in living reality. In +other words, so far as there is truth in them, our systems are what +they are, not because Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, or all the men who +ever studied Nature, have so thought and so expressed their thought, +but because God so thought and so expressed His thought in material +forms when He laid the plan of Creation, and when man himself existed +only in the intellectual conception of his Maker. + + + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +II. + +THE WEDDING. + +In her satin gown so fine +Trips the bride within the shrine. +Waits the street to see her pass, +Like a vision in a glass. +Roses crown her peerless head: +Keep your lilies for the dead! + +Something of the light without +Enters with her, veiled about; +Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, +Please themselves with silken wear; +Shadows point to what shall be +In the dim futurity. + +Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke +Might of mortal never broke! +From the altar of her vows +To the grave's unsightly house +Measured is the path, and made; +All the work is planned and paid. + +As a girl, with ready smile, +Where shall rise some ponderous pile, +On the chosen, festal day, +Turns the initial sod away, +So the bride with fingers frail +Founds a temple or a jail,-- + +Or a palace, it may be, +Flooded full with luxury, +Open yet to deadliest things, +And the Midnight Angel's wings. +Keep its chambers purged with prayer: +Faith can guard it, Love is rare. + +Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! +Priest, recite the sacred runes! +Hast no ghostly help nor art +Can enrich a selfish heart, +Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, +Joy with bloom for bargain sold? + +Hail, the wedded task of life! +Mending husband, moulding wife. +Hope brings labor, labor peace; +Wisdom ripens, goods increase; +Triumph crowns the sainted head, +And our lilies wait the dead. + + * * * * * + + +FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER. + + +I. + +The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor +reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow +his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of +satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the +Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches +of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, +fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone +fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days, +but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a +New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the +scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted +how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up +and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and +Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the +hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the +spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers +of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible +lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and +waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson. + +Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world,--that is, so +much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his own +sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on its +borders, he neither knew, nor cared to know, much more of the human +race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun. In the +discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on +the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling +brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County, invariably +blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was one of the best +on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest +of a few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on real +estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him in the consideration +she enjoyed within the limits of the sect; and his two children, Moses +and Asenath, vindicated the paternal training by the strictest sobriety +of dress and conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways led +him among "the world's people"; and Asenath had never been known to +wear, or to express a desire for, a ribbon of a brighter tint than +brown or fawn-color. Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his +sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and +looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation +into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild +voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions. + +He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy +square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the +Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and +grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made +him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among +men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of +swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained, +and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his +home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited +quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines, +gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set +forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the +hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level +of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from +trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge +of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were +grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted +squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane. + +The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a green little hollow +just below it, the walled garden, with its clumps of box and lilac, and +the vast barn on the left, all joined in expressing a silent welcome to +their owner, as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five, left +his work in the garden, and walked forward in his shirt-sleeves. + +"Well, father, how does thee do?" was his quiet greeting, as they shook +hands. + +"How's mother, by this time?" asked Eli. + +"Oh, thee needn't have been concerned," said the son. "There she is. Go +in: I'll 'tend to the horse." + +Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a woman +of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth, placid beauty +of countenance which had survived her youth. She was dressed in a +simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so +scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with her for six +months without ever discovering a spot on the former or an uneven fold +in the latter. Asenath, who followed, was almost as plainly attired, +her dress being a dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard +sun-bonnet, with broad cape, covered her head. + +"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to his +wife. + +"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome. + +No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had +witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life,--after +the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with a peculiar +sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a +season of tribulation, and therefore was too earnest to be profaned to +the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal embrace, +she would have felt, had it been given, like the doomed daughter of the +Gileadite, consecrated to sacrifice. + +Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings of the +Meeting, and to receive personal news of the many friends whom Eli had +seen; but they asked few questions until the supper table was ready and +Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it +must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until +the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee +the inspiration came. Hovering, at first, over indifferent details, he +gradually approached those of more importance,--told of the addresses +which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony +borne, and the appearance and genealogy of any new Friends who had +taken a prominent part therein. Finally, at the close of his relation, +he said,-- + +"Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about. Friend +Speakman's partner--perhaps thee's heard of him, Richard Hilton--has a +son who is weakly. He's two or three years younger than Moses. His +mother was consumptive, and they're afraid he takes after her. His +father wants to send him into the country for the summer,--to some +place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate exercise, and +Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought I'd mention it to thee, and if +thee thinks well of it, we can send word down next week, when Josiah +Comly goes." + +"What does _thee_ think?" asked his wife, after a pause. + +"He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman says, and would +be very little trouble to thee. I thought perhaps his board would buy +the new yoke of oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat +ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to decide." + +"I suppose we could take him," said Abigail, seeing that the decision +was virtually made already; "there's the corner-room, which we don't +often use. Only, if he should get worse on our hands"-- + +"Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He's only weak-breasted, as +yet, and clerking isn't good for him. I saw the young man at the store. +If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly." + +So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an inmate +of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer. + + +II. + +At the end of ten days he came. + +In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of +three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. +Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered +him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an +invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin +crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's case, it +was already broken before his arrival. His only embarrassment, in +fact, arose from the difficulty which he naturally experienced in +adapting himself to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The +greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar +and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally +of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like a +new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position among +them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or +at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was not easy for him to assume, +at such short notice, those of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath +as "Miss Mitchenor," Eli turned to him with a rebuking face. + +"We do not use compliments, Richard," said he; "my daughter's name is +Asenath." + +"I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your ways, since you +have been so kind as to take me for a while," apologized Richard +Hilton. + +"Thee's under no obligation to us," said Friend Mitchenor, in his +strict sense of justice; "thee pays for what thee gets." + +The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose. + +"We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard," she remarked, +with a kind expression of face, which had the effect of a smile; "but +our ways are plain and easily learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're +no respecters of persons." + +It was some days, however, before the young man could overcome his +natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of +speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but +it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such +sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either +extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt Mitchenor." +On the other hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won the +confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally busied +himself in the garden, by way of exercise, or accompanied Moses to the +cornfield or the woodland on the hill, but was careful never to +interfere at inopportune times, and willing to learn silently, by the +simple process of looking on. + +One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated +the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of +chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow workbasket on +her arm, issued from the house. As she approached him, she paused and +said,-- + +"The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard. If thee's strong +enough to walk to the village and back, it might do thee more good than +sitting still." + +Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall. + +"Certainly I am able to go," said he, "if you will allow it." + +"Haven't I asked thee?" was her quiet reply. + +"Let me carry your basket," he said, suddenly, after they had walked, +side by side, some distance down the lane. + +"Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and +some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee +mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,--I'm told,--if +they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, +thee mustn't over-exert thy strength." + +Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered +the last sentence. + +"Why, Miss--Asenath, I mean--what am I good for, if I have not strength +enough to carry a basket?" + +"Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be +thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's +only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely +nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of." + +While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in order, +unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his steps. + +"Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom!" she exclaimed, +pointing to a shady spot beside the brook; "does thee know them?" + +Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a handful of the +nodding yellow bells, trembling above their large, cool, spotted +leaves. + +"How beautiful they are!" said he; "but I should never have taken them +for violets." + +"They are misnamed," she answered. "The flower is an +_Erythronium_; but I am accustomed to the common name, and like +it. Did thee ever study botany?" + +"Not at all--I can tell a geranium, when I see it, and I know a +heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a +rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable +distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew +something about them." + +"If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to learn. I think a +study of this kind would pleasantly occupy thy mind. Why couldn't thee +try? I would be very willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not +much, indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show thee how +simple the principles are." + +Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath, as they slowly +walked forward, proceeded to dissect it, explained the mysteries of +stamens and pistils, pollen, petals, and calyx, and, by the time they +had reached the village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of +the Linnaean system of classification. His mind took hold of the +subject with a prompt and profound interest. It was a new and wonderful +world which suddenly opened before him. How surprised he was to learn +that there were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected from +a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed, that the gray +lichens on the rocks belonged to the vegetable kingdom! His respect for +Asenath's knowledge thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her +youth and sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal, friend; and +the simple, candid manner which was the natural expression of her +dignity and purity thoroughly harmonized with this relation. + +Although, in reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a +gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of +mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before +observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well +imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted +dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual +griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had +developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded +below the reach of tides and storms. + +She would have been very much surprised, if any one had called her +handsome; yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive beauty, which seemed to +grow and deepen from day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek +standard, it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine and +straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled, and the lips +calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown hair, parted over a high +white forehead, was smoothly laid across the temples, drawn behind the +ears, and twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sunbonnet +gave her face a nun-like character, which set her apart, in the +thoughts of "the world's people" whom she met, as one sanctified for +some holy work. She might have gone around the world, repelling every +rude word, every bold glance, by the protecting atmosphere of purity +and truth which inclosed her. + +The days went by, each bringing some new blossom to adorn and +illustrate the joint studies of the young man and maiden. For Richard +Hilton had soon mastered the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla +Wakefield,--the only source of Asenath's knowledge,--and entered, with +her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he procured from +Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken her in his knowledge of the +technicalities of the science, her practical acquaintance with plants +and their habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring the +meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought home his discoveries +to enjoy her aid in classifying and assigning them to their true +places. Asenath had generally an hour or two of leisure from domestic +duties in the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was over; +and sometimes, on "Seventh-days," she would be his guide to some +locality where the rarer plants were known to exist. The parents saw +this community of interest and exploration without a thought of +misgiving. They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any +possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed by the +absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued his study. An +earnest discussion as to whether a certain leaf was ovate or +lanceolate, whether a certain plant belonged to the species +_scandens_ or _canadensis_, was, in their eyes, convincing +proof that the young brains were touched, and therefore _not_ the +young hearts. + +But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical +emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study +requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of +communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that +his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams, +even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the +possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from the +genial season, the pure country air, and the release from gloomy +thoughts which his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a +future--though brief, perhaps, still a _future_--began to glimmer +before him. If this could be his life,--an endless summer, with a +search for new plants every morning, and their classification every +evening, with Asenath's help, on the shady portico of Friend +Mitchenor's house,--he could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of +life unthinkingly. + +The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis and trillium +followed, then the yellow gerardias and the feathery purple pogonias, +and finally the growing gleam of the golden-rods along the wood-side +and the red umbels of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced the +close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection, +brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed,-- + +"Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year." + +"What sign?" he asked. + +"That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then +nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and +golden-rods." + +Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life +would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets, +its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. How could +he give up the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed through +the summer? The question suddenly took a more definite form in his +mind: How could he give up Asenath? Yes,--the quiet, unsuspecting girl, +sitting beside him, with her lap full of the September blooms he had +gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life. Pure and beautiful +as she was, almost sacred in his regard, his heart dared to say.--"I +need her and claim her!" + +"Thee looks pale to-night, Richard," said Abigail, as they took their +seats at the supper-table. "I hope thee has not taken cold." + + +III. + +"Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the rudbeckias grow," said +Asenath, on the following "Seventh-day" afternoon. + +They crossed the meadows, and followed the course of the stream, under +its canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the +hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall +autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like +young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia, +tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike +of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive +sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves +dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer streaming from its bushy +fringe, gurgled over the pebbles in its bed. Here and there, on its +banks, shone the deep yellow stars of the flower they sought. + +Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically plucking a stem of +rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently, into the water. + +"Why, Richard! what's thee doing?" cried Asenath; "thee has thrown away +the very best specimen." + +"Let it go," he answered, sadly. "I am afraid everything else is thrown +away." + +"What does thee mean?" she asked, with a look of surprised and anxious +inquiry. + +"Don't ask me, Asenath. Or--yes, I _will_ tell you. I must say it +to you now, or never afterwards. Do you know what a happy life I've +been leading since I came here?--that I've learned what life is, as if +I'd never known it before? I want to live, Asenath,--and do you know +why?" + +"I hope thee will live, Richard," she said, gently and tenderly, her +deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed tears. + +"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't understand +that, because you do not know what you are to me. No, you never guessed +that all this while I've been loving you more and more, until now I +have no other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you, not +to share your life!" + +"Oh, Richard!" + +"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this to +myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb the +peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take it back, +if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for loving +you,--forgive me now and every day of my life." + +He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on the +edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight frame +trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had become very +pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and brow as +she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered flowers fell from her +hands, and she hid her face. For a few minutes no sound was heard but +the liquid gurgling of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the +thicket beside them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice of +hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name,-- + +"Asenath!" + +She took away her hands and slowly lifted her face. She was pale, but +her eyes met his with a frank, appealing, tender expression, which +caused his heart to stand still a moment. He read no reproach, no +faintest thought of blame; but--was it pity?--was it pardon?--or-- + +"We stand before God, Richard," said she, in a low, sweet, solemn tone. +"He knows that I do not need to forgive thee. If thee requires it, I +also require His forgiveness for myself." + +Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow, she met his gaze with +the bravery of a pure and innocent heart. Richard, stunned with the +sudden and unexpected bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of +it into a being which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first +impulse was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his arms, and +hold her in the embrace which encircled, for him, the boundless promise +of life; but she stood there, defenceless, save in her holy truth and +trust, and his heart bowed down and gave her reverence. + +"Asenath," said he, at last, "I never dared to hope for this. God bless +you for those words! Can you trust me?--can you indeed love me?" + +"I can trust thee,--I do love thee!" + +They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging pressure. No kiss +was given, but side by side they walked slowly up the dewy meadows, in +happy and hallowed silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old +farm-house appeared through the trees. + +"Father and mother must know of this, Richard," said she. "I am afraid +it may be a cross to them." + +The same fear had already visited his own mind, but he answered, +cheerfully,-- + +"I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of life, and shall soon +be strong enough to satisfy them. Besides, my father is in prosperous +business." + +"It is not that," she answered; "but thee is not one of us." + +It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim +candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence +was attributed to fatigue. + +The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring +Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various +special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting +parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers +which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was +taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him. + +"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with +thee." + +"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a +seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand. + +"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to +approach so important a crisis in his life, + +"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live +with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man." + +"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does +thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say +against thee." + +"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and +she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my +hands?" + +"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker, +with a face too amazed to express any other feeling. + +"Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care? I love her with my +whole heart and soul, and the fortune of my life depends on your +answer." + +The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow deeper and more +rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill glitter of steel. Richard, not +daring to say a word more, awaited his reply in intense agitation. + +"So!" he exclaimed at last, "this is the way thee's repaid me! I didn't +expect _this_ from thee! Has thee spoken to her?" + +"I have." + +"Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded her to think as +thee does. Thee'd better never have come here. When I want to lose my +daughter, and can't find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know." + +"What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?" Richard sadly asked, +forgetting, in his excitement, the Quaker speech he had learned. + +"Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall be a Friend while +_I_ live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings and vanities are not +for her. Thee belongs to the world, and thee may choose one of the +world's women." + +"Never!" protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor was already ascending +the garden-steps on his way to the house. + +The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to the nearest grove and +threw himself on the ground. Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion, +unable to grasp any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards +evening, he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It was Moses. + +The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents, and expected +to "pass meeting" in a few weeks. He knew what had happened, and felt a +sincere sympathy for Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His +face was very grave, but kind. + +"Thee'd better come in, Richard," said he; "the evenings are damp, and +I've brought thy overcoat I know everything, and I feel that it must be +a great cross for thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it." + +"Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?" he asked, in +a tone of despondency which anticipated the answer. + +"Father's very hard to move," said Moses; "and when mother and Asenath +can't prevail on him, nobody else need try. I'm afraid thee must make +up thy mind to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think +thee'd better go back to town." + +"I'll go to-morrow,--go and die!" he muttered hoarsely, as he followed +Moses to the house. + +Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed his +hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an Iceland +rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and +his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the +morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went +up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the +farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him. + +"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as +he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the +village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word +of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved +face, he was taken away. + + +IV. + +True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor, +the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind. +It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard +Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the +few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely +dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it +back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when +he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it +there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its +folded leaves. If that day came not, she would at the last give it back +to God, saying, "Father, here is Thy most precious gift: bestow it as +Thou wilt." + +As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it +was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not +heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in +dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles with +herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's +departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to +the summer's companionship with him. She performed her household +duties, if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as +before; and her father congratulated himself that the unfortunate +attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however, +was not deceived by this external resignation. She noted the faint +shadows under the eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the +unconscious traces of pain which sometimes played about the dimpled +corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter with a silent, tender +solicitude. + +The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she +stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her +position with such sweet composure that many of the older female +Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli +Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young +Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed +with worldly goods--followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he +thought, "before she is consoled." + +Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment of +Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's +conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented +as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last +assumed such a definite form that Friend Mitchenor brought them to the +notice of his family. + +"I met Josiah Comly in the road," said he, one day at dinner. "He's +just come from Philadelphia, and brings bad news of Richard Hilton. +He's taken to drink, and is spending in wickedness the money his father +left him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it seems he's +not to be reclaimed." + +Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he either disregarded or +failed to understand her look. Asenath, who had grown very pale, +steadily met her father's gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never +yet heard from her lips,-- + +"Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's name when I am +by?" + +The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was that of authority. +The old man was silenced by a new and unexpected power in his +daughter's heart: he suddenly felt that she was not a girl, as +heretofore, but a woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer +compel. + +"It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath," he said; "we had best forget +him." + +Of their friends, however, she could not expect this reserve, and she +was doomed to hear stories of Richard which clouded and embittered her +thoughts of him. And a still severer trial was in store. She +accompanied her father, in obedience to his wish, and against her own +desire, to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has passed into a +proverb, that the Friends, on these occasions, always bring rain with +them; and the period of her visit was no exception to the rule. The +showery days of "Yearly-Meeting Week" glided by, until the last, and +she looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to Bucks County, +glad to have escaped a meeting with Richard Hilton, which might have +confirmed her fears, and could but have given her pain in any case. + +As she and her father joined each other, outside the meeting-house, at +the close of the afternoon meeting, a light rain was falling. She took +his arm, under the capacious umbrella, and they were soon alone in the +wet streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained +them. At a crossing, where the water, pouring down the gutter towards +the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood, +staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered +clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair +hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a +song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend +Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by +the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly, +face to face with them. + +"Asenath!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish pierced through the +confusion of his senses, and struck down into the sober quick of his +soul. + +"Richard!" she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low, terrified voice. + +It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her, or rather--as she +afterwards thought, in recalling the interview--the body of Richard +Hilton, possessed by an evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than +hectic red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the +recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient, reckless devil +seemed to lurk under the set mask of his features. + +"Here I am, Asenath," he said at length, hoarsely. "I said it was +death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than death, I suppose; but what +matter? You can't be more lost to me now than you were already. This is +_thy_ doing, Friend Eli!" he continued, turning to the old man, +with a sneering emphasis on the "_thy_." "I hope thee's satisfied +with thy work!" + +Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it chilled Asenath's +blood to hear. + +The old man turned pale. "Come away, child!" said he, tugging at her +arm. But she stood firm, strengthened for the moment by a solemn +feeling of duty which trampled down her pain. + +"Richard," she said, with the music of an immeasurable sorrow in her +voice, "oh, Richard, what has thee done? Where the Lord commands +resignation, thee has been rebellious; where He chasteneth to purify, +thee turns blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard; I +thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would have helped and +uplifted thee,--not through me, as an unworthy object, but through the +hopes and the pure desires of thy own heart. I expected that thee would +so act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my affection +a reproach,--oh, Richard, not to cast over my heart the shadow of thy +sin!" + +The wretched young man supported himself against the post of an awning, +buried his face in his hands, and wept passionately. Once or twice he +essayed to speak, but his voice was choked by sobs, and, alter a look +from the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to meet, he +again covered his face. A stranger, coming down the street, paused out +of curiosity. "Come, come!" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from +the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on. + +Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief. +She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free. + +"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us +give me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee +then, but it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and +pity I feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other +feelings. I would still do anything for thee except that which thee +cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the +gulf between us so wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep +for thee and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still +precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!" + +He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears +and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up +and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father +and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was +spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question +had visited Asenath's tongue. + +She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which +give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and +transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never +blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers, +under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant +music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost, +reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face +with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened +the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence +of God. + + +V. + +Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the +Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his +marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years +Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an +unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally +determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to +manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, +and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show +of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her more +keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a +neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which +lie parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had +preceded it. + +It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with +new faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a +quiet satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which +might be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all +the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo +of the sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar +wild-flowers which _the first_ Richard Hilton had gathered. This +was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his +fall. Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those pure +and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious of their true +charm. She did not dare to express to herself, in words, that one +everlasting joy of woman's heart, through all trials and sorrows,--"I +have loved, I have been beloved." + +On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the +meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring, +and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were +dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow +dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn +leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless +violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the +miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept +in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the +remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent +sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around +her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured +forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of +the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck +it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the +spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft +radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, +evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered, +taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love. + +During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but +had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a man +whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli +Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's +gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her +protestations were of no avail. + +"Father," she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and +still remembered, "thee can take away, but thee cannot give." + +He never mentioned the subject again. + +Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting +with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career +of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as +hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After +that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading +a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed,--almost hoped; +for in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and +peace which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of +him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion, +than to know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and +blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was +simply a prolongation of the present,--an alternation of seed-time and +harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should +bid her lay down her load and follow Him. + +Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in +a community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the +large old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He +at once took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of +whom he knew already, from having met them, year after year, in +Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient +occupation; the money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough +to support him comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment +seemed now to have come to the old man. He was done with the earnest +business of life. Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and +Friend; and Asenath would be reasonably provided for at his death. As +his bodily energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind +became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a +cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer who was one of "the +world's people." Thus, at seventy-five, he was really younger, because +tenderer of heart and more considerate, than he had been at sixty. + +Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to +approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had +become thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form +around her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the +scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless +she be very old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, gave that her +perfect goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence; +but, when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so +clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends +that she possessed "a gift," which might, in time, raise her to honor +among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word +from "Aunt 'Senath" oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the +parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness; +and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little +farther into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every +morning's sun, for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission +brightened into a cheerful content with life. + +It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been +rumors of the expected presence of "Friends from a distance," and not +only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not +connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road through the woods, it +was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the +meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in +his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the +forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the branches +of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of +hickory-leaves, sweet-fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here +and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and +sunshine, grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers +to a lonely heart. That serene content which she had learned to call +happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the +waters took back their transparency under a cloudless sky. + +Passing around to the "women's side" of the meeting-house, she mingled +with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the +expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth +Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be +there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and +Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend +Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him +once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about +him, because they thought he was too much inclined to "the newness," +but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend +Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old +man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks. + +At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued +rustling which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of +silence, shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons +would feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first, +and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of +exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her +admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her +eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her +body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the +commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious +scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an +aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel. + +The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty +years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair +gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child +of "the stillness and the quietness." His voice, though not loud, was +clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which +arrested, not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor. +His delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the +Quaker preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his +words, through the contrast with those who preceded him. + +His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as +the highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine. The +paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which +appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his +fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner; +we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot +pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in +others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but +kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love +may not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet +created hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said, +is but a general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they +manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives,--in the exercise +of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian love. + +The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers. +There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to +speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath +Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and +her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and +truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her +alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain +them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and +walked to his side. + +Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. "I feel moved to-day," +he said,--"moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to +relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come +directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution, +whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the +house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and +exercise." + +Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed +and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them +from trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she +heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a +stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that +meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present! +Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's +passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his +living face before her! She gasped for breath,--his face _was_ +before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her +memory recalled, had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen +years had made, and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap +of the heart, she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have +fallen from her seat but for the support of the partition against which +she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with +the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with +their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths. + +The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to +the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to +sit still and listen further. + +"Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path," he +continued, "the young man left his home and went to a city in another +State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender +hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the +hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends, +Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds +destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and +forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it +was the principle of _life_ which grew stronger within him, the +young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of +self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the +wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed +only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy +evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the +approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his +arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a +face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him. +'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy +mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young man shook +his head. 'I will be silent, then, but I will save thee. I know the +human heart, and its trials and weaknesses, and it may be put into my +mouth to give thee strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he +had been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard the sad +story, from beginning to end; and the young man wept upon his breast, +to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest and tenderest pity +bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and the +Friend's right hand was upon his head while they prayed. + +"The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still +further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he +had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to +life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease. +The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear. He +bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was +mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness +of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends. + +"I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story," Friend Carter +concluded, "from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time, +to influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among +you, my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning? Oh, +believe that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into +the hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of +wrath in the hands of the Lord!" + +He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the +eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and +thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace +and joy descended upon her heart. + +When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized +Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he +endeavored in rain to control, approached the preacher. + +"The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips," said he; "will thee +come to one side, and hear me a minute?" + +"Eli Mitchenor!" exclaimed Friend Carter; "Eli! I knew not thee was +here! Doesn't thee know me?" + +The old man stared in astonishment. "It seems like a face I ought to +know," he said, "but I can't place thee." + +They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned +again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in his own, +exclaimed,-- + +"Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I +am--or, rather, I was--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew." + +Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy, +and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened. + +"But thee calls thyself Carter?" he finally said. + +"Soon after I was saved," was the reply, "an aunt on the mother's side +died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her +name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like +losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now." + +"Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!" said the +old man. "Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a +concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee +walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?" + +"Asenath?" + +"Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her. +I'm coming, Moses!"--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which +was approaching. + +Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard +Hilton there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not +betrayed his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did +not wish it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might +surprise him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough +for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was +redeemed,--that a holier light than the autumn sun's now rested, and +would forever rest, on the one landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone +with the pure brightness of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek +and smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step was light +and elastic as in the old time. + +Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its +string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The +breeze had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm +light of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed +penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace. + +But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep +followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called her by name. + +She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face. + +"I knew thee, Richard!" at last she said, in a trembling voice; "may +the Lord bless thee!" + +Tears were in the eyes of both. + +"He has blessed me," Richard answered, in a reverent tone; "and this +is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives +me." + +"I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard,--forgiven, but not +forgotten." + +The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by +side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the +crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their +stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low +and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and +listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky. + +At last Richard stopped. + +"Asenath," said he, "does thee remember that spot on the banks of the +creek, where the rudbeckias grew?" + +"I remember it," she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face. + +"If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be +thy answer?" + +Her words came brokenly. + +"I would say to thee, Richard,--I can trust thee,--I _do_ love +thee!'" + +"Look at me, Asenath." + +Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first +confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his +shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it +again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man. + + + + +TAXATION NO BURDEN. + + +According to returns made by the Census Bureau to the Secretary of the +Treasury, the gross value of the productions of the United States for +1860 was $3,900,000,000: namely,--the product of Manufactures, the +Mechanic Arts, Mining, and the Fisheries, $1,900,000,000; the product +of Agriculture, $2,000,000,000. + +It is a well-understood principle of political economy, that the +annual product of a country is the source from which internal taxes +are to be derived. + +The nation is to be considered a partnership, the several members +engaged in the various departments of business, and producing annually +products of the value of $3,900,000,000, which are distributed among +the partners, affording to each a certain share of profit. The firm is +out of debt, but a sudden emergency compels an investment, in a new +and not immediately profitable branch of business, of $1,500,000,000, +which sum the firm borrows. As the consequence of this liability, the +firm must afterward incur an annual additional expense as follows: +$100,000,000 for the payment of members not engaged in productive +labor, $90,000,000 for interest upon the debt incurred, and $60,000,000 +for a sinking-fund which shall pay the debt in less than twenty years. + +It is absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the business of +the firm, that this immense investment, so unexpectedly called for, +shall be made to pay. How shall this problem be solved? + +Large sums are confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of +the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an +active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the +annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion of his farm is +very badly cultivated; no intelligent laborers can be induced to remain +upon it, owing to certain causes, easily removable, but which, being +an easy-going man, well satisfied with his income as it has been, +Uncle Sam has been unwilling to take hold of with any determination. + +Suddenly and without notice, he is compelled to borrow $15,000, and +spend it upon this portion of his farm; and he then finds, while +expending the money for another object and not a profitable one, he can +remove the only obstacle which prevented his obtaining a full supply +of the best and most intelligent labor, and that he can very soon +increase his annual product to $42,500. The increase of $2,500 each +year will enable him to pay his additional clerks, to meet the interest +on his liabilities, and to accumulate a sinking-fund sufficient to pay +his debts before his children come of age. He will be able to take some +comfort and satisfaction in his agricultural laborers; he will have a +larger amount of cotton to spin and to sell than ever before, and so +much wool, that, instead of being obliged to buy one-third the amount +required by his factory, as he has heretofore done, he will have more +than he can spin; and lastly, he will be able to raise fruit, to make +wine, to produce indigo, cochineal, and a great variety of articles +never produced on his farm before. + +What sound business-man would not thus regulate his investment, when +compelled to make it, even though he had been unwilling to borrow the +money for the simple purpose of making such an improvement? + +If a farm and factory, which badly managed produce $40,000 annually, +can by good management be made to produce $42,500, and can be very +much increased in value and ease of management by the process, the +owner had better borrow $15,000 to accomplish the object, and the tax +upon him of $2,500 required to meet the interest and sink the principal +will be no burden. That is the whole problem,--no more, no less. + +We have been driven into a war to maintain the boundaries of our farm; +in so doing we shall probably spend $1,500,000,000. It behooves us not +only to meet the expenditure promptly, but to make the investment pay. + +We have but to increase the annual product of the country six and +one-half per cent, and we shall meet the tax for expenses, interest, +and sinking-fund, and be as well off as we now are, provided the tax be +equitably assessed. + +This increase can be made without any increase in the number of +laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by +the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large +portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have +heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive +soil of the North. + +Slavery is the one obstacle to be removed in order to render this war a +paying operation. + +Under the false pretence that the climate of the South is too hot for +white men to labor in the fields, the degradation involved in +field-labor in a Slave State excludes intelligent cultivators from the +cotton-fields, a very large portion of which have a climate less hot +and less unsuitable for white men than that of Philadelphia, while +there is not a river-bottom in the whole South in which the extremes of +heat during the summer are so great as in St. Louis. Slave-labor +cultivates, in a miserable, shiftless manner, less than two per cent, +of the area of the Cotton States; and upon this insignificant portion a +crop of cotton has been raised in one year worth over $200,000,000. + +There is ample and conclusive evidence to be found in the statistics of +the few well-managed and well-cultivated cotton-plantations, that +skilful, educated farmers can get more than double the product to the +hand or to the acre that is usually obtained as the result of +slave-labor. + +Again, it will be admitted that $350 per annum is more than an average +return for the work of a common laborer on an average New England farm, +including his own support. + +It is capable of demonstration from, actual facts that an average +laborer, well directed, can produce a gross value of $1,000 per annum, +upon the uplands of Georgia and South Carolina, in the cultivation of +cotton and grain. Negro slaves under a negro driver, with no white man +on the premises, have produced this result in Hancock County, Georgia, +upon lands previously considered worthless, with a system of +cultivation singular and exceptional in that region, but common in all +well-cultivated sections, namely, a simple rotation of crops and a +moderate amount of manure. + +Elevate the negro from a state of slavery to the dignity of a free +laborer, and his consumption of manufactured goods increases +enormously. In proof of this may be cited the trade with Hayti, and the +immense increase in the import of manufactured goods into the British +West Indies since emancipation. Slaves are furnished with two suits of +clothes in a year, made from the coarsest and cheapest materials: it is +safe to estimate, that, if the fair proportion of their earnings were +paid them, their demand upon the North for staple articles would be +doubled, while the importations of silks, velvets, and other foreign +luxuries, upon which their earnings have been heretofore lavished by +their masters, would decrease. + +The commonly received view of the position of the cotton-planter is +that he is in a chronic state of debt. Such is the fact; not, however, +because he does not make a large amount of profit,--for cotton-planting +is the most profitable branch of agriculture in the United States,--but +because his standard of value is a negro, and not a dollar, and, in the +words of a Southern writer, "He is constantly buying more land to make +more cotton to buy more negroes to cultivate more land to raise more +cotton to buy more negroes," and for every negro he buys he gets +trusted for another. Both himself and his hands are of the least +possible value to the community. By maintaining his system he excludes +cheap labor from the cultivation of cotton,--slave-labor being the +most wasteful and the most expensive of any. He purchases for his +laborers the least possible amount of manufactured articles, and he +wastes his own expenditure in the purchase of foreign luxuries. + +Reference has been made to the increase to be expected in the product +of wool, after the removal or destruction of Slavery. + +We import annually 30,000,000 pounds of wool, and make little or no use +of the best region for growing wool in the whole country,--the western +slope of the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains and of the Blue Ridge. +Free laborers will not go there, although few slaves are there to be +found; for they well know that there is no respect or standing for the +free laborer in any Slave State. + +Again, throughout the uplands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, +it has been proved that sheep can be raised upon the English system +with the greatest success. Upon their light lands, (selling at less +than $1 per acre,) turnips can be raised in great abundance and fed to +sheep in the field, and by the process the fields brought to a point of +fertility, for cotton or grain, equal to the best bottom-lands of +Mississippi or Louisiana. This fact has been sufficiently proved by the +experience of the very few good farmers in Georgia. + +The climate of these sections is wonderfully healthy, and is far +better adapted to the production of wool than that of England, the +extremes of heat and cold being far greater, and yet the cold not being +sufficient to prevent the raising of turnips or feeding from the field +in winter. To produce fine fleece-wool, a warm summer and a cool +winter are requisite. + +Let any one examine Southern writings upon agriculture, and note the +experience of the few working, sensible cultivators, who, by a system +of rewards and premiums partially equivalent to the payment of wages +to their slaves, have obtained the best results of which Slavery is +capable, and he will realize the immense increase to be expected when +free and intelligent labor shall be applied to Southern agriculture. + +We hold, therefore, that by the destruction of Slavery, and by that +only, this war can be made to pay, and taxation become no burden. + +By free labor upon Southern soil we shall add to the annual product of +the country a sum more than equal to the whole tax which will be +required to pay interest and expenses, and to accumulate a sinking-fund +which will pay the debt in less than twenty years; while to the North +will come the immensely increased demand for manufactured articles +required by a thrifty and prosperous middle class, instead of the small +demand for coarse, cheap articles required by slaves, and the demand +for foreign luxuries called for by the masters. + +The addition of $250,000,000 to the product of the country would be a +gain to every branch of industry; and if the equable system of taxation +by a stamp-tax on all sales were adopted, the burden would not be +felt. The additional product being mostly from an improved system of +agriculture at the South, a much larger demand would exist for the +manufactures of the North, and a much larger body of distributors +would be required. + +Let us glance for a moment at the alternative,--the restoration of the +Union without the removal of Slavery. + +The system of slave-labor has been shaken to its foundation, and for +years to come its aggregate product will be far less than it has been, +thus throwing upon the North the whole burden of the taxes with no +compensating gain in resources. + +Only the refuse of our army could remain in the Slave States, to +become to us in the future an element of danger and not of +security,--the industrious and respectable portion would come back to +the North, to find their places filled and a return to the pursuits of +peace difficult to accomplish. + +With Slavery removed, the best part of our army will remain upon the +fertile soil and in the genial climate of the South, forming +communities, retaining their arms, keeping peace and good order with +no need of a standing army, and constituting the _nuclei_ around +which the poor-white trash of the South would gather to be educated in +the labor-system of the North, and thus, and thus only, to become loyal +citizens. + +The mass of the white population of the South are ignorant and deluded; +they need leaders, and will have them. + +We have allowed them to be led by slaveholders, and are reaping our +reward. Remove Slavery, and their present leaders are crushed out +forever. + +Give them new leaders from among the earnest and industrious portion of +our army, and we increase our resources and render taxation no burden, +and we restore the Union in fact and not simply in name. + +Leave Slavery in existence, and we decrease our resources, throw the +whole tax upon the North, reinforce the Secession element with the +refuse of our army, and bequeath to our children the shadow of a Union, +a mockery and a derision to all honest men. + + + + +THE POET TO HIS READERS. + + +Nay, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say,--"Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost: +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burrs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown; +When these I write--ah, well-a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May! + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek: +Can all the varied phrases tell, +That Babel's wandering children speak, +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read! +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. + + * * * * * + + +THE CHILDREN'S CITIES. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all +alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and +not one above another. + +His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys +covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each +other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other +two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the +city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. + +The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to +write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them +to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went +into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will +was drawn up as he desired. + +One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying +to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool +thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better +boat,--for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace +quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat +of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of +sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when +the will blew away, that he could speak no more when the lawyers came +back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died +without telling his sons what he wished them to do. + +However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they +were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little +persons,--at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never +quarrelled,--so that the child-people loved them almost as well as +they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the +princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, +because there was no king's will, and by rights the eldest ought to +have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called +his brothers to him and said,-- + +"I am quite sure, though there is no will, that our royal papa built +the three cities that we might each have one to reign over, and not one +reign over all. Therefore I will have you both, dear brothers, choose a +city to govern over, and I will govern over the city you do not +choose." + +And his brothers danced for joy; and the people too were pleased, for +they loved all the three princes. But there were not enough people in +the kingdom to fill more than one city quite full. Was not this very +odd? Gentil thought so; but, as he could not make out the reason, he +said to the child-people,-- + +"I will count you, and divide you into three parts, and each part shall +go to one city." + +For, before the king had built the cities, the child-people had lived +in the green valleys, and slept on beds of flowers. + +So Joujou, the second prince, chose the city of Pastime; and Bonbon, +the youngest prince, chose the city of Confection; and the city of +Lessonland was left for Prince Gentil, who took possession of it +directly. + +And first let us see how the good Gentil got on in his city. + +The city of Lessonland was built of books, all books, and only books. +The walls were books, set close like bricks, and the bridges over the +rivers (which were very blue) were built of books in arches, and there +were books to pave the roads and paths, and the doors of the houses +were books with golden letters on the outside. The palace of Prince +Gentil was built of the largest books, all bound in scarlet and green +and purple and blue and yellow. And inside the palace all the loveliest +pictures were hung upon the walls, and the handsomest maps; and in his +library were all the lesson-books and all the story-books in the world. +Directly Gentil began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these books for? They must mean that we are to learn, and +to become very clever, in order to be good. I wish to be very clever, +and to make my people so; so I must set them a good example." + +And he called all his child-people together, who would do anything for +the love of him, and he said,-- + +"If we mean to be of any use in the world, we must learn, learn, learn, +and read, read, read, and always be doing lessons." + +And they said they would, to please him; and they all gathered together +in the palace council-chamber, and Gentil set them tasks, the same as +he set himself, and they all went home to learn them, while he learned +his in the palace. + +Now let us see how Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, +Joujou,--oh, so fond of fun! as you may believe, from his choosing the +city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime! how unlike the city of dear, +dull Lessonland! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful +toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of +the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people +to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that +ran along by clock-work, and such rocking-horses! And there was not to +be found a book In the whole city, but the houses were crammed with +toys from the top to the bottom,--tops, hoops, balls, battle-doors, +bows and arrows, guns, peep-shows, drums and trumpets, marbles, +ninepins, tumblers, kites, and hundreds upon hundreds more, for there +you found every toy that ever was made in the world, besides thousands +of large wax dolls, all in different court-dresses. And directly Joujou +began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these toys for? They must mean that we are to play +always, that we may be always happy. I wish to be very happy, and that +my people should be happy, always. Won't I set them an example?" + +And Joujou blew a penny-trumpet, and got on the back of the largest +rocking-horse and rocked with all his might, and cried,-- + +"Child-people, you are to play always, for in all the city of Pastime +you see nothing else but toys!" + +The child-people did not wait long; some jumped on rocking-horses, some +drove off in carriages, and some in gigs and music-carts. And organs +were played, and bells rang, and shuttlecocks and kites flew up the +blue sky, and there was laughter, laughter, in all the streets of +Pastime! + +And now for little Bonbon, how is he getting on? He was a dear little +fat fellow,--but, oh, so fond of sweets! as you may believe, from his +choosing the city of Confection. And there were no books in Confection, +and no toys; but the walls were built of gingerbread, and the houses +were built of gingerbread, and the bridges of barley-sugar, that +glittered in the sun. And rivers ran with wine through the streets, +sweet wine, such as child-people love; and Christmas-trees grew along +the banks of the rivers, with candy and almonds and golden nuts on the +branches; and in every house the tables were made of sweet brown +chocolate, and there were great plum-cakes on the tables, and little +cakes, and all sorts of cakes. And when Bonbon began to reign he did +not think much about it, but began to eat directly, and called out, +with his mouth full,-- + +"Child-people, eat always! for in all the city of Confection there is +nothing but cakes and sweets." + +And did not the child-people fall to, and eat directly, and eat on, and +eat always? + +Now by this time what has happened to Gentil? for we left him in the +city of Lessonland. All the first day he learned the lessons he had set +himself, and the people learned theirs too, and they all came to Gentil +in the evening to say them to the Prince. But by the time Gentil had +heard all the lessons, he was very, very tired,--so tired that he +tumbled asleep on the throne; and when the child-people saw their +prince was asleep, they thought they might as well go to sleep too. And +when Gentil awoke, the next morning, behold! there were all his people +asleep on the floor. And he looked at his watch and found it was very +late, and he woke up the people, crying, with a very loud voice,-- + +"It is very late, good people!" + +And the people jumped up, and rubbed their eyes, and cried,-- + +"We have been learning always, and we can no longer see to read,--the +letters dance before our eyes." + +And all the child-people groaned, and cried very bitterly behind their +books. Then Gentil said,-- + +"I will read to you, my people, and that will rest your eyes." + +And he read them a delightful story about animals; but when he stopped +to show them a picture of a lion, the people were all asleep. Then +Gentil grew angry, and cried in a loud voice,-- + +"Wake up, idle people, and listen!" + +But when the people woke up, they were stupid, and sat like cats and +sulked. So Gentil put the book away, and sent them home, giving them +each a long task for their rudeness. The child-people went away; but, +as they found only books out of doors, and only books at home, they +went to sleep without learning their tasks. And all the fifth day they +slept. But on the sixth day Gentil went out to see what they were +doing; and they began to throw their books about, and a book knocked +Prince Gentil on the head, and hurt him so much that he was obliged to +go to bed. And while he was in bed, the people began to fight, and to +throw the books at one another. + +Now as for Joujou and his people, they began to play, and went on +playing, and did nothing else but play. And would you believe it?--they +got tired too. The first day and the second day nobody thought he ever +could be tired, amongst the rocking-horses and whips and marbles and +kites and dolls and carriages. But the third day everybody wanted to +ride at once, and the carriages were so full that they broke down, and +the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the +little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were +broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very +largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a +drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go +to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and +shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they +were toy-arrows, but which made Joujou very much afraid, for he did not +wish his people to hate him. + +"What do you want?" he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to +please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the +golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court of the +palace?" + +"Yes! yes!" cried the people, and the drummer jumped down from the +wall. "Yes! yes! Punch and Judy! We are tired of marbles, and balls, +and ninepins. But we sha'n't be tired of Punch and Judy!" + +So the people gathered together in the court of the palace, and saw +Punch and Judy over and over again, all day long on the fifth day. And +they had it so often, that, when the sixth day came, they pulled down +the stage, and broke Punch to pieces, and burned Judy, and screamed out +that they were so hungry they did not know what to do. And the drummer +called out,-- + +"Let us eat Prince Joujou!" + +But the people loved him still; so they answered,-- + +"No! but we will go out of the city and invade the city of Confection, +and fight them, if they won't give us anything to eat!" + +So out they went, with Joujou at their head; for Joujou, too, was +dreadfully hungry. And they crossed the green valley to the city of +Confection, and began to try and eat the gingerbread walls. But the +gingerbread was hard, because the walls had been built in ancient days; +and the people tried to get on the top of the walls, and when they had +eaten a few holes in the gingerbread, they climbed up by them to the +top. And there they saw a dreadful sight. All the people had eaten so +much that they were ill, or else so fat that they could not move. And +the people were lying about in the streets, and by the side of the +rivers of sweet wine, but, oh, so sick, that they could eat no more! +And Prince Bonbon, who had got into the largest Christmas-tree, had +eaten all the candy upon it, and grown so fat that he could not move, +but stuck up there among the branches. When the people of Pastime got +upon the walls, however, the people of Confection were very angry; and +one or two of those who could eat the most, and who still kept on +eating while they were sick, threw apples and cakes at the people of +Pastime, and shot Joujou with sugar-plums, which he picked up and ate, +while his people were eating down the plum-cakes, and drinking the wine +till they were tipsy. + +As soon as Gentil heard what a dreadful noise his people were making, +he got up, though he still felt poorly, and went out into the streets. +The people were fighting, alas! worse than ever; and they were trying +to pull down the strong book-walls, that they might get out of the +city. A good many of them were wounded in the head, as well as Prince +Gentil, by the heavy books falling upon them; and Gentil was very +sorry for the people. + +"If you want to go out, good people," he said, "I will open the gates +and go with you; but do not pull down the book-walls." + +And they obeyed Gentil, because they loved him, and Gentil led them out +of the city. When they had crossed the first green valley, they found +the city of Pastime empty, not a creature in it! and broken toys in the +streets. At sight of the toys, the poor book-people cried for joy, and +wanted to stop and play. So Gentil left them in the city, and went on +alone across the next green valley. But the city of Confection was +crammed so full with sick child-people belonging to Bonbon, and with +Joujou's hungry ones, that Gentil could not get in at the gate. So he +wandered about in the green valleys, very unhappy, until he came to his +old father's palace. There he found the fool, sitting on the banks of +the river. + +"O fool," said Gentil, "I wish I knew what my father meant us to do!" + +And the fool tried to comfort Gentil; and they walked together by the +river where the fool had made the boat of the will, without knowing +what it was. They walked a long way, Gentil crying, and the fool trying +to comfort him, when suddenly the fool saw the boat he had made, lying +among some green rushes. And the fool ran to fetch it, and brought it +to show Gentil. And Gentil saw some writing on the boat, and knew it +was his father's writing. Then Gentil was glad indeed; he unfolded +the paper, and thereon he read these words,--for a good king's words +are not washed away by water:-- + +"My will and pleasure is, that my dearly beloved sons, Prince Gentil, +Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, should all reign together over the +three cities which I have built. But there are only enough child-people +to fill one city; for I know that the child-people cannot live always +in one city. Therefore let the three princes, with Gentil, the eldest, +wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Lessonland +in the morning, that the bright sun may shine upon their lessons and +make them pleasant; and Gentil to set the tasks. And in the afternoon +let the three princes, with Joujou wearing the crown, lead all the +child-people to the city of Pastime, to play until the evening; and +Joujou to lead the games. And in the evening let the three princes, +with Bonbon wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of +Confection, to drink sweet wine and pluck fruit off the Christmas-trees +until time for bed; and little Bonbon to cut the cake. And at time for +bed, let the child-people go forth into the green valleys and sleep +upon the beds of flowers: for in Child Country it is always spring." + +This was the king's will, found at last; and Gentil, whose great long +lessons had made him wise, (though they had tired him too,) thought the +will the cleverest that was ever made. And he hastened to the city of +Confection, and knocked at the gate till they opened it; and he found +all the people sick by this time, and very pleased to see him, for they +thought him very wise. And Gentil read the will in a loud voice, and +the people clapped their hands and began to get better directly, and +Bonbon called to them to lift him down out of the tree where he had +stuck, and Joujou danced for joy. + +So the king's will was obeyed. And in the morning the people learned +their lessons, and afterwards they played, and afterwards they enjoyed +their feasts. And at bed-time they slept upon the beds of flowers, in +the green valleys: for in Child Country it is always spring. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +1. VICTOR HUGO. _Les Miserables. Fantine_. New York: P. W. +Christern. 8vo. + +2. _The Same_. Translated from the Original French, by CHARLES E. +WILBOUR. New York: G. W. Carleton. 8vo. + + +"FANTINE," the first of five novels under the general title of "Les +Miserables," has produced an impression all over Europe, and we already +hear of nine translations, It has evidently been "engineered" with +immense energy by the French publisher. Translations have appeared in +numerous languages almost simultaneously with its publication in Paris. +Every resource of bookselling ingenuity has been exhausted in order to +make every human being who can read think that the salvation of his +body and soul depends on his reading "Les Miserables." The glory and +the obloquy of the author have both been forced into aids to a system +of puffing at which Barnum himself would stare amazed, and confess +that he had never conceived of "a dodge" in which literary genius and +philanthropy could be allied with the grossest bookselling humbug. But +we trust, that, after our American showman has recovered from his +first shock of surprise, he will vindicate the claim of America to be +considered the "first nation on the face of the earth," by immediately +offering Dickens a hundred thousand dollars to superintend his +exhibition of dogs, and Florence Nightingale a half a million to appear +at his exhibition of babies. + +The French bookseller also piqued the curiosity of the universal public +by a story that Victor Hugo wrote "Les Miserables" twenty-five years +ago, but, being bound to give a certain French publisher all his works +after his first celebrated novel, he would not delight the world with +this product of his genius until he had forced the said publisher into +a compliance with his terms. The publisher shrank aghast from the sum +which the author demanded, and this sum was yearly increased in amount, +as years rolled away and as Victor Hugo's reputation grew more +splendid. At last the publisher died, probably from vexation, and +Victor Hugo was free. Then he condescended to allow the present +publisher to issue "Les Miserables" on the payment of eighty thousand +dollars. It is not surprising, that, to get his money back, this +publisher has been compelled to resort to tricks which exceed +everything known in the whole history of literature. + +"Fantine," therefore, comes before us, externally, as the most +desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from +drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of +having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most +reckless _charlatanerie_ to save himself from utter ruin and +complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before +us as an attempt both to include and to supersede the Christian +religion. Wilkinson, in a preface to one of his books, stated that he +thought that "Christendom was not the error of which _Chapmandom_ +was the correction,"--Chapman being then the English publisher of a +number of skeptical books. In the same way we may venture to affirm +that Christendom is not the beginning of which _Hugoism_ is the +complement and end. We think that the revelation made by the publisher +of "Les Miserables" sadly interferes with the revelation made by +Victor Hugo. Saint Paul may be inferior to Saint Hugo, but everybody +will admit that Saint Paul would not have hesitated a second in +deciding, in the publication of _his_ epistles, between the good +of mankind and his own remuneration. Saint Hugo confessedly waited +twenty-five years before he published his new gospel. The salvation of +Humanity had to be deferred until the French saviour received his +eighty thousand dollars. At last a bookselling Barnum appears, pays +the price, and a morality which utterly eclipses that of Saint Paul is +given to an expectant world. + +This morality, sold for eighty thousand dollars, is represented by +Bishop Myriel. The character is drawn with great force, and is full +both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary +churchmen. The portion of the work in which it figures contains many +striking sayings. Thus, we are told, that, when the Bishop "had money, +his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich." +"Ask not," he said, "the name of him who asks you for a bed; it is +especially he whose name is a burden to him who has need of an +asylum." This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness +so far as to receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses +reject, and, when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the +latter by telling the officers who had apprehended the thief that he +had given him the silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, +that, like Peter Bell, he "becomes a good and pious man," starts a +manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent +purposes. Fantine, the heroine, after having been seduced by a +Parisian student, comes to work in his factory. She has a child that +she supports by her labor. This fact is discovered by some female +gossip, and she is dismissed from the factory as an immoral woman, and +descends to the lowest depths of prostitution,--still for the purpose +of supporting her child. Jean Valjean, the reformed criminal, +discovers her, is made aware that her debasement is the result of the +act of his foreman, and takes her, half dead with misery and sickness, +to his own house. Meanwhile he learns that an innocent person, by +being confounded with himself, is in danger of being punished for his +former deeds. He flies from the bedside of Fantine, appears before the +court, announces himself as the criminal, is arrested, but in the end +escapes from the officers who have him in charge. Fantine dies. Her +child is to be the heroine of Novel Number Two of "Les Miserables," and +will doubtless have as miserable an end as her mother. From this bare +abstract, the story does not seem to promise much pleasure to +novel-readers, yet it is all alive with the fiery genius of Victor +Hugo, and the whole representation is so intense and vivid that it is +impossible to escape from the fascination it exerts over the mind. Few +who take the book up will leave it until they have read it through. It +is morbid to a degree that no eminent English author, not even Lord +Byron, ever approached; but its morbid elements are so combined with +sentiments abstractly Christian that it is calculated to wield a more +pernicious influence than Byron ever exerted. Its tendency is to +weaken that abhorrence of crime which is the great shield of most of +the virtue which society possesses, and it does this by attempting to +prove that society itself is responsible for crimes it cannot +prevent, but can only punish. To legislators, to Magdalen societies, +to prison-reformers, it may suggest many useful hints; but, considered +as a passionate romance, appealing to the sympathies of the ordinary +readers of novels, it will do infinitely more harm than good. The +bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice. On the +whole, therefore, we think that Victor Hugo, when he stood out +twenty-five years for his price, did a service to the human race. The +great value of his new gospel consisted in its not being published. We +wish that another quarter of a century had elapsed before it found a +bookseller capable of venturing on so reckless a speculation. + + * * * * * + +_Christ the Spirit_: being an Attempt to state the Primitive View +of Christianity. By the Author of "Remarks on Alchemy and the +Alchemists," and "Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher." 2 vols. New York: +James Miller. + +Tins remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the +United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign +and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the +grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, +and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the +creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, +may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and +moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach +theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the +divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to +reestablish Christianity upon, its true basis. In opposition to +existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as +opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, "It is the spirit that +quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,"--or again, with the Spirit of +Truth itself, he declares, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true +worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the +Father seeketh such to worship Him." General Hitchcock believes that +the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret +society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea +with the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was written for the instruction of +the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath +by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of +this theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly +interesting and instructive. + +The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essenes +thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and +a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man; as +spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held +that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; +and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote--the Four +Gospels--they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified +the law of Moses,--Christ representing in his double character both the +spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the +spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the +"wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the +Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in +all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the +Spirit of Nature,--the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in +whom it abides. + +From this brief statement it will be seen that General Hitchcock takes +a view of Christianity widely different from that of theologians. Jesus +of Nazareth, as a person, he regards simply as a great teacher of this +sect of philosophers; and in the Christ of the New Testament, a being +endowed with supernatural powers, he sees a personification of the +Spirit of Truth. The literal history of a series of supernatural +events occurring in Judea two thousand years ago he transforms into +sublime teachings of the great truths inherent in human nature, and +which, wherever man is, are there forever reenacting the same +drama,--in the assumed history of Jesus, divinely portrayed,--not, if +rightly understood, as an actual history of any one man, but as a +symbolic narration, representing the spiritual life of all men. + +Many grave reflections are forced upon us in contemplating a view so +original of a subject upon which apparently nothing more remained to be +said. It becomes not only the question, How will this work be received +by the religious world? but, How, in a true spirit of inquiry, +_ought_ it to be received? The theory of the author is peculiarly +simple, but in its simplicity lies an exceeding beauty. The idea that +the Scriptures are symbolical has always found adherents, but never +such an advocate. Swedenborg affirmed this truth, and invented a +formal mode of interpretation, upon which he wrote his multitudinous +octavos, themselves mystical volumes, and whose effect has been to +involve a subject already obscure in still deeper darkness, and to +transfer the adoration of a small portion of the Christian world from +the letter of the Scriptures to the letter of Swedenborg,--a +questionable benefit to his followers, in spite of the many important +truths which this great man advocated. The radical difference between +such a system and that which we are now considering is evident. Not +Swedenborg alone, but many others, through artificial systems of their +own, have sought to interpret the mysteries of the Bible; but it has +remained for the author of "Christ the Spirit" to attempt a discovery +of the key unlocking the symbolism of the New Testament, as it was +understood by the gospel writers themselves. + +_The Pearl of Orr's Island._ A Story of the Coast of Maine. By +MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The +Minister's Wooing," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +Mrs. Stowe is never more in her element than in depicting +unsophisticated New-England life, especially in those localities where +there is a practical social equality among the different classes of +the population. "The Pearl of Orr's Island," the scene of which is +laid in one of those localities, is every way worthy of her genius. +Without deriving much interest from its plot, it fastens the pleased +attention of the reader by the freshness, clearness, and truth of its +representations, both of Nature and persons. The author transports us +at once to the place she has chosen as the scene of her story, makes us +as familiarly acquainted with all its surroundings as if we had been +born and bred there, introduces us to all the principal inhabitants in +a thoroughly "neighborly" way, and contrives to impress us with a +sense of the substantial reality of what she makes us mentally see, +even when an occasional improbability in the story almost wakes us up +to a perception that the whole is a delightful illusion. + +This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee +recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables +the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine +of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In +the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with +Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed +to this magazine: the difference is in time and circumstance, and not +in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture +and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of +Spenser's exquisite individualizations of abstract feminine +excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted +spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her +nature, and her soul moves in a sphere of religious experience compared +with which "fairy-land" is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel +as well as a woman; yet the height of her meditations does not +interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human +duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to +her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid +delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we +cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe's best claims to be considered a woman +of true imaginative genius. + +In the rest of the population of Orr's Island the reader cannot fail to +take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the +hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. +But "Cap'n" Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and +Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for +a long dissertation on New England and human character. Miss Roxy, +especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee-land, and is so +thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her +eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been +allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in +actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in +education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital +self-sacrifice and tenderness of heart. + +We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than +Mrs. Stowe's other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they +love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, +is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with +Moses. The latter is "made happy" in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. +Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the +last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or +knowing it. + +In style, "The Pearl of Orr's Island" ranks with the best narratives in +American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and +Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only +facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It +is the exact mirror of the author's mind and character. It is fresh, +simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention +from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which +are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. +The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so +excellent,--that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the +matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the +singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest +reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of +description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara +and Moses on the open sea, the night-visit which Mara makes to the +rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede +Mara's death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and +fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated +to common words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and +passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of +accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual +perception,--in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and +sentiment,--and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward +sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,--"The Pearl of +Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has +heretofore contributed to American literature. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. I. New York. G. P. Putnam. 13mo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +History of the United States Naval Academy, with Biographical Sketches, +and the Names of all the Superintendents, Professors, and Graduates. To +which is added a Record of some of the Earliest Votes by Congress, of +Thanks, Medals, and Swords, to Naval Officers. By Edward Chauncey +Marshall, A.M., formerly Instructor in Captain Kinsley's Military +School at West Point, Assistant Professor in the New York University, +etc. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 156. $1.00. + +Instruction for Naval Light Artillery, Afloat and Ashore. Prepared and +arranged for the United States Naval Academy. By William H. Parker, +Lieutenant U.S.N. Second Edition. Revised by Lieutenant S.B. Luce, +U.S.N., Assistant Instructor of Gunnery at the United States Naval +Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 120. $1.50. + +Manual of Target-Practice for the United States Army. By Major G.L. +Willard, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 18mo. pp. 80. 50 cts. + +A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery; compiled for the Use +of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy. By Captain J.G. +Benton, Ordnance Department, late Instructor of Ordnance and Science of +Gunnery, Military Academy, West Point; Principal Assistant to the Chief +of Ordnance, U.S.A. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. New York. D. +Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 550. $4.00. + +Seventh Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the State of +Massachusetts. January 1, 1862. Part I., Marine and Fire Insurance: +Part II., Life Insurance. Boston. William White, Printer to the State. +8vo. pp. xxxvi., 262; xl., 33; 15. + +Ballads of the War. By George Whitfield Hewes. New York. G.W. Garleton. +16mo. pp. 147. 50 cts. + +The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of the +Life of the Author and a Catalogue of his Writings. New York. William +Gowans. 12mo. pp. 311. $1.00. + +The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood, +Author of "East Lynne," etc. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. +8vo. paper, pp. 302. 50 cts. + +The Bay Path. A Tale of New England Colonial Life. By J.G. Holland, +Author of "Letters to the Young," "Lessons in Life," etc. New York. C. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 418. $1.25. + +The Church in the Army; or, The Four Centurions. By Rev. William A. +Scott, D.D., of San Francisco. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 443. +$1.25. + +Prison-Life in the Tobacco-Warehouse at Richmond. By a Ball's-Bluff +Prisoner, Lieutenant William C. Harris, of Colonel Baker's California +Regiment. Philadelphia. G.W. Childs. 16mo. pp. 175. 75 cts. + +Mount Vernon, and other Poems. By Harvey Rice. Columbus. Follett, +Foster, & Co. 16mo. pp. 221. $1.00. + +Last Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With a Memorial by Theodore +Tilton. New York. James Miller. 32mo. pp. 242. 75 cts. + +Manual for Engineer Troops. Consisting of, I., Ponton Drill; II., Rules +for Conducting a Siege; III., School of the Sap; IV., Military Mining; +V., Construction of Batteries. By Captain J.C. Duane, Corps of +Engineers, U.S. Army. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 275. $2.00. + +Our Flag. A Poem in Four Cantos. By F.H. Underwood. New York. G. W. +Carleton. 16mo. paper, pp. 41. 25 cts. + +A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial. By +Captain S.V. Benet, Ordnance Department, U.S. Army: late Assistant +Professor of Ethics, Law, etc. Military Academy, West Point. New York. +D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 377. $3.00. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, +July, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 10, NO. 57 *** + +This file should be named 7100110.txt or 7100110.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7100111.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7100110a.txt + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/710a110.zip b/old/710a110.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c200e1e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/710a110.zip diff --git a/old/810a110.txt b/old/810a110.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c04d10 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/810a110.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9117 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862, +by Various + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 + A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9493] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 10, NO. 57 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + + +VOL. X.--JULY, 1862.--NO. LVII. + + + +SOME SOLDIER-POETRY. + + +It is certain that since the time of Homer the deeds and circumstances +of war have not been felicitously sung. If any ideas have been the +subject of the strife, they seldom appear to advantage in the poems +which chronicle it, or in the verses devoted to the praise of heroes. +Remove the "Iliad," the "Nibelungenlied," some English, Spanish, and +Northern ballads, two or three Old-Bohemian, the war-songs composed by +Ziska, and one or two Romaic, from the field of investigation, and one +is astonished at the scanty gleaning of battle-poetry, camp-songs, and +rhymes that have been scattered in the wake of great campaigns, and +many of the above-mentioned are more historical or mythological than +descriptive of war. The quantity of political songs and ballads, +serious and satirical, which were suggested by the great critical +moments of modern history, is immense. Every country has, or might +have, its own peculiar collections. In France the troubles of the +League gave an impulse to song-writing, and the productions of +Desportes and Bertaut are relics of that time. Historical and +revolutionary songs abound in all countries; but even the +"Marseillaise," the gay, ferocious "Carmagnole," and the "Ça Ira," +which somebody wrote upon a drum-head in the Champ de Mars, do not +belong to fighting-poetry. The actual business of following into the +field the men who represent the tendencies of any time, and of helping +to get through with the unavoidable fighting-jobs which they organize, +seems to inspire the same rhetoric in every age, and to reproduce the +same set of conventional war-images. The range of feeling is narrow; +the enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; +even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and +suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the +gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when +wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be kissed, are +scarcely seen, or feebly hinted at. The horizon of the battle-field +itself is limited, and it is impossible to obtain a total impression +of the picturesque and terrible fact. After the smoke has rolled away, +the historian finds a position whence the scenes deliberately reveal to +him all their connection, and reenact their passion. He is the real +poet of these solemn passages in the life of man. [1] + +[Footnote 1: There is a little volume, called _Voices from the +Ranks_, in which numerous letters written by privates, corporals, +etc., in the Crimea, are collected and arranged. They are full of +incident and pathos. Suffering, daring, and humor, the love of home, +and the religious dependence of men capable of telling their own Iliad, +make this a very powerful book. In modern times the best literature of +a campaign will be found in private letters. We have some from Magenta +and Solferino, written by Frenchmen; the character stands very clear in +them. And here is one written by an English lad, who is describing a +landing from boats in Finland, when he shot his first man. The act +separated itself from the whole scene, and charged him with it. +Instinctively he walked up to the poor Finn; they met for the first +time. The wounded man quietly regarded him; he leaned on his musket, +and returned the fading look till it went out.] + +One would think that a poet in the ranks would sometimes exchange the +pike or musket for the pen in his knapsack, and let all the feelings +and landscapes of war distil through his fine fancy from it drop by +drop. But the knapsack makes too heavy a draught upon the nervous +power which the cerebellum supplies for marching orders; concentration +goes to waste in doing porter's work; his tent-lines are the only kind +a poet cares for. If he extemporizes a song or hymn, it is lucky if it +becomes a favorite of the camp. The great song which the soldier lifts +during his halt, or on the edge of battle, is generally written +beforehand by some pen unconscious that its glow would tip the points +of bayonets, and cheer hearts in suspense for the first cannon-shot of +the foe. If anybody undertakes to furnish songs for camps, he prospers +as one who resolves to write anthems for a prize-committee to sit on: +it is sutler's work, and falls a prey to the provost-marshal. + +Nor are poets any more successful, when they propose to make camp-life +and soldiers' feelings subjects for aesthetic consideration. Their +lines are smooth, their images are spirited; but as well might the +campaign itself have been conducted in the poet's study as its +situations be deliberately transferred there to verse. The +"Wallenstein's Camp" of Schiller is not poetry, but racy and sparkling +pamphleteering. Its rhyming does not prevent it from belonging to the +historical treatment of periods that are picturesque with many passions +and interests, that go clad in jaunty regimental costumes, and require +not to be idealized, but simply to be described. Goethe, in his +soldier's song in "Faust," idealizes at a touch the rough work, the +storming and marauding of the mediaeval _Lanzknecht;_ set to +music, it might be sung by fine _dilettanti_ tenors in garrison, +but would be stopped at any outpost in the field for want of the +countersign. But when Goethe describes what he saw and felt in the +campaign in France, with that lucid and observant prose, he reproduces +an actual situation. So does Chamisso, in that powerful letter which +describes the scenes in Hameln, when it was delivered to the French. +But Chamisso has written a genuine soldier's song, which we intend to +give. The songs of Körner are well known already in various English +dresses. [2] + +[Footnote 2: See translations of Von Zedlitz's _Midnight Review_, +of Follen's _Blücher's Ball_, of Freihgrath's _Death of +Grabbe_, of Rückert's _Patriot's Lament_, of Arndt's +_Field-Marshal Blücher_, of Pfeffel's _Tobacco-Pipe_, of +Gleim's _War Song_, of Tegner's _Veteran_, (Swedish,) of +Rahbek's _Peter Colbjornsen_, (Danish,) _The Death-Song of +Regner Lodbrock_, (Norse,) and Körner's _Sword-Song_, in Mr. +Longfellow's _Poets and Poetry of Europe_. See all of Körner's +soldier songs well translated, the _Sword-Song_ admirably, by +Rev. Charles T. Brooks, in _Specimens of Foreign Literature_, Vol. +XIV. See, in Robinson's _Literature of Slavic Nations_, some +Russian and Servian martial poetry.] + +But the early poetry which attempts the description of feats at arms +which were points in the welfare of nations--when, for instance, +Germany was struggling to have her middle class against the privileges +of the barons--is more interesting than all the modern songs which +nicely depict soldiers' moods. Language itself was fighting for +recognition, as well as industrial and social rights. The verses mark +successive steps of a people into consciousness and civilization. Some +of this battle-poetry is worth preserving; a few camp-rhymes, also, +were famous enough in their day to justify translating. Here are some +relics, of pattern more or less antique, picked up from that field of +Europe where so many centuries have met in arms. [3] + +[Footnote 3: Among such songs is one by Bayard Taylor, entitled +_Annie Laurie_, which is of the very best kind.] + +The Northern war-poetry, before the introduction of Christianity, is +vigorous enough, but it abounds in disagreeable commonplaces: trunks +are cleft till each half falls sideways; limbs are carved for ravens, +who appear as invariably as the Valkyrs, and while the latter pounce +upon the souls that issue with the expiring breath, the former +banquet upon the remains. The celebration of a victory is an exulting +description of actual scenes of revelling, mead-drinking from mounted +skulls, division of the spoils, and half-drunken brags[4] of future +prowess. The sense of dependence upon an unseen Power is manifested +only in superstitious vows for luck and congratulations that the Strong +Ones have been upon the conquering side. There is no lifting up of the +heart which checks for a time the joy of victory. They are ferociously +glad that they have beaten. This prize-fighting imagery belongs also +to the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and is in marked contrast with the +commemorative poetry of Franks and Germans after the introduction of +Christianity. The allusions may be quite as conventional, but they show +that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the +fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure +establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon +an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. We speak only +of war-poetry. + +[Footnote 4: Braga was the name of the goblet over which the Norse +drinkers made their vows. Probably no Secessionist ever threatened more +pompously over his whiskey. The word goes back a great distance. +_Paruf_ is Sanscrit for rough, and _Ragh_, to be equal to. +In reading the Norse poetry, one can understand why _Brága_ was +the Apollo of the Asa gods, and why the present made to a favorite +Scald was called _Bragar-Laun_ (_Lohn_). _Bravo_ is also a +far-travelled form.] + +Here, for instance, is the difference plainly told. Hucbald, a monk of +the cloister St. Amand in Flanders, wrote "The Louis-Lay," to celebrate +the victory gained by the West-Frankish King Louis III. over the +Normans, in 881, near Saucourt. It is in the Old-High-German. A few +lines will suffice:-- + +The King rode boldly, sang a holy song, +And all together sang, Kyrie eleison. +The song was sung; the battle was begun; +Blood came to cheeks; thereat rejoiced the Franks; +Then fought each sword, but none so well as Ludwig, +So swift and bold, for 't was his inborn nature; +He struck down many, many a one pierced through, +And at his hands his enemies received +A bitter drink, woe to their life all day. +Praise to God's power, for Ludwig overcame; +And thanks to saints, the victor-fight was his. +Homeward again fared Ludwig, conquering king, +And harnessed as he ever is, wherever the need may be, +Our God above sustain him with His majesty! + +Earlier than this it was the custom for soldiers to sing just before +fighting. Tacitus alludes to a kind of measured warcry of the +Germans, which they made more sonorous and terrific by shouting it into +the hollow of their shields. He calls it _barditus_ by mistake, +borrowing a term from the custom of the Gauls, who sang before battle +by proxy,--that is, their bards chanted the national songs. But Norse +and German soldiers loved to sing. King Harald Sigurdson composes +verses just before battle; so do the Skalds before the Battle of +Stiklestad, which was fatal to the great King Olaf. The soldiers learn +the verses and sing them with the Skalds. They also recollect older +songs,--the "Biarkamal," for instance, which Biarke made before he +fought.[5] These are all of the indomitable kind, and well charged +with threats of unlimited slaughter. The custom survived all the social +and religious changes of Europe. But the wild war-phrases which the +Germans shouted for mutual encouragement, and to derive, like the +Highlanders, an omen from the magnitude of the sound, became hymns: +they were sung in unison, with the ordinary monkish modulations of the +time. The most famous of these was written by Notker, a Benedictine of +St. Gall, about the year 900. It was translated by Luther in 1524, +and an English translation from Luther's German can be found in the +"Lyra Germanica," p. 237. + +[Footnote 5: Laing's _Sea-Kings of Norway_, Vol. II. p. 312; Vol. +III. p. 90.] + +William's minstrel, Taillefer, sang a song before the Battle of +Hastings: but the Normans loved the purely martial strain, and this +was a ballad of French composition, perhaps a fragment of the older +"Roland's Song." The "Roman de Rou," composed by Master Wace, or Gasse, +a native of Jersey and Canon of Bayeux, who died in 1184, is very +minute in its description of the Battle of Val des Dunes, near Caen, +fought by Henry of France and William the Bastard against Guy, a Norman +noble in the Burgundian interest. The year of the battle was 1047. +There is a Latin narrative of the Battle of Hastings, in eight hundred +and thirty-five hexameters and pentameters. This was composed by Wido, +or Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075. + +The German knights on their way to Jerusalem sang a holy psalm, +beginning, "Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of the earth." This was +discovered not long ago in Westphalia; a translation of it, with the +music, can be found in Mr. Richard Willis's collection of hymns. + +One would expect to gather fragments of war-poetry from the early times +of the Hungarians, who held the outpost of Europe against the Turks, +and were also sometimes in arms against the imperial policy of Germany. +But De Gerando informs us that they set both victories and defeats to +music. The "Rákótzi" is a national air which bears the name of an +illustrious prince who was overcome by Leopold. "It is remarkable that +in Hungary great thoughts and deep popular feelings were expressed and +consecrated, not by poetry, but by national airs. The armed Diets which +were held upon the plain of Rákos were the symbol of ancient liberty to +the popular apprehension; there is the 'Air of Rákos,' also the 'Air of +Mohács,' which recalls the fall of the old monarchy, and the 'Air of +Zrinyi,' which preserves the recollection of the heroic defence of +Szigeth."[6] These airs are not written; the first comer extemporized +their inartificial strains, which the feeling of the moment seized upon +and transmitted by tradition. Among the Servians, on the contrary, +the heroic ballad is full of fire and meaning, but the music amounts to +nothing. + +[Footnote 6: A. De Gerando, _La Transylvanie et ses Habitants_, +Tom. II. p. 265, et seq.] + +The first important production of the warlike kind, after Germany began +to struggle with its medieval restrictions, was composed after the +Battle of Sempach, where Arnold Struthalm of Winkelried opened a +passage for the Swiss peasants through the ranks of Austrian spears. It +is written in the Middle-High-German, by Halbsuter, a native of +Lucerne, who was in the fight. Here are specimens of it. There is a +paraphrase by Sir Walter Scott, but it is done at the expense of the +metre and _naďve_ character of the original. + +In the thousand and three hundred and six and eightieth year +Did God in special manner His favor make appear: +Hei! the Federates, I say, +They get this special grace upon St. Cyril's day. + +That was July 9, 1386. The Swiss had been exasperated by the +establishment of new tolls by the nobility, who were upheld in it by +the Duke of Austria. The Federates (_Confederates_ can never again +be used in connection with a just fight) began to attack the castles +which sheltered the oppressive baronial power. The castle behind the +little town of Willisow is stormed and burned. Thereupon the nobles +swear to put these Swiss free peasants down and get them a master. The +poet tells all this, and proceeds to describe their excesses and +pride. Then,-- + +Ye Lowland lords are drawing hither to the +Oberland, +To what an entertainment ye do not understand: +Hei! 't were better for shrift to call, +For in the mountain-fields mischances may +befall. + +To which the nobles are imagined to reply,-- + +"Indeed! where sits the priest, then, to grant +this needful gift?" +In the Schweitz he is all ready,--he'll give +you hearty shrift: +Hei! he will give it to you sheer, +This blessing will he give it with sharp halberds +and such gear. + +The Duke's people are mowing in the fields near Sempach. A knight +insolently demands lunch for them from the Sempachers: a burgher +threatens to break his head and lunch them in a heavy fashion, for the +Federates are gathering, and will undoubtedly make him spill his +porridge. A cautious old knight, named Von Hasenburg, rides out to +reconnoitre, and he sees enough to warn the Duke that it is the most +serious business in which he ever engaged. + +Then spake a lord of Ochsensteín, "O Hasenburg, +hare-heart!" +Him answereth Von Hasenburg, "Thy words +bring me a smart: +Hei! I say to you faithfully, +Which of us is the coward this very day you'll see." + +So the old knight, not relishing being punned upon for his counsel, +dismounts. All the knights, anticipating an easy victory, dismount, +and send their horses to the rear, in the care of varlets who +subsequently saved themselves by riding them off. The solid ranks are +formed bristling with spears. There is a pause as the two parties +survey each other. The nobles pass the word along that it looks like a +paltry business:-- + +So spake they to each other: "Yon folk is +very small,-- +In case such boors should beat us, 't will bring +no fame at all: +'Hei! fine lords the boors have mauled!'" +Then the honest Federates on God in heaven +called. + +"Ah, dear Christ of Heaven, by Thy bitter +death we plead, +Help bring to us poor sinners in this our strait +and need; +Hei! and stand by us in the field, +And have our land and people beneath Thy +ward and shield." + +The shaggy bull (of Uri) was quite ready to meet the lion (Leopold), +and threw the dust up a little with its hoof. + +"Hei! will you fight with us who have beaten you before?" + +To this the lion replies,-- + +"Thank you for reminding me. I have many a knight and varlet here to +pay you off for Laupen, and for the ill turn you did me at Morgarten; +now you must wait here till I am even with you." + +Now drew the growling lion his tail in for a +spring: +Then spake the bull unto him, "Wilt have +your reckoning? +Hei! then nearer to us get, +That this green meadow may with blood be +growing wet." + +Then they began a-shooting against us in the +grove, +And their long lances toward the pious Federates +move: +Hei! the jest it was not sweet, +With branches from the lofty pines down rattling +at their feet. + +The nobles' front was fast, their order deep +and spread; +That vexed the pious mind; a Winkelried he +said, +"Hei! if you will keep from need +My pious wife and child, I'll do a hardy +deed. + +"Dear Federates and true, my life I give to +win: +They have their rank too firm, we cannot break +it in: +Hei! a breaking in I'll make. +The while that you my offspring to your protection +take." + +Herewith did he an armful of spears nimbly take; +His life had an end, for his friends a lane did make: +Hei! he had a lion's mood, +So manly, stoutly dying for the Four Cantons' good. + +And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began +With hewing and with sticking,--it was God's holy plan: +Hei! if this He had not done, +It would have cost the Federates many an honest one. + +The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, +enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or +comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners +which they leave behind. [7] + +[Footnote 7: It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made +in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the +ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle +which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed +before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that +Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is +furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, +there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" +villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced +to _déshabillé_? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up +William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but +Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument +against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.] + +Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are +pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and +described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His +facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or +three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and +temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout +commences, he says,-- + +One hither fled, another there, +With good intent to disappear, + Some hid them in the bushes: +I never saw so great a pinch,-- +A crowd that had no thirst to quench + Into the water pushes. + +They waded in up to the chin, +Still we our shot kept pouring in, + As if for ducks a-fowling: +In boats we went and struck them dead, +The lake with all their blood was red,-- + What begging and what howling! + +Up in the trees did many hide, +There hoping not to be espied; + But like the crows we shot them: +The rest on spears did we impale, +Their feathers were of no avail, + The wind would not transport them. + +He will not vouch for the number of the killed, but gives it on hearsay +as twenty-six thousand drowned and slain; but he regrets that their +flight was so precipitate as to prevent him from recording a more +refreshing total. He is specially merry over the wealth and luxurious +habits of Charles, alludes to his vapor-baths, etc.:-- + +His game of chess was to his cost, +Of pawns has he a many lost, + And twice[8] his guard is broken; +His castles help him not a mite, +And see how lonesome stands his knight! +Checkmate's against him spoken. + +[Footnote 8: Once, the year before, at Granson.] + +The wars of the rich cities with the princes and bishops stimulated a +great many poems that are full of the traits of burgher-life. Seventeen +princes declared war against Nuremberg, and seventy-two cities made a +league with her. The Swiss sent a contingent of eight hundred men. This +war raged with great fierceness, and with almost uninterrupted success +for the knights, till the final battle which took place near Pillerent, +in 1456. A Nuremberg painter, Hans Rosenplül, celebrated this in verses +like Veit Weber's, with equal vigor, but downright prosaic +street-touches. Another poem describes the rout of the Archbishop of +Cologne, who attempted to get possession of the city, in 1444. All +these Low-German poems are full of popular scorn and satire: they do +not hate the nobles so much as laugh at them, and their discomfitures +in the field are the occasion of elaborate ridicule. + +The _Lanzknechts_ were foot-soldiers recruited from the roughs of +Germany, and derived their name from the long lance which they +carried;[9] but they were also armed subsequently with the arquebuse. +They were first organized into bodies of regular troops by George +Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a famous German captain, whose castle was +about twenty miles south-west of Augsburg. It was afterwards the centre +of a little principality which Joseph I. created for the Duke of +Marlborough,[10] as a present for the victory of Hochstädt (Blenheim). +Frundsberg was a man of talent and character, one of the best soldiers +of Charles V. He saved the Imperial cause in the campaign of 1522 +against the French and Swiss. At Bicocco he beat the famous Swiss +infantry under Arnold of Winkelried, a descendant, doubtless, of one of +the children whom Arnold Struthabn left to the care of his comrades. At +Pavia a decisive charge of his turned the day against Francis I. And on +the march to Rome, his unexpected death so inflamed the +_Lanzknechts_ that the meditated retreat of Bourbon became +impossible, and the city was taken by assault. His favorite mottoes +were, _Kriegsrath mit der That_, "Plan and Action," and _Viel +Feinde, viel Ehre_, "The more foes, the greater honor." He was the +only man who could influence the mercenary lancers, who were as +terrible in peace as in war. + +[Footnote 9: It is sometimes spelled _landsknecht_, as if it meant +_country-fellows_, or recruits,--men raised at large. But that was +a popular misapprehension of the word, because some of them were +Suabian bumpkins.] + +[Footnote 10: The French soldier-song about Marlborough is known to +every one.] + +The _Lanzknecht's_ lance was eighteen feet long: he wore a helmet +and breastplate, and was taught to form suddenly and to preserve an +impenetrable square. Before him all light and heavy cavalry went down, +and that great arm of modern war did not recover from its disgrace and +neglect till the time of Frederic. But his character was very +indifferent: he went foraging when there was no campaign, and in time +of peace prepared for war by systematic billeting and plundering. It +was a matter of economy to get up a war in order to provide employment +for the _Lanzknecht_. + +Hans Sachs wrote a very amusing piece in 1558, entitled, "The Devil +won't let Landsknechts come to Hell." Lucifer, being in council one +evening, speaks of the _Lanzknecht_ as a new kind of man; he +describes his refreshing traits of originality, and expresses a desire +to have one. It is agreed that Beelzebub shall repair as a crimp to a +tavern, and lie in wait for this new game. The agent gets behind a +stove, which in Germany would shield from observation even Milton's +Satan, and listens while the _Lanzknechts_ drink. They begin to +tell stories which make his hair stand on end, but they also God-bless +each other so often, at sneezing and hiccupping, that he cannot get a +chance at them. One of them, who had stolen a cock and hung it behind +the stove, asks the landlord to go and fetch the poor devil. Beelzebub, +soundly frightened, beats a hasty retreat, expressing his wonder that +the _Lanzknecht_ should know he was there. He apologizes to +Lucifer for being unable to enrich his cabinet, and assures him that it +would be impossible to live with them; the devils would be eaten out of +house and home, and their bishopric taken from them. Lucifer concludes +on the whole that it is discreet to limit himself to monks, nuns, +lawyers, and the ordinary sinner. + +The songs of the _Lanzknecht_ are cheerful, and make little of the +chances of the fight. Fasting and feasting are both welcome; he is as +gay as a Zouave.[11] To be maimed is a slight matter: if he loses an +arm, he bilks the Swiss of a glove; if his leg goes, he can creep, or a +wooden leg will serve his purpose:-- + +It harms me not a mite, +A wooden stump will make all right; +And when it is no longer good, +Some spital knave shall get the wood. + +But if a ball my bosom strikes, + On some wide field I lie, +They'll take me off upon their pikes,-- + A grave is always nigh; +Pumerlein Pum,--the drums shall say +Better than any priest,--Good day! + +[Footnote 11: Who besings himself thus, in a song from the Solferino +campaign:-- + +"Quand l'zouzou, coiffé de son fez, +A par hasard queuqu' goutt' sous l'nez, +L'tremblement s'met dans la cambuse; +Mais s'il faut se flanquer des coups, +Il sait rendre atouts pour atouts, + Et gare dessous, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse! + Des coups, des coups, des coups, + C'est l'zouzou qui s'amuse."] + +There is a very characteristic piece, without date or name of the +writer, but which, to judge from the German, was written after the time +of Luther. Nothing could better express the feeling of a people who +have been saved by martial and religious enthusiasm, and brought +through all the perils of history. It is the production of some +Meistersinger, who introduced it into a History of Henry the Fowler, +(fought the Huns, 919-935,) that was written by him in the form of a +comedy, and divided into acts. He brings in a minstrel who sings the +song before battle. The last verse, with adapted metre and music, is +now a soldier's song. + +Many a righteous cause on earth + To many a battle growing, +Of music God has thought them worth, + A gift of His bestowing. +It came through Jubal into life; + For Lamech's son inventing +The double sounds of drum and fife, + They both became consenting. + For music good + Wakes manly mood, + Intrepid goes + Against our foes. + Calls stoutly, "On! + Fall on! fall on! + Clear field and street + Of hostile feet, + Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, + Not one against you leave!" + +Elias prophecy would make + In thirsty Israel's passion: + "To me a minstrel bring," he spake, + "Who plays in David's fashion." +Soon came on him Jehovah's hand, + In words of help undoubted,-- +Great waters flowed the rainless land, + The foe was also routed. + + Drom, Druri, Drom, + Pom, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Drumming and fifing good + Make hero-mood; + Prophets upspring, + Poets, too, sing; + Music is life + To peace and strife,-- + And men have ever heeded + What chief by them is needed. + +In Dorian mood when he would sing, + Timotheus the charmer, +'Tis said the famous lyre would bring + All listeners into armor: +It woke in Alexander rage + For war, and nought would slake it, +Unless he could the world engage, + And his by conquest make it. + Timotheus + Of Miletus + Could strongly sing + To rouse the King + Of Macedon, + Heroic one, + Till, in his ire + And manly fire, + For shield and weapon rising, + He went, the foe chastising. + +For what God drives, that ever goes,-- + So sang courageous Judith; +No one can such as He oppose; + There prospers what He broodeth. +Who has from God a martial mood, + Through all resistance breaking, +Can prove himself 'gainst heroes good, + On foes a vengeance taking. + Drums, when we droop; + Stand fast, my troop! + Let dart and sabre + The air belabor; + Give them no heed, + But be agreed + That flight be a breach of honor: + Of that be hearty scorner. + +Although a part, as haps alway, + Will faintly take to fleeing, +A lion's heart have I to-day + For Kaiser Henry's seeing. +The wheat springs forth, the chaff's behind;[12] + Strike harder, then, and braver; + +[Footnote 12: This was first said by Rudolph of Erlach at the Battle of +Laupen, in 1339, fought between citizens of Berne and the neighboring +lords. The great array of the nobles caused the rear ranks of the +Bernese to shrink. "Good!" cried Erlach, "the chaff is separated from +the wheat! Cowards will not share the victory of the brave." +--Zschokke's _History of Switzerland_, p. 48, Shaw's translation.] + +Perhaps they all will change their mind, + So, brothers, do not waver! + Kyrie eleison! + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Alarum beat, + There's no retreat; + Wilt soon be slashed, + Be pierced and gashed: + But none of these things heeding, + The foe, too, set a-bleeding. + +Many good surgeons have we here, + Again to heal us ready; +With God's help, then, be of good cheer, + The Pagans grow unsteady: +Let not thy courage sink before + A foe already flying; +Revenge itself shall give thee more, + And hearten it, if dying. + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Kyrie eleison! + Strike, thrust,--for we + Must victors be; + Let none fall out, + Keep order stout; + Close to my side, + Comrade, abide! + Be grace of God revealed now, + And help us hold the field now! + +God doth Himself encamp us round, + Himself the tight inspiring; +The foe no longer stands his ground, + On every side retiring; +Ye brothers, now set boldly on + The hostile ranks!--they waver,-- +They break before us and are gone,-- + Praise be to God the Saver! + Drom, Drari, Drom, + Come, brother, come! + Drums, make a noise! + My troops, rejoice! + Help now pursue + And thrust and hew; + Pillage restrain,-- + The spoils remain + In reach of every finger, + But not a foe wilt linger. + +Ye bold campaigners, praise the Lord, + And strifeful heroes, take now +The prize He doth to us accord, + Good cheer and pillage make now: +What each one finds that let him take, + But friendly share your booty, +For parents', wives', and children's sake, + For household use or beauty. + Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, + Field-surge on come, + My gash to bind, + Am nearly blind,-- + The arrows stick, + Out pull them quick,-- + A bandage here, + To save my ear,-- + Come, bind me up, + And reach a cup,-- + Ho, here at hand, + I cannot stand,-- + Reach hither what you're drinking, + My heart is 'neath me sinking. + +War-comrades all, heart's-brothers good, + I spare no skill and labor, +For these your hurts in hero-mood + You got from hostile sabre. +Now well behave, keep up thy heart, + God's help itself will tend thee; +Although at present great the smart, + To dress the wound will mend thee; + Wash off the blood, + Time makes it good,-- + Reach me the shear,-- + A plaster here,-- + Hold out your arm, + 'T is no great harm,-- + Give drink to stay, + He limps away: + Thank God, their wounds all tended, + Be dart- and pike-hole mended! + +Three faces does a surgeon wear: + At first God is not higher; +And when with wounds they illy fare, + He comes in angel's tire; +But soon as word is said of pay, + How gracelessly they grieve him! +They bid his odious face away, + Or knavishly deceive him: + No thanks for it + Spoils benefit, + Ill to endure + For drugs that cure; + Pay and respect + Should he collect, + For at his art + Your woes depart; + God bids him speed + To you in need; + Therefore our dues be giving, + God wills us all a living. + +No death so blessed in the world + As his who, struck by foeman, +Upon the airy field is hurled, + Nor hears lament of woman; +From narrow beds death one by one + His pale recruits is calling, +But comrades here are not alone, + Like Whitsun blossoms falling. + 'T is no ill jest + To say that best + Of ways to die + Is thus to lie + In honor's sleep, + With none to weep: + Marched out of life + By drum and fife + To airy grave, + Thus heroes crave + A worthy fame,-- + Men say his name +Is _Fatherland's Befriender_, +By life and blood surrender. + +With the introduction of standing armies popular warlike poetry falls +away, and is succeeded by camp-songs, and artistic renderings of +martial subjects by professed poets. The people no longer do the +fighting; they foot the bills and write melancholy hymns. Weckerlin +(1584-1651) wrote some hearty and simple things; among others, +_Frisch auf, ihr tapfere Soldaten_, "Ye soldiers bold, be full of +cheer." Michael Altenburg, (1583-1640,) who served on the Protestant +side, wrote a hymn after the Battle of Leipsic, 1631, from the watch +word, "God with us," which was given to the troops that day. His hymn +was afterwards made famous by Gustavus Adolphus, who sang it at the +head of his soldiers before the Battle of Lützen, November 16, 1632, +in which he fell. Here it is. (_Verzage nicht, du Häuflein +klein_.) + +Be not cast down, thou little band, +Although the foe with purpose stand + To make thy ruin sure: +Because they seek thy overthrow, +Thou art right sorrowful and low: + It will not long endure. + +Be comforted that God will make +Thy cause His own, and vengeance take,-- + 'T is His, and let it reign: +He knoweth well His Gideon, +Through him already hath begun + Thee and His Word sustain. + +Sure word of God it is to fell +That Satan, world, and gates of hell, + And all their following, +Must come at last to misery: +God is with us,--with God are we,-- + He will the victory bring. + +Here is certainly a falling off from Luther's _Ein feste Burg_, +but his spirit was in the fight; and the hymn is wonderfully improved +when the great Swedish captain takes it to his death. + +Von Kleist (1715-1759) studied law at Königsberg, but later became an +officer in the Prussian service. He wrote, in 1759, an ode to the +Prussian army, was wounded at the Battle of Künersdorf, where Frederic +the Great lost his army and received a ball in his snuff-box. His +poetry is very poor stuff. The weight of the enemy crushes down the +hills and makes the planet tremble; agony and eternal night impend; and +where the Austrian horses drink, the water fails. But his verses were +full of good advice to the soldiers, to spare, in the progress of their +great achievements, the poor peasant who is not their foe, to help his +need, and to leave pillage to Croats and cowards. The advice was less +palatable to Frederic's troops than the verses. + +But there were two famous soldier's songs, of unknown origin, the pets +of every camp, which piqued all the poets into writing war-verses as +soon as the genius of Frederic kindled such enthusiasm among +Prussians. The first was an old one about Prince Eugene, who was +another hero, loved in camps, and besung with ardor around every +watchfire. It is a genuine soldier's song. + +Prince Eugene, the noble captain, +For the Kaiser would recover + Town and fortress of Belgrade; +So he put a bridge together +To transport his army thither, + And before the town parade. + +When the floating bridge was ready, +So that guns and wagons steady + Could pass o'er the Danube stream, +By Semlin a camp collected. +That the Turks might be ejected, + To their great chagrin and shame. + +Twenty-first of August was it, +When a spy in stormy weather + Came, and told the Prince and swore +That the Turks they all amounted, +Near, at least, as could be counted, + To three hundred thousand men, or more. + +Prince Eugenius never trembled +At the news, but straight assembled + All his generals to know: +Them he carefully instructed +How the troops should be conducted + Smartly to attack the foe. + +With the watchword he commanded +They should wait till twelve was sounded + At the middle of the night; +Mounting then upon their horses, +For a skirmish with the forces, + Go in earnest at the fight. + +Straightway all to horseback getting, +Weapons handy, forth were setting + Silently from the redoubt: +Musketeers, dragooners also, +Bravely fought and made them fall so,-- + Led them such a dance about. + +And our cannoneers advancing +Furnished music for the dancing, + With their pieces great and small; +Great and small upon them playing, +Heathen were averse to staying, + Ran, and did not stay at all. + +Prince Eugenius on the right wing +Like a lion did his fighting, + So he did field-marshal's part: +Prince Ludwig rode from one to th' other, +Cried, "Keep firm, each German brother, + Hurt the foe with all your heart!" + +Prince Ludwig, struck by bullet leaden, +With his youthful life did redden, + And his soul did then resign: +Badly Prince Eugene wept o'er him, +For the love he always bore him,-- + Had him brought to Peterwardein. + +The music is peculiar,--one flat, 3/4 time,--a very rare measure, and +giving plenty of opportunity for a quaint camp-style of singing. + +The other song appeared during Frederic's Silesian War. It contains +some choice reminiscences of his favorite rhetoric. + +Fridericus Rex, our master and king, +His soldiers altogether to the field would bring, +Battalions two hundred, and a thousand squadrons clear, +And cartridges sixty to every grenadier. + +"Cursed fellows, ye!"--his Majesty began,-- +"For me stand in battle, each man to man; +Silesia and County Glatz to me they will not grant, +Nor the hundred millions either which I want. + +"The Empress and the French have gone to be allied, +And the Roman kingdom has revolted from my side, +And the Russians are bringing into Prussia war;-- +Up, let us show them that we Prussians are! + +"My General Schwerin, and Field-Marshal Von Keith, +And Von Ziethen, Major-General, are ready for a fight; +Turban-spitting Element! Cross and Lightning get +Who has not found Fritz and his soldiers out yet! + +"Now adieu, Louisa![13]--Louisa, dry your eyes! +There's not a soldier's life for every ball that flies; +For if all the bullets singly hit their men, +Where could our Majesties get soldiers then? + +"Now the hole a musket-bullet makes is small,-- +'T is a larger hole made by a cannon-ball; +But the bullets all are of iron and of lead, +And many a bullet goes for many overhead. + +"'T is a right heavy calibre to our artillery, +And never goes a Prussian over to the enemy, +For 't is cursed bad money that the Swedes have to pay; +Is there any better coin of the Austrian?--who can say? + +"The French are paid off in pomade by their king, +But each week in pennies we get our reckoning; +Sacrament of Cross and Lightning! Turbans, spit away! +Who draws so promptly as the Prussian his pay?" + +With a laurel-wreath adorned, Fridericus my King, +If you had only oftener permitted plundering, +Fredericus Rex, king and hero of the fight, +We would drive the Devil for thee out of sight! + +[Footnote 13: His queen] + +Among the songs which the military ardor of this period stimulated, the +best are those by Gleim, (1719-1803) called "Songs of a Prussian +Grenadier." All the literary men, Lessing not excepted, were seized +with the Prussian enthusiasm; the pen ravaged the domain of sentiment +to collect trophies for Father Friedrich. The desolation it produced in +the attempt to write the word Glory could be matched only by the +sword. But Gleim was a man of spirit and considerable power. The shock +of Frederic's military successes made him suddenly drop the pen with +which he had been inditing Anacreontics, and weak, rhymeless Horatian +moods. His grenadier-songs, though often meagre and inflated, and +marked with the literary vices of the time, do still account for the +great fame which they acquired, as they went marching with the finest +army that Europe ever saw. Here is a specimen:-- + +VICTORY-SONG AFTER THE BATTLE NEAR PRAGUE. + +Victoria! with us is God; + There lies the haughty foe! +He falls, for righteous is our God; + Victoria! he lies low. + +'T is true our father[14] is no more, + Yet hero-like be went, +And now the conquering host looks o'er + From high and starry tent. + +The noble man, he led the way + For God and Fatherland, +And scarce was his old head so gray + As valiant his hand. + +With fire of youth and hero-craft + A banner snatching, he +Held it aloft upon its shaft + For all of us to see; + +And said,--"My children, now attack,-- + Take each redoubt and gun!" +And swifter than the lightning track + We followed, every one. + +Alas, the flag that led the strife + Falls with him ere we win! +It was a glorious end of life: + O fortunate Schwerin! + +And when thy Frederic saw thee low, + From out his sobbing breath +His orders hurled us on the foe + In vengeance for thy death. + +Thou, Henry,[15] wert a soldier true, + Thou foughtest royally! +From deed to deed our glances flew, + Thou lion-youth, with thee! + +A Prussian heart with valor quick, + Right Christian was his mood: +Red grew his sword, and flowing thick + His steps with Pandourt[16]-blood. + +Full seven earth-works did we clear, + The bear-skins broke and fled; +Then, Frederic, went thy grenadier + High over heaps of dead: + +Remembered, in the murderous fight, + God, Fatherland, and thee,-- +Turned, from the deep and smoky night, + His Frederic to see, + +And trembled,--with a flush of fear + His visage mounted high; +He trembled, not that death was near, + But lest thou, too, shouldst die: + +Despised the balls like scattered seed, + The cannon's thunder-tone, +Fought fiercely, did a hero's deed, + Till all thy foes had flown. + +Now thanks he God for all His might, + And sings, Victoria! +And all the blood from out this fight + Flows to Theresia. + +And if she will not stay the plague, + Nor peace to thee concede, +Storm with us, Frederic, first her Prague, + Then, to Vienna lead! + +[Footnote 14: Marshal Schwerin, seventy years of age, who was killed at +the head of a regiment, with its colors in his hand, just as it crossed +through the fire to the enemy's intrenchments.] + +[Footnote 15: The King's brother.] + +[Footnote 16: A corps of foot-soldiers in the Austrian service, +eventually incorporated in the army. They were composed of Servians, +Croats, etc., inhabitants of the military frontier, and were named +originally from the village of Pandúr in Lower Hungary, where probably +the first recruits were gathered.] + +The love which the soldiers had for Frederic survived in the army after +all the veterans of his wars had passed away. It is well preserved in +this camp-song:-- + +THE INVALIDES AT FATHER FREDERIC'S GRAVE. + +Here stump we round upon our crutches, round our Father's grave we go, +And from our eyelids down our grizzled beards the bitter tears will +flow. + +'T was long ago, with Frederic living, that we + got our lawful gains: +A meagre ration now they serve us,--life's no + longer worth the pains. + +Here stump we round, deserted orphans, and + with tears each other see,-- +Are waiting for our marching orders hence, + to be again with thee. + +Yes, Father, only could we buy thee, with our + blood, by Heaven, yes,-- +We Invalides, forlorn detachment, straight + through death would storming press! + +When the German princes issued to their subjects unlimited orders for +Constitutions, to be filled up and presented after the domination of +Napoleon was destroyed, all classes hastened, fervid with hope and +anti-Gallic feeling, to offer their best men for the War of Liberation. +Then the poets took again their rhythm from an air vibrating with the +cannon's pulse. There was Germanic unity for a while, fed upon +expectation and the smoke of successful fields. Most of the songs of +this period have been already translated. Ruckert, in a series of +verses which he called "Sonnets in Armor," gave a fine scholarly +expression to the popular desires. Here is his exultation over the +Battle of Leipsic:-- + +Can there no song + Roar with a might + Loud as the fight +Leipsic's region along? + +Three days and three nights, + No moment of rest, + And not for a jest, +Went thundering the fights. + +Three days and three nights + Leipsic Fair kept: Frenchmen who pleasured + There with an iron yardstick were measured, +Bringing the reckoning with them to rights. + +Three days and all night + A battue of larks the Leipsicker make; + Every haul a hundred he takes, +A thousand each flight. + +Ha! it is good, + Now that the Russian can boast no longer + He alone of us is stronger +To slake his steppes with hostile blood. + +Not in the frosty North alone, + But here in Meissen, + Here at Leipsic on the Pleissen, +Can the French be overthrown. + +Shallow Pleissen deep is flowing; + Plains upheaving, + The dead receiving, +Seem to mountains for us growing. + +They will be our mountains never, + But this fame + Shall be our claim +On the rolls of earth forever. + +What all this amounted to, when the German people began to send in +their constitutional _cartes-blanches_, is nicely taken off by +Hoffman von Fallersleben, in this mock war-song, published in 1842:-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the beating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man. +Rouse, rouse +From earth and house! +Ye women and children, good night! +Forth we hasten, we hasten to the fight, +With God for our King and Fatherland. + +_A night-patrol of 1813 sings_. + +O God! and why, and why, +For princes' whim, renown, and might, + To the fight? +For court-flies and other crows, + To blows? +For the nonage of our folk, + Into smoke? +For must-war-meal and class-tax, + To thwacks? +For privilege and censordom-- + Hum-- +Into battle without winking? + But--I was thinking-- + +_All sing_. + +Hark to the heating drum! +See how the people come! +Flag in the van! +We follow, man for man: +In battle's roar +The time is o'er +To ask for reasons,--hear, the drum +Again is calling,--tum--tum--tum,-- +With God for King and Fatherland. + +Or to put it in two stanzas of his, written on a visit to the Valhalla, +or Hall of German Worthies, at Regensburg:-- + +I salute thee, sacred Hall, + Chronicle of German glory! +I salute ye, heroes all + Of the new time and the hoary! + +Patriot heroes, from your sleep + Into being could ye pass! +No, a king would rather keep + Patriots in stone and brass. + +The Danish sea-songs, like those of the English, are far better than +the land-songs of the soldiers: but here is one with a true and +temperate sentiment, which the present war will readily help us to +appreciate. It is found in a book of Danish popular songs. [17] + +[Footnote 17: _Sange til Brug fřr blandede Selskaber_, samlade af +FREDERIK SCHALDEMOSE. 1816. Songs for Use in Social Meetings, etc.] +(_Herlig er Krigerens Faerd_.) + +Good is the soldier's trade, +For envy well made: +The lightning-blade + Over force-men he swingeth; + A loved one shall prize + The honor he bringeth; +Is there a duty? +That's soldier's booty,-- +To have it he dies. + +True for his king and land +The Northman will stand; +An oath is a band,-- + He never can rend it; + The dear coast, 't is right + A son should defend it; +For battle he burneth, +Death's smile he returneth, + And bleeds with delight. + +Scars well set off his face,-- +Each one is a grace; +His profit they trace,-- + No labor shines brighter: + A wreath is the scar + On the brow of a fighter; +His maid thinks him fairer, +His ornament rarer + Than coat with a star. + +Reaches the king his hand, +That makes his soul grand, +And fast loyal band + Round his heart it is slinging; + From Fatherland's good +The motion was springing: +His deeds so requited, +Is gratefully lighted + A man's highest mood. + +Bravery's holy fire, +Beam nobler and higher, +And light our desire + A path out of madness! + By courage and deed + We conquer peace-gladness: +We suffer for that thing, +We strike but for that thing, + And gladly we bleed. + +But our material threatens the space we have at command. Four more +specimens must suffice for the present. They are all favorite +soldier-songs. The first is by Chamisso, known popularly as the author +of "Peter Schlemihl's Shadow," and depicts the mood of a soldier who +has been detailed to assist in a military execution:-- + +The muffled drums to our marching play. +How distant the spot, and how long the way! +Oh, were I at rest, and the bitterness through! +Methinks it will break my heart in two! + +Him only I loved of all below,-- +Him only who yet to death must go; +At the rolling music we parade, +And of me too, me, the choice is made! + +Once more, and the last, he looks upon +The cheering light of heaven's sun; +But now his eyes they are binding tight: +God grant to him rest and other light! + +Nine muskets are lifted to the eye, +Eight bullets have gone whistling by; +They trembled all with comrades' smart,-- +But I--I hit him in his heart! + +The next is by Von Holtei:-- + +THE VETERAN TO HIS CLOAK. + +Full thirty years art thou of age, hast many a + storm lived through, + Brother-like hast round me tightened, + And whenever cannons lightened, +Both of us no terror knew. + +Wet soaking to the skin we lay for many a + blessed night, + Thou alone hast warmth imparted, + And if I was heavy-hearted, +Telling thee would make me light. + +My secrets thou hast never spoke, wert ever still and true; + Every tatter did befriend me, + Therefore I'll no longer mend thee, +Lest, old chap, 't would make thee new. + +And dearer still art thou to ma when jests about thee roll; + For where the rags below are dropping, + There went through the bullets popping,-- +Every bullet makes a hole. + +And when the final bullet comes to stop a German heart, + Then, old cloak, a grave provide me, + Weather-beaten friend, still hide me, +As I sleep in thee apart. + +There lie we till the roll-call together in the grave: + For the roll I shall be heedful, + Therefore it will then be needful +For me an old cloak to have. + +The next one is taken from a student-song book, and was probably +written in 1814:-- + +THE CANTEEN. + +Just help me, Lottie, as I spring; + My arm is feeble, see,-- +I still must have it in a sling; + Be softly now with me! +But do not let the canteen slip,-- + Here, take it first, I pray,-- +For when that's broken from my lip, + All joys will flow away. + +"And why for that so anxious?--pshaw! + It is not worth a pin: +The common glass, the bit of straw, + And not a drop within!" +No matter, Lottie, take it out,-- + 'T is past your reckoning: +Yes, look it round and round about,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +By Leipsic near, if you must know,-- + 'T was just no children's play,-- +A ball hit me a grievous blow, + And in the crowd I lay; +Nigh death, they bore me from the scene, + My garments off they fling, +Yet held I fast by my canteen,-- + There drank from it--my King! + +For once our ranks in passing through + He paused,--we saw his face; +Around us keen the volleys flew, + He calmly kept his place. +He thirsted,--I could see it plain, + And courage took to bring +My old canteen for him to drain,-- + He drank from it--my King! + +He touched me on the shoulder here, + And said, "I thank thee, friend, +Thy liquor gives me timely cheer,-- + Thou didst right well intend." +O'erjoyed at this, I cried aloud, + "O comrades, who can bring +Canteen like this to make him proud?-- + There drank from it--my King!" + +That old canteen shall no one have, + The best of treasures mine; +Put it at last upon my grave, + And under it this line: +"He fought at Leipsic, whom this green + Is softly covering; +Best household good was his canteen,-- + There drank from it--his King!" + +And finally, a song for all the campaigns of life:-- + +Morning-red! morning-red! +Lightest me towards the dead! +Soon the trumpets will be blowing, +Then from life must I be going, + I, and comrades many a one. + +Soon as thought, soon as thought, +Pleasure to an end is brought; +Yesterday upon proud horses,-- +Shot to-day, our quiet corses + Are to-morrow in the grave. + +And how soon, and how soon, +Vanish shape and beauty's noon! +Of thy cheeks a moment vaunting, +Like the milk and purple haunting,-- + Ah, the roses fade away! + +And what, then, and what, then, +Is the joy and lust of men? +Ever caring, ever getting, +From the early morn-light fretting + Till the day is past and gone. + +Therefore still, therefore still +I content me, as God will: +Fighting stoutly, nought shall shake me: +For should death itself o'ertake me, + Then a gallant soldier dies. + + + + +FROUDE'S HENRY THE EIGHTH. + + +The spirit of historical criticism in the present age is on the whole a +charitable spirit. Many public characters have been heard through their +advocates at the bar of history, and the judgments long since passed +upon them and their deeds, and deferentially accepted for centuries, +have been set aside, and others of a widely different character +pronounced. Julius Caesar, who was wont to stand as the model usurper, +and was regarded as having wantonly destroyed Roman liberty in order to +gratify his towering ambition, is now regarded as a political reformer +of the very highest and best class,--as the man who alone thoroughly +understood his age and his country, and who was Heaven's own instrument +to rescue unnumbered millions from the misrule of an oligarchy whose +members looked upon mankind as their proper prey. He did not overthrow +the freedom of Rome, but he took from Romans the power to destroy the +personal freedom of all the races by them subdued. He identified the +interests of the conquered peoples with those of the central +government, so far as that work was possible,--thus proceeding in the +spirit of the early Roman conquerors, who sought to comprehend even the +victims of their wars in the benefits which proceeded from those wars. +This view of his career is a sounder one than that which so long +prevailed, and which enabled orators to round periods with references +to the Rubicon. It is not thirty years since one of the first of +American statesmen told the national Senate that "Julius Caesar struck +down Roman liberty at Pharsalia," and probably there was not one man in +his audience who supposed that he was uttering anything beyond a +truism, though they must have been puzzled to discover any resemblance +between "the mighty Julius" and Mr. Martin Van Buren, the gentleman +whom the orator was cutting up, and who was actually in the chair while +Mr. Calhoun was seeking to kill him, in a political sense, by +quotations from Plutarch's Lives. We have learnt something since 1834 +concerning Rome and Caesar as well as of our own country and its +chiefs, and the man who should now bring forward the conqueror of Gaul +as a vulgar usurper would be almost as much laughed at as would be that +man who should insist that General Jackson destroyed American liberty +when he removed the deposits from the national bank. The facts and +fears of one generation often furnish material for nothing but jests +and jeers to that generation's successors; and we who behold a million +of men in arms, fighting for or against the American Union, and all +calling themselves Americans, are astonished when we read or remember +that our immediate predecessors in the political world went to the +verge of madness on the Currency question. Perhaps the men of 1889 may +be equally astonished, when they shall turn to files of newspapers that +were published in 1862, and read therein the details of those events +that now excite so painful an interest in hundreds of thousands of +families. Nothing is so easy as to condemn the past, except the +misjudging of the present, and the failure to comprehend the future. + +Men of a very different stamp from the first of the Romans have been +allowed the benefits that come from a rehearing of their causes. +Robespierre, whose deeds are within the memory of many yet living, has +found champions, and it is now admitted by all who can effect that +greatest of conquests, the subjugation of their prejudices, that he was +an honest fanatic, a man of iron will, but of small intellect, who had +the misfortune, the greatest that can fall to the lot of humanity, to +be placed by the force of circumstances in a position which would have +tried the soundest of heads, even had that head been united with the +purest of hearts. But the apologists of "the sea-green incorruptible," +it must be admitted, have not been very successful, as the sence of +mankind revolts at indiscriminate murder, even when the murderer's +hands have no other stain than that which comes from blood,--for that +is a stain which will not "out"; not even printer's ink can erase or +cover it; and the attorney of Arras must remain the Raw-Head and +Bloody-Bones of history. Benedict Arnold has found no direct defender +or apologist; but those readers who are unable to see how forcibly +recent writers have dwelt upon the better points of his character and +career, while they have not been insensible to the provocations he +received, must have read very carelessly and uncritically indeed. Mr. +Paget has all but whitewashed Marlborough, and has shaken many men's +faith in the justice of Lord Macauley's judgement and in the accuracy +of his assertions. Richard III., by all who can look through the clouds +raised by Shakespeare over English history of the fifteenth century, is +admitted to have been a much better man and ruler than were the average +of British monarchs from the Conquest to the Revolution, thanks to the +labors of Horace Walpole and Caroline Halsted, who, however, have only +followed in the path struck out by Sir George Buck at a much earlier +period. The case of Mary Stuart still remains unsettled, and bids fair +to be the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of history; but this is owing to +the circumstance that that unfortunate queen is so closely associated +with the origin of our modern parties that justice where her reputation +is concerned is scarcely to be looked for. Little has been said for +King John; and Mr. Woolryche's kind attempt to reconcile men to the +name of Jeffreys has proved a total failure. Strafford has about as +many admirers as enemies among those who know his history, but this is +due more to the manner of his death than to any love of his life: of so +much more importance is it that men should die well than live well, so +far as the judgement of posterity is concerned with their actions. + +Strafford's master, who so scandalously abandoned him to the headsman, +owes the existence of the party that still upholds his conduct to the +dignified manner in which he faced death, a death at which the whole +world "assisted," or might have done so. Catiline, we believe, has +found no formal defender, but the Catilinarian Conspiracy is now +generally admitted to have been the Popish Plot of antiquity, with an +ounce of truth to a pound of falsehood in the narratives of it that +have come down to us from Rome's revolutionary age, in political +pamphlets and party orations. Cicero's craze on the subject, and that +tendency which all men have to overrate the value of their own actions, +have made of the business in his lively pages a much more consequential +affair than it really was. The fleas in the microscope, and there it +will ever remain, to be mistaken for a monster. Truly, the Tullian +gibbeted the gentleman of the Sergian _gens_. It must be confessed +that Catiline was a proper rascal. How could he have been anything +else, and be one of Sulla's men? And a proper rascal is an improper +character of the very worst kind. Still, we should like to have had his +marginal "notes" on Cicero's speeches, and on Sallust's job pamphlet. +They would have been mighty interesting reading,--as full of lies, +probably, as the matter commented on, but not the less attractive on +that account. What dull affairs libraries would be, if they contained +nothing but books full of truth! The Greek tyrants have found +defenders, and it has been satisfactorily made out that they were the +cleverest men of their time, and that, if they did occasionally bear +rather hard upon individuals, it was only because those individuals +were so unreasonable as not to submit to be robbed or killed in a quiet +and decorous manner. Mr. Grote's rehabilitation of the Greek sophists +is a miracle of ingenuity and sense, and does as much honor to the man +who wrote it as justice to the men of whom it is written. + +Of the doubtful characters of history, royal families have furnished +not a few, some of whom have stood in as bad positions as those which +have been assigned to Robespierre and his immediate associates. +Catharine de' Medici and Mary I. of England, the "Bloody Mary" of +anti-Catholic localities, are supposed to be models of evil, to be in +crinoline; but if you can believe Eugenio Albčri, Catharine was not the +harlot, the tyrant, the poisoner, the bigot, and the son-killer that +she passes for in the common estimation, and he has made out a capital +defence for the dead woman whom he selected as his client. The Massacre +of St. Bartholomew was not an "Italian crime," but a French _coup +d'état_, and was as rough and coarse as some similar transactions +seen by our grandfathers, say the September prison-business at Paris in +1792. As to Mary Tudor, she was an excellent woman, but a bigot; and if +she did turn Mrs. Rogers and her eleven children out to the untender +mercies of a cold world, by sending Mr. Rogers into a hot fire, it was +only that souls might be saved from a hotter and a huger fire,--a sort +of argument the force of which we always have been unable to +appreciate, no doubt because we are of the heretics, and never believed +that persons belonging to our determination ought to be roasted. The +incense of the stake, that was so sweet in ecclesiastical nostrils +three hundred years ago, and also in vulgar nostrils wherever the +vulgar happened to be of the orthodox persuasion, has become an +insufferable stench to the more refined noses of the nineteenth +century, which, nevertheless, are rather partial to the odor of the +gallows. Miss Strickland and other clever historians may dwell upon the +excellence of Mary Tudor's private character with as much force as they +can make, or with much greater force they may show that Gardiner and +other reactionary leaders were the real fire-raisers of her reign; but +the common mind will ever, and with great justice, associate those +loathsome murders with the name and memory of the sovereign in whose +reign they were perpetrated. + +The father of Mary I. stands much more in need of defence and apology +than does his daughter. No monarch occupies so strange a position in +history as Henry VIII. A sincere Catholic, so far as doctrine went, and +winning from the Pope himself the title of Defender of the Faith +because of his writing against the grand heresiarch of the age, he +nevertheless became the chief instrument of the Reformation, the man +and the sovereign without whose aid the reform movement of the +sixteenth century would have failed as deplorably as the reform +movements of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries had failed. A +legitimate king, though the heir of a successful usurpation, and +holding the royal prerogative as high as any man who ever grasped the +sceptre, he was the tool of the mightiest of revolutionists, and poured +out more royal and noble blood than ever flowed at the command of all +the Jacobins and Democrats that have warred against thrones and +dynasties and aristocracies. He is abhorred of Catholics, and +Protestants do not love him; for he pulled down the old religious +fabric of his kingdom, and furnished to the Reformers a permanent +standing-place from which to move the world, while at the same time he +slaughtered Protestants as ruthlessly as ever they were disposed of by +any ruler of the Houses of Austria and Valois. Reeking with blood, and +apparently insensible to anything like a humane feeling, he was yet +popular with the masses of his subjects, and no small share of that +popularity has descended to our time, in which he is admired by the +unreflecting because of the boldness and dash of his actions and on +account of the consequences of those actions, so that he is commonly +known as "bluff King Hal," a title that speaks more as to the general +estimate of his character than would a whole volume of professed +personal panegyric, or of elaborate defence of his policy and his +deeds. But this is not sufficient for those persons who would have +reasons for their historical belief, and who seek to have a solid +foundation for the faith they feel in the real greatness of the second +Tudor king of England. Men of ability have occasionally sought to +create an intelligible Henry VIII., and to cause us to respect one +whose doings have so potently affected human affairs through ten +generations, and the force of whose labors, whether those labors were +blindly or rationally wrought, is apparently as unspent as it was on +that day on which, having provided for the butchery of the noblest of +his servants, he fell into his final sleep. At the head of these +philosophic writers, and so far ahead of them as to leave them all out +of sight, is Mr. James Anthony Froude, whose "History of England from +the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth" has been brought down to +the death of Mary I., in six volumes,--another proof of the grand scale +on which history is now written, in order that it may be read on the +small scale; for it is not given to many men to have the time for study +which even a moderate modern course of history requires in these active +days. Mr. Froude is a very different writer from Dr. Nares, but the +suggestions made to the heavy Doctor by Macaulay might be borne in mind +by the lively historian. He should remember that "the life of man is +now threescore years and ten," and not "demand from us so large a +portion of so short an existence" as must necessarily be required for +the perusal of a history which gives an octavo volume for every five +years of the annals of a small, though influential monarchy. + +Mr. Froude did not commence his work in a state of blind admiration of +his royal hero,--the tone of his first volume being quite calm, and on +the whole as impartial as could reasonably have been expected from an +Englishman writing of the great men of a great period in his country's +history; but so natural is it for a man who has assumed the part of an +advocate to identify himself with the cause of his client, that our +author rapidly passes from the character of a mere advocate to that of +a partisan, and by the time that he has brought his work down to the +execution of Thomas Cromwell, Henry has risen to the rank of a saint, +with a more than royal inability to do any wrong. That "the king can do +no wrong" is an English constitutional maxim, which, however sound it +may be in its proper place, is not to be introduced into history, +unless we are desirous of seeing that become a mere party-record. The +practice of publishing books in an incomplete state is one that by no +means tends to render them impartial, when they relate to matters that +are in dispute. Mr. Froude's first and second volumes, which bring the +work down to the murder of Anne Boleyn, afforded the most desirable +material for the critics, many of whom most pointedly dissented from +his views, and some of whom severely attacked his positions, and not +always unsuccessfully. They were, naturally, not disposed to think that +an act bad in itself changed its character when it became the act of +Henry VIII. It was contrary to all human experience to suppose that +Henry was in all cases in the right, while his opponents and his +victims were as invariably in the wrong. If there ever had lived and +reigned a man who could not do wrong, it was preposterous to look for +him in one who had been a wife-killer, a persecutor, the slayer of the +nobility of his kingdom, the exterminator of the last remnants of an +old royal race, the patron of fagots and ropes and axes, and a +hard-hearted and selfish voluptuary, who seems never to have been open +to one kind or generous feeling. Most of those tyrants that have been +hung up on high, by way of warning to despots, have had their +"uncorrupted hours," in which they vindicated their claim to humanity +by the performance of some good deeds. Gratitude for some such acts is +supposed to have caused even the tomb of Nero to be adorned with +garlands. But Henry VIII. never had a kind moment. He was the same +moral monster at eighteen, when he succeeded to his sordid, selfish +father, that he was at fifty-six, when he, a dying man, employed the +feeble remnants of his once Herculean strength to stamp the +death-warrants of innocent men. No wonder that Mr. Froude's critics +failed to accept his estimate of Henry, or that they arrayed anew the +long list of his shocking misdeeds, and dwelt with unction on his total +want of sympathy with ordinary humanity. As little surprising is it +that Mr. Froude's attachment to the kingly queen-killer should be +increased by the course of the critics. That is the usual course. The +biographer comes to love the man whom at first he had only endured. To +endurance, according to the old notion, succeeds pity, and then comes +the embrace. And that embrace is all the warmer because others have +denounced the party to whom it is extended. It is fortunate that no man +of talent has ever ventured to write the biography of Satan. Assuredly, +had any such person done so, there would have been one sincere, +enthusiastic, open, devout Devil-worshipper on earth, which would have +been a novel, but not altogether a moral, spectacle for the eyes of +men. A most clear, luminous and unsatisfactory account of the conduct +of Satan in Eden would have been furnished, and it would have been +logically made out that all the fault of the first recorded son was +with Eve, who had been the temptress, not the tempted, and who had +taken advantage of the Devil's unsophisticated nature to impose upon +his innocence and simplicity, and then had gone about among "the +neighbors" to scandalize his character at tea-tables and +quilting-parties. + +Mr. Froude is too able a man to seek to pass crude eulogy of Henry +VIII. upon the world. He knows that the reason why this or that or the +other thing was done is what his readers will demand, and he does his +best to meet their requirements. Very plausible, and very well +sustained by numerous facts, as well as by philosophical theory, is the +position which he assumes in reference to Henry's conduct. Henry, +according to the Froudean theory, was troubled about the succession to +the throne. His great purpose was to prevent the renewal of civil war +in England, a war for the succession. When he divorced Catharine of +Aragon, when he married Anne Boleyn, when he libelled and murdered Anne +Boleyn, when he wedded Jane Seymour, when he became disgusted with and +divorced Anne of Cleves, when he married and when he beheaded Catharine +Howard, when he patronized, used, and rewarded Cromwell, and when he +sent Cromwell to the scaffold and refused to listen to his plaintive +plea for mercy, when he caused Plantagenet and Neville blood to flow +like water from the veins of old women as well as from those of young +men, when he hanged Catholics and burned Protestants, when he caused +Surrey to lose the finest head in England,--in short, no matter what he +did, he always had his eye steadily fixed across that boiling sea of +blood that he had created upon one grand point, namely, the +preservation of the internal peace of England, not only while he +himself should live, but after his death. His son, or whoso should be +his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should +be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most +of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet. +Church-yards were to be filled in order that all England might be +reduced to the condition of a church-yard. That _Red Spectre_ +which has so often frightened even sensible men since 1789, and caused +some remarkably humiliating displays of human weakness during our +generation and its immediate predecessor, was, it should seem, ever +present to the eyes of Henry VIII. He saw Anarchy perpetually +struggling to get free from those bonds in which Henry VIII. had +confined that monster, and he cut off nearly every man or woman in +whose name a plea for the crown could be set up as against a Tudor +prince or princess. Like his father, to use Mr. Froude's admirable +expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and +he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously +disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would +naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually +striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by +ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a +failing business at the best. Men and women, patrician and plebeian, +might play at rebellion, if they liked it, but they should be made to +find that they were playing the losing game. + +Now, this succession-question theory has the merit of meeting the very +difficulty that besets us when we study the history of Henry's reign, +and it is justified by many things that belong to English history for a +period of more than two centuries,--that is to say, from the deposition +of Richard II., in 1399, to the death of Elizabeth, in 1603. It is a +strangely suggestive satire on the alleged excellence of hereditary +monarchy as a mode of government that promotes the existence of order +beyond any other, that England should not have been free from trouble +for two hundred years, because her people could not agree upon the +question of the right to the crown, and so long as that question was +left unsettled, there could be no such thing as permanent peace for +the castle or the cottage or the city. Town and country, citizen, +baron, and peasant, were alike dependent upon the ambition of aspiring +princes and king-makers for the condition of their existence. The folly +of Richard II. enabled Henry of Bolingbroke to convert his ducal +coronet into a royal crown, and to bring about that object which his +father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, seems to have ever had at +heart. Henry IV. was a usurper, in spite of his Parliamentary title, +according to all ideas of hereditary right; for, failing heirs of the +body to Richard II., the crown belonged to the House of Mortimer, in +virtue of the descent of its chief from the Duke of Clarence, third +son of Edward III, the Duke of Lancaster being fourth son of that +monarch. Henry IV. felt the force of the objection that existed to his +title, and he sought to evade it by pretending to found his claim to +the crown on descent from Edmund of Lancaster, whom he assumed to have +been the _elder_ brother of Edward I.; but no weight was attached +to this plea by his contemporaries, who saw in him a monarch created +by conquest and by Parliamentary action. The struggle that then began +endured until both Plantagenets and Tudors had become extinct, and +the English crown had passed to the House of Stuart, in the person of +James I., who was descended in the female line from the Duke of +Clarence, through Elizabeth Plantagenet, daughter of Edward IV., and +wife of Henry VII. Intrigues, insurrections, executions, and finally +great civil wars, grew out of the usurpation of the throne by the line +of Lancaster. We find the War of the Roses spoken of by nearly all +writers on it as beginning in 1455, when the first battle of St. Albans +was fought, but in fact the contest of which that war was but the +extreme utterance began nearly sixty years earlier than the day of the +Battle of St. Albans, its commencement dating from the time that Henry +IV. became King. A variety of circumstances prevented it from assuming +its severest development until long after all the actors in its early +stages had gone to their graves. Henry IV. was a man of superior +ability, which enabled him, though not without struggling hard for it, +to triumph over all his enemies; and his early death prevented a +renewal of the wars that had been waged against him. His son, the +overrated Henry V., who was far inferior to his father as a statesman, +entered upon a war with France, and so distracted English attention +from English affairs; and had he lived to complete his successes, all +objection to his title would have disappeared. Indeed, England herself +would have disappeared as a nation, becoming a mere French province, a +dependency of the House of Plantagenet reigning at Paris. But the +victor of Agincourt, like all the sovereigns of his line, died young, +comparatively speaking, and left his dominions to a child who was not a +year old, the ill-fated Henry VI. Then would have broken out the +quarrel that came to a head at the beginning of the next generation, +but for two circumstances. The first was, that the King's uncles were +able men, and maintained their brother's policy, and so continued that +foreign distraction which prevented the occurrence of serious internal +troubles for some years. The second was, that the Clarence or Mortimer +party had no leader. + +There is a strange episode in the history of Henry V., which shows how +unstable was the foundation of that monarch's throne. While he was +preparing, at Southampton, for the invasion of France, a conspiracy was +discovered to have been formed to take the throne from him. The chief +actor in it was the Earl of Cambridge, who was speedily tried, +convicted, and beheaded, sharing the fate of his associates. Cambridge +was a son of the Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III., and he had +married Anne Mortimer, daughter of Roger Earl of March; and the +intention of the conspirators was to have raised that lady's brother, +Edmund Earl of March, to Henry's place. March was a feeble character, +and Cambridge is believed to have looked to his own wife's becoming +Queen-Regnant of England. The plot, according to one account, was +betrayed by March to the King, and the latter soon got rid of one whose +daring character and ambitious purpose showed that he must be dangerous +as an opposition chief. Henry's enemies were thus left without a head, +in consequence of their leader's having lost his head; and the French +war rapidly absorbing men's attention, all doubts as to Henry's title +were lost sight of in the blaze of glory that came from the field of +Agincourt. The spirit of opposition, however, revived as soon as the +anti-Lancastrians obtained a leader, and public discontent had been +created by domestic misrule and failure in France. That leader was the +Duke of York, son of that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for +his part in the Southampton conspiracy, which conspiracy has been +called by an eminent authority the first spark of the flame which in +the course of time consumed the two Houses of York and Lancaster. Left +an infant of three years, it was long before York became a +party-leader, and probably he never would have disputed the succession +but for the weakness of Henry VI, which amounted to imbecility, and the +urging of stronger-minded men than himself. As it was, the open +struggle began in 1455, and did not end until the defeat and capture of +the person called Perkin Warbeck, in 1497. The greatest battles of +English history took place in the course of these campaigns, and the +greater part of the royal family and most of the old nobility perished +in them, or by assassination, or on the scaffold. + +But the Yorkist party, though vanquished, was far from extinguished by +the military and political successes of Henry VII. It testifies +emphatically to the original strength of that party, and to the extent +and the depth of its influence, that it should be found a powerful +faction as late as the last quarter of Henry VIII.'s reign, fifty years +after the Battle of Stoke. "The elements of the old factions were +dormant," says Mr. Froude, "but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's +reign a White-Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open +success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but +formidable in a high degree, if opportunity to strike should offer +itself. Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been +killed at Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than +weakened it, for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his +personal character was without energy; while he made place for the +leadership of a far more powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered +Earl of Warwick, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. +This lady had inherited, in no common degree, the fierce nature of the +Plantagenets; born to command, she had rallied round her the +Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful kindred of Richard the +King-Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent was purer than the +King's; and on his death, without a male child, half England was likely +to declare either for one of her sons, or for the Marquis of Exeter, +the grandson of Edward IV." Of the general condition of the English +mind at about the date of the fall of Wolsey Mr. Froude gives us a very +accurate picture. "The country," he says, "had collected itself; the +feuds of the families had been chastened, if they had not been subdued; +while the increase of wealth and material prosperity had brought out +into obvious prominence those advantages of peace which a hot-spirited +people, antecedent to experience, had not anticipated, and had not been +able to appreciate. They were better fed, better cared for, more justly +governed, than they had ever been before; and though, abundance of +unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of the nation, looking +back from their new vantage-ground, were able to recognize the past in +its true hatefulness. Henceforward a war of succession was the +predominating terror with English statesmen, and the safe establishment +of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which it is possible +that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the determining +principle of their action. It was therefore with no little anxiety that +the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their +hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within +a few days of their birth, as if his family were under a blight. When +the Queen had advanced to an age which precluded hope of further +offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm girl, the unpromising +aspect became yet more alarming. The life of the Princess Mary was +precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, +her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not +live, and the King had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. +At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an immediate and +simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal family; the +crown would descend with even more facility than the property of an +intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been +recognized, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next +heir in blood was James of Scotland; and gravely as statesmen desired +the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the +very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a +king of Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the +Parliament itself declared in formal language that they would resist +any attempt on the part of the Scotch king 'to the uttermost of their +power.'" + +There can be no doubt that Mr. Froude has made out his case, and that +"the predominating terror," not only of English statesmen, but of the +English people and their King, was a war of succession. If we were not +convinced by what the historian says, we should only have to look over +the reign of Elizabeth, and observe how anxious the statesmen of that +time were to have the succession question settled, and how singular was +the effect of that question's existence and overshadowing importance on +the conduct of the Great Queen. The desire that she should marry, and +the pertinacity with which she was urged to abandon her maiden state by +Parliament, which strike us of the nineteenth century as being not +simply indelicate, but utterly gross even in the coarse sixteenth +century, must in fairness be attributed to the fear that prevailed +throughout England that that country might again become the theatre of +a civil conflict as extensive, as bloody, and as destructive of +material prosperity and moral excellence as had been the Wars of the +Roses,--a fear which the existence of the contest between Catholicism +and Protestantism was well calculated to exaggerate to a very alarming +extent. The coquetry and affectation of the Queen, which have been held +to detract largely from her claim to be considered a woman of sense and +capacity, become natural in her and intelligible to us when we consider +them in connection with the succession question. She could not +positively declare that she would under no circumstances become a +wife, but at the same time she was firm in her heart never to have a +husband. So she followed the politician's common plan: she compromised. +She allowed her hand to be sought by every empty-handed and +empty-headed and hollow-hearted prince or noble in Europe, determined +that each in his turn should go empty away; and so she played off +princes against her own people, until the course of years had left no +doubt that she had become, and must ever remain, indeed "a barren +stock." Her conduct, which is generally regarded as having been +ridiculous, and which may have been so in its details, and looked upon +only from its feminine side, throws considerable light upon the entire +field of English politics under the Tudor dynasty. + +If it could be established that the conduct of Henry VIII. toward his +people, his church, his nobles, and his wives was regulated solely with +reference to the succession question, and by his desire to preserve +the peace of his kingdom, we believe that few men would be disposed to +condemn most of those of his acts that have been long admitted to +blacken his memory, and which have placed him almost at the very head +of the long roll of heartless tyrants. That the end justifies the +means is a doctrine which everybody condemns by word of mouth, but the +practice founded upon which almost all men approve in their hearts, +whenever it applies to their own schemes, or to schemes the success of +which promises to benefit them, either individually or in the mass. As +the apologists of the French Jacobins have argued that their favorites +were cruel as the grave against Frenchmen only that they might +preserve France from destruction, so might the admirers of Henry plead +that he was vindictively cruel only that the English masses might live +in peace, and be protected in quietly tilling their fields, manuring +them after their own fashion, and not having them turned up and +fertilized after the fashion of Bosworth and Towton and Barnet. Surely +Henry Tudor, second of that name, is entitled to the same grace that is +extended to Maximilien Robespierre, supposing the facts to be in his +favor. + +But are the facts, when fairly stated, in his favor? They are not. His +advocates must find themselves terribly puzzled to reconcile his +practice with their theory. They prove beyond all dispute that the +succession question was the grand thought of England in Henry's time; +but they do not prove, because they cannot prove, that the King's +action was such as to show that he was ready, we will not say to make +important sacrifices to lessen the probabilities of the occurrence of a +succession war, but to do anything in that way that required him to +control any one of the gross passions or grosser appetites of which he +was throughout his loathsome life the slave and the victim. He seems to +have passed the last twenty years of his reign in doing deeds that give +flat contradiction to the theory set up by his good-natured admirers of +after-times, that he was the victim of circumstances, and that, though +one of the mildest and most merciful of men in fact, those villanous +circumstances did compel him to become a tyrant, a murderer, a +repudiator of sacramental and pecuniary and diplomatic obligations, a +savage on a throne, and a Nebuchadnezzar for pride and arrogance, only +that, unfortunately for his subjects in general, and for his wives in +particular, he was not turned out to grass. A beast in fact, he did not +become a beast in form. Scarcely one of his acts, after the divorce of +Catharine of Aragon, was of a character to favor the continuance of +peace in England, while many of them were admirably calculated to +bring about a war for the regal succession. Grant that he was justified +in putting away his Spanish wife,--a most excellent and eminently +disagreeable woman, a combination of qualities by no means +uncommon,--where was the necessity of his taking Anne Boleyn to wife? +Why could he not have given his hand to some foreign princess, and so +have atoned to his subjects for breaking up the Spanish alliance, in +the continuance of which the English people had no common political +interest, and an extraordinary commercial interest? Why could he not +have sent to Germany for some fair-haired princess, as he did years +later, and got Anne of Cleves for his pains, whose ugly face cost poor +Cromwell his head, which was giving the wisest head in England for +the worst one out of it? Henry, Mr. Froude would have us believe, +divorced Catharine of Aragon because he desired to have sons, as one +way to avoid the breaking out of a civil war; and yet it was a sure way +to bring Charles V. into an English dispute for the regal succession, +as the supporter of any pretender, to repudiate the aunt of that +powerful imperial and royal personage. The English nation, Mr. Froude +truly tells us, was at that time "sincerely attached to Spain. The +alliance with the House of Burgundy" (of which Charles V. was the head) +"was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was +enormous,--Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as +many as fifteen thousand Flemings were settled in London. Charles +himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the +late French war; and when, in his supposed character of leader of the +anti-Papal party in Europe, he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate +Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was +fomenting in the population." Was it not a strange way to proceed for +the preservation of peace in England to offend a foreign sovereign who +stood in so strong and influential a position to the English people? +Charles was not merely displeased because of the divorce of his +relative, his mother's sister, a daughter of the renowned Isabella, who +had wrought such great things for Christendom,--promoting the discovery +of America, and conquering Granada,--but he was incensed at the mere +thought of preferring to her place a private gentlewoman, who would +never have been heard of, if Henry had not seen fit to raise her from +common life, first to the throne, and then to the scaffold. That was an +insult to the whole Austro-Burgundian family, whose dominions rivalled +those of the Roman Caesars, and whose chief had just held a King of +France captive and a Pope of Rome besieged. The Emperor might, perhaps, +have been sooted, had his relative's place been bestowed upon some lady +of corresponding blueness of blood; but it offended his pride, when he +reflected on her being supplanted by Mrs. Boleyn. The aristocratical +_morgue_ was too strong in him to bear such an insult with +fortitude. Yet none other than Mrs. Boleyn would Henry have, +notwithstanding the certainty of enraging Charles, and with the equal +certainty of disgusting a majority of his own subjects. If it had been +simply a wife that he desired, and if he was thinking merely of the +succession, and so sought only for an opportunity to beget legitimate +children, why did he so pertinaciously insist upon having no one but +"Mistress Anne" for the partner of his throne and bed? + +When he married Jane Seymour on the 20th of May, 1536, having had +Anne's head cut off on the 19th, Mr. Froude sees in that infamous +proceeding--a proceeding without parallel in the annals of villany, +and which would have disgraced the worst members of Sawney Bean's +unpromising family--nothing but a simple business-transaction. The +Privy Council and the peers, troubled about the succession, asked +Henry to marry again without any delay, when Anne had been prepared for +condemnation. The King was graciously pleased to comply with this +request, which was probably made in compliance with suggestions from +himself,--the marriage with Jane Seymour having been resolved upon +long before it took place, and the desire to effect it being the cause +of the legal assassination of Anne Boleyn, which could be brought about +only through the "cooking" of a series of charges that could have +originated nowhere out of her husband's vile mind, and which led to the +deaths of six innocent persons. "The indecent haste" of the King's +marriage with the Seymour, Mr. Froude says, "is usually considered a +proof entirely conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin. To +myself the haste is an evidence of something very different. Henry, who +waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, was not without some control over +his passions; and if appetite had been the moving influence with him, +he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the world fixed upon his +conduct, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of which +he was the sovereign. The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a +proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act which +his duty required at the moment. This was the interpretation which +was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In the +absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among +contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth another judgment was +passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an Act of Parliament must +be considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture." +[Footnote: Mr. Froude mentions that a request that the King would +marry, similar to that which he received after the fall of Anne +Boleyn, was urged by the Council on the death of Jane Seymour; but, as +he allowed more than two years to elapse between the date of Jane's +death and the date of his marriage with Anne of Cleves, which marriage +he refused to consummate, is not the inference unavoidable that he +wedded Jane Seymour so hurriedly merely to gratify his desire to +possess her person, and that in 1537-39 he was singularly indifferent +to the claims of a question upon his attention?] + +We submit that the approving action of men who were partakers of +Henry's guilt is no proof of his innocence. Their conduct throughout +the Boleyn business simply proves that they were slaves, and that the +slaves were as brutal as their master. If Henry was so indifferent in +the matter of matrimony as to look upon all women with the same +feelings, if he married officially as the King, and not lovingly as a +man, how came it to pass that he was thrown into such an agony of rage, +when, being nearly fifty years old, ugly Anne of Cleves was provided +for him? His disappointment and mortification were then so great that +they hastened that political change which led to Cromwell's fall and +execution. When Henry first saw the German lady, he was as much +affected as George, Prince of Wales, was when he first saw Caroline of +Brunswick, but he behaved better than George in the lady's presence. +Much as he desired children, he never consummated his marriage with +Anne of Cleves, though he must have known that the world would be but +ill-peopled, if none but beautiful women were to be married. Had he +fulfilled the contract made with her, he might have had many sons and +daughters, and the House of Tudor might have been reigning over England +at this day. Both his fifth and sixth wives, Catharine Howard and +Catharine Parr, were fine women; and if he had lived long enough to get +rid of the latter, he would, beyond all question, have given her place +to the most beautiful woman whom he could have prevailed upon to risk +his perilous embraces preliminarily to those of the hangman. + +If Henry had married solely for the purpose of begetting children, he +never would have divorced and slaughtered Anne Boleyn. During her brief +connection with him, she gave birth to two children, one a still-born +son, and the other the future Queen Elizabeth, who lived to her +seventieth year, and whose enormous vitality and intellectual energy +speak well for the physical excellence of her mother. The miscarriage +that Anne experienced in February, 1536, was probably the occasion of +her repudiation and murder in the following May, as Henry was always +inclined to attribute disappointments of this kind to his wives, who +ever dwelt in the valley of the shadow of death.[Footnote: Henry +thought of divorcing Catharine of Aragon some years before she had +become too old to bear children. She was born in the last month of +1485, and the "King's secret matter," as the divorce question was +called, was in agitation as early as the first half of 1527, and +probably at an earlier period. Catharine was the mother of five +children, but one of whom lived, namely, the Princess Mary, afterward +Mary I.] The most charitable view that can be taken of Henry's +abominable treatment of his second wife is, that he was led by his +superstitious feelings, which _he_ called religion, to sacrifice +her to the manes of his first wife, whom Anne had badly treated, and +who died on the 7th of January, 1536. Henry, after his fashion, was +much moved by Catharine's death, and by perusal of the letter which she +wrote him from her dying bed; and so he resolved to make the only +atonement of which his savage nature was capable, and one, too, which +the bigoted Spanish woman would have been satisfied with, could she +have foreseen it. As the alliance between the royal houses of England +and Spain was sealed with the blood of the innocent Warwick, who was +sent to the scaffold by Henry VII. to satisfy Catharine's father, +Ferdinand of Aragon, so were the wrongs of Catharine to be acknowledged +by shedding the innocent blood of Anne Boleyn. The connection, as it +were, began with the butchery of a boy, reduced to idiocy by +ill-treatment, on Tower Hill, and it ended with the butchery of a +woman, who had been reduced almost to imbecility by cruelty, on the +Tower Green. Heaven's judgement would seem to have been openly +pronounced against that blood-cemented alliance, formed by two of the +greatest of those royal ruffians who figured in the fifteenth century, +and destined to lead to nothing but misery to all who were brought +together in consequence of it's having been made. If one were seeking +for proofs of the direct and immediate interposition of a Higher Power +in the ordering of human affairs, it would be no difficult matter to +discover them in the history of the royal houses of England during +the existence of the Lancastrian, the York, and the Tudor families. +Crime leads to crime therein in regular sequence, the guiltless +suffering with the guilty, and because of their connection with the +guilty, until the palaces of the Henries and the Edwards become as +haunted with horrors as were the halls of the Atridae. The "pale +nurslings that had perished by kindred hands," seen by Cassandra when +she passed the threshold of Agamemnon's abode, might have been +paralleled by similar "phantom dreams," had another Cassandra +accompanied Henry VII. when he came from Bosworth Field to take +possession of the royal abodes at London. She, too, might have spoken, +taking the Tower for her place of denunciation, of "that human +shamble-house, that bloody floor, that dwelling abhorred by Heaven, +privy to so many horrors against the most sacred ties." And she might +have seen in advance the yet greater horrors that were to come, and +that hung "over the inexpiable threshold; the curse passing from +generation to generation." + +Mr. Froude thinks that Catharine Howard, the fifth of Henry's wives, +was not only guilty of antenuptial slips, but of unfaithfulness to the +royal bed. It is so necessary to establish the fact of her infidelity, +in order to save the King's reputation,--for he could not with any +justice have punished her for the irregularities of her unmarried +life, and not even in this age, when we have organized divorce, could +such slips be brought forward against a wife of whom a husband had +become weary,--that we should be careful how we attach credit to what +is called the evidence against Catharine Howard; and her +contemporaries, who had means of weighing and criticizing that +evidence, did not agree in believing her guilty. Mr. Froude, who would, +to use a saying of Henry's time, find Abel guilty of murder of Cain, +were that necessary to support his royal favorite's hideous cause, not +only declares that the unhappy girl was guilty throughout, but lugs God +into the tragedy, and makes Him responsible for what was, perhaps, the +cruellest and most devilish of all the many murders perpetrated by +Henry VIII. The luckless lady was but a child at the time she was +devoured by "the jaws of darkness." At most she was but in her +twentieth year, and probably she was a year or two younger than that +age. Any other king than Henry would have pardoned her, if for no other +reason, then for this, that he had coupled her youth with his age, and +so placed her in an unnatural position, in which the temptation to +error was all the greater, and the less likely to be resisted, because +of the girl's evil training,--a training that could not have been +unknown to the King, and on the incidents of which the Protestant plot +for her ruin, and that of the political party of which she was the +instrument, had been founded. But of Henry VIII., far more truly than +of James II., could it have been said by any one of his innumerable +victims, that, though it was in his power to forgive an offender, it +was not in his nature to do so. + +No tyrant ever was preceded to the tomb by such an array of victims as +Henry VIII. If Shakspeare had chosen to bring the highest of those +victims around the last bed that Henry was to press on earth, after the +fashion in which he sent the real or supposed victims of Richard III. +to haunt the last earthly sleep of the last royal Plantagenet, he would +have had to bring them up by sections, and not individually, in +battalions, and not as single spies. Buckingham, Wolsey, More, Fisher, +Catharine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Rocheford, Cromwell, Catharine +Howard, Exeter, Montague, Lambert, Aske, Lady Salisbury, +Surrey,--these, and hundreds of others, selected principally from the +patrician order, or from the officers of the old church, might have led +the ghostly array which should have told the monarch to die and to +despair of redemption; while an innumerable host of victims of lower +rank might have followed these more conspicuous sufferers from the +King's "jealous rage." Undoubtedly some of these persons had justly +incurred death, but it is beyond belief that they were all guilty of +the crimes laid to their charge; yet Mr. Froude can find as little +good in any of them as of evil in Henry's treatment of them. He would +have us believe that Henry was scrupulously observant of the law! and +that he allowed Cromwell to perish because he had violated the laws of +England, and sought to carry out that "higher law" which politicians +out of power are so fond of appealing to, but which politicians in +power seldom heed. And such stuff we are expected to receive as +historical criticism, and the philosophy of history! And pray, of what +breach of the law had the Countess of Salisbury been guilty, that she +should be sent to execution when she had arrived at so advanced an age +that she must soon have passed away in the course of Nature? She was +one of Cromwell's victims, and as he had been deemed unfit to live +because of his violations of the laws of the realm, it would follow +that one whose attainder had been procured through his devices could +not be fairly put to death. She suffered ten months after Cromwell, and +could have committed no fresh offence in the interval, as she was a +prisoner in the Tower at the time of her persecutor's fall, and so +remained until the day of her murder. The causes of her death, +however, are not far to seek: she was the daughter of George +Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and Henry hated +every member of that royal race which the Tudors had supplanted; and +she was the mother of Reginald Pole, whom the King detested both for +his Plantagenet blood and for the expositions which he made of the +despot's crimes. + +One of the victims sacrificed by Mr. Froude on the altar of his Moloch +even he must have reluctantly brought to the temple, and have offered +up with a pang, but whose character he has blackened beyond all +redemption, as if he had used upon it all the dirt he has so +assiduously taken from the character of his royal favorite. There are +few names or titles of higher consideration than that of Henry Howard, +Earl of Surrey. It is sufficient to name Surrey to be reminded of the +high-born scholar, the gallant soldier, one of the founders of English +literature, and a poet of equal vigor of thought and melodiousness of +expression. His early and violent death, at the behest of a tyrant, +who himself had not ten days to live when he stamped--for he could no +longer write--the death-warrant of his noblest subject, has helped to +endear his memory for three centuries; and many a man whose sympathies +are entirely with the Reformation and the "new men" of 1546, regrets +the untimely death of the Byron of those days, though the noble poet +was at the head of the reactionary party, and desired nothing so much +as to have it in his power to dispose of the "new men," in which case +he would have had the heads of Hertford and his friends chopped off as +summarily as his own head fell before the mandate of the King. +Everything else is forgotten in the recollection of the Earl's youth, +his lofty origin, his brilliant talents, his rank as a man of letters, +and his prompt consignment to a bloody grave, the last of the legion of +patricians sent by Henry to the block or the gallows. Yet it is Surrey +upon whom Mr. Froude makes his last attack, and whom he puts down as a +dirty dog, in order that Henry VIII may not be seen devoting what were +all but his very latest hours to the task of completing the judicial +murder of one whom he hated because he was so wonderfully elevated +above all the rest of his subjects as to be believed capable of +snatching at the crown, though three of the King's children were then +alive, and there were several descendants of two of his sisters in both +Scotland and England. Because, of all men who were then living, Surrey +most deserved to reign over England, the jealous tyrant supposed there +could be no safety for his youthful son until the House of Howard had +been humiliated, and both its present head and its prospective head +ceased to exist. Not satisfied with attributing to him political +offences that do not necessarily imply baseness in the offender, Mr. +Froude indorses the most odious charges that have been brought against +Surrey, and which, if well founded, utterly destroy all his claims to +be considered, we will not say a man of honor, but a man of common +decency. Without having stated much that is absolutely new, Mr. Froude +has so used his materials as to create the impression that Surrey, the +man honored for three centuries as one of the most chivalrous of +Englishmen, and as imbued with the elevating spirit of poetry, was a +foul fellow, who sought to engage his sister in one of the vilest +intrigues ever concocted by courtier, in order that she might be made a +useful instrument in the work of changing the political condition of +England. Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond, +whom he had at one time thought of declaring his successor, died, +leaving a widow, who was Surrey's sister. This lady told Sir Gawin +Carew that her brother had advised her so to bear herself toward the +King that possibly "his Majesty might cast some love unto her, whereby +in process she should bear as great a stroke about him as Madame +d'Estampes did about the French king." Madame d'Estampes was the most +notorious and influential of Francis I.'s many mistresses; and if +Carew's evidence is to be depended upon, we see what was the part +assigned by Surrey to his sister in the political game the old +aristocracy and the Catholics were playing. She, the widow of the +King's son, was to seduce the King, and to become his mistress! Carew's +story was confirmed by another witness, and Lady Richmond had +complained of Surrey's "language to her with abhorrence and disgust, +and had added, 'that she defied her brother, and said that they should +all perish, and she would cut her own throat, rather than she would +consent to such villany.'" On Surrey's trial, Lady Richmond also +confirmed the story, and "revealed his deep hate of the 'new men,' who, +'when the King was dead,' he had sworn 'should smart for it.'" Such is +the tale, and such is the evidence upon which it rests. Its truth at +first appears to be beyond dispute, but it is possible that all the +witnesses lied, and that the whole process was a made-up thing to aid +in reconciling the public to the summary destruction of so illustrious +a man as Surrey; and it was well adapted to that end,--the English +people having exceeded all others in their regard for domestic +decencies and in reverence for the family relations of the sexes. +Should it be said that it is more probable that Surrey was guilty of +the moral offence charged upon him than that his sister could be +guilty of inventing the story and then of perjuring herself to support +it, we can but reply, that Lady Rocheford, wife of Anne Boleyn's +brother, testified that Anne had been guilty of incest with that +brother, and afterward, when about to die, admitted that she had +perjured herself. Of the two offences, supposing Lady Richmond to +have sworn away her brother's life, that of Lady Rocheford was by far +the more criminal, and it is beyond all doubt. So long as there is +room for doubting Surrey's guilt, we shall follow the teaching of the +charitable maxim of our law, and give him the benefit of the doubt +which is his due. + +The question of the guilt or innocence of Anne Boleyn is a tempting +one, in connection with Henry VIII.'s history; but we have not now the +space that is necessary to treat it justly. We may take it up another +time, and follow Mr. Froude through his ingenious attempts to show that +Anne must have been guilty of incest and adultery, or else--dreadful +alternative!--we must come to the conclusion that Henry VIII. was not +the just man made perfect on earth. + + + * * * * * + + + +WHY THEIR CREEDS DIFFERED. + + +Bedded in stone, a toad lived well, + Cold and content as toad could be; +As safe from harm as monk in cell, + Almost as safe from good was he + +And "What is life?" he said, and dozed; + Then, waking, "Life is rest," quoth he: +"Each creature God in stone hath closed, + That each may have tranquillity. + +"And God Himself lies coiled in stone, + Nor wakes nor moves to any call; +Each lives unto himself alone, + And cold and night envelop all." + +He said, and slept. With curious ear + Close to the stone, a serpent lay. +"'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer, + "For well I know God wakes alway. + +"And what is life but wakefulness, + To glide through snares, alert and wise,-- +With plans too deep for neighbors' guess, + And haunts too close for neighbors' eyes? + +"For all the earth is thronged with foes, + And dark with fraud, and set with toils: +Each lies in wait, on each to close, + And God is bribed with share of spoils." + +High in the boughs a small bird sang, + And marvelled such a creed should be. +"How strange and false!" his comment rang; + "For well I know that life is glee. + +"For all the plain is flushed with bloom, + And all the wood with music rings, +And in the air is scarcely room + To wave our myriad flashing wings. + +"And God, amid His angels high, + Spreads over all in brooding joy; +On great wings borne, entranced they lie, + And all is bliss without alloy." + +"Ah, careless birdling, say'st thou so?" + Thus mused a man, the trees among: +"Thy creed is wrong; for well I know + That life must not be spent in song. + +"For what is life, but toil of brain, + And toil of hand, and strife of will,-- +To dig and forge, with loss and pain, + The truth from lies, the good from ill,-- + +"And ever out of self to rise + Toward love and law and constancy? +But with sweet love comes sacrifice, + And with great law comes penalty. + +"And God, who asks a constant soul, + His creatures tries both sore and long: +Steep is the way, and far the goal, + And time is small to waste in song." + +He sighed. From heaven an angel yearned: + With equal love his glances fell +Upon the man with soul upturned, + Upon the toad within its cell. + +And, strange! upon that wondrous face + Shone pure all natures, well allied: +There subtlety was turned to grace, + And slow content was glorified; + +And labor, love, and constancy + Put off their dross and mortal guise, +And with the look that is to be + They looked from those immortal eyes. + +To the faint man the angel strong + Beached down from heaven, and shared his pain: +The one in tears, the one in song, + The cross was borne betwixt them twain. + +He sang the careless bliss that lies + In wood-bird's heart, without alloy; +He sang the joy of sacrifice; + And still he sang, "_All_ life is joy." + +But how, while yet he clasped the pain, + Thrilled through with bliss the angel smiled, +I know not, with my human brain, + Nor how the two he reconciled. + + + * * * * * + + +PRESENCE. + + +It was a long and terrible conflict,--I will not say where, because +that fact has nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no +match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought +with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as +they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against +oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people +against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great +principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more +enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the +sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to another, in +execution of the orders of my superior officer, I wondered whether +blood as brave and good dyed the heather at Bannockburn, or streamed +down the mountain-gorge where Tell met the Austrians at Morgarten, or +stained with crimson glare the narrow pass held by the Spartan three +hundred. + +Suddenly my horse, struck by a well-aimed ball, plunged forward in the +death-struggle, and fell with me, leaving me stunned for a little time, +though not seriously hurt. With returning consciousness came the +quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the +brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery +ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness. As I watched with intensified +interest the hurrying panorama, the fine figure and face of my friend +Vilalba flashed before me. I noted at once the long wavy masses of +brown hair falling beneath the martial cap; the mouth, a feature seldom +beautiful in men, blending sweetness and firmness in rare degree, now +compressed and almost colorless; but the eyes! the "empty, melancholy +eyes"! what strange, glassy, introspective fixedness! what inexplicable +fascination, as if they were riveted on some object unseen by other +mortals! A glance sufficed to show to myself, at least, that he was in +a state of tense nervous excitation, similar to that of a subject of +mesmerism. A preternatural power seemed to possess him. He moved and +spoke like a somnambulist, with the same insulation from surrounding +minds and superiority to material obstacles. I had long known him as a +brave officer; but here was something more than bravery, more than the +fierce energy of the hour. His mien, always commanding, was now +imperial. In utter fearlessness of peril, he assumed the most exposed +positions, dashed through the strongest defences, accomplished with +marvellous dexterity a wellnigh impossible _coup-de-main_, and +all with the unrecognizing, changeless countenance of one who has no +choice, no volition, but is the passive slave of some resistless +inspiration. + +After the conflict was over, I sought Vilalba, and congratulated him on +his brilliant achievement, jestingly adding that I knew he was leagued +with sorcery and helped on by diabolical arts. The cold evasiveness of +his reply confirmed my belief that the condition I have described was +abnormal, and that he was himself conscious of the fact. + +Many years passed away, during which I met him rarely, though our +relations were always those of friendship. I heard of him as actively, +even arduously employed in public affairs, and rewarded by fortune and +position. The prestige of fame, unusual personal graces, and high +mental endowments gave him favor in social life; and women avowed that +the mingled truth and tenderness of his genial and generous nature were +all but irresistible. Nevertheless they were chagrined by his singular +indifference to their allurements; and many a fair one, even more +interested than inquisitive, vainly sought to break the unconquerable +reticence which, under apparent frankness, he relentlessly maintained. +He had, indeed, once been married, for a few years only; but his wife +was not of those who can concentrate and absorb the fulness of another +soul, wedding memory with immortal longing. Thus the problem of my +friend's life-long reserve continued to provoke curiosity until its +solution was granted to me alone, and, with it, the explanation of his +mesmeric entrancement on the occasion to which I have alluded. I repeat +the story because it is literally _true_, and because some of its +incidents may be classed among those psychological phenomena which form +the most occult, the most interesting, and the least understood of all +departments of human knowledge. + +During a period of summer recreation I induced Vilalba to renew our +interrupted acquaintance by passing a month with me in my country +home. The moonlight of many years had blended its silver with his +still abundant locks, and the lines of thought were deepened in his +face, but I found him in other respects unchanged. He had the same +deep, metallic voice, so musical that to hear him say the slightest +things was a pleasure, the same graceful courtesy and happy elasticity +of temperament; and was full as ever of noble purposes, and the Roman +self-conviction of power to live them out. One of those nights that +"are not made for slumber" found us lingering beneath the odorous vines +which interlocked their gay blossoms around the slight columns of the +veranda, until even the gray surprise of dawn,--the "soft, guileless +consolations" of our cigars, as Aeschylus says of certain other +incense, the cool, fragrant breezes, gentle as remembered kisses upon +the brow, the tremulous tenderness of the star-beams, the listening +hush of midnight, having swayed us to a mood of pensiveness which found +a reflex in our conversation. From the warning glare of sunlight the +heart shuts close its secrets; but hours like these beguile from its +inmost depths those subtile emotions, and vague, dreamy, delicious +thoughts, which, like plants, waken to life only beneath the protecting +shadows of darkness. "Why is it," says Richter, "that the night puts +warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness, +or is it the exalting separation from the turmoils of life,--that +veiling of the world in which for the soul nothing then remains but +souls,--that causes the letters in which loved names are written to +appear like phosphorus-writing by night, on _fire_, while day, in +their cloudy traces, they but _smoke_?" + +Insensibly we wandered into one of those weird passages of +psychological speculation, the border territory where reason and +illusion hold contested sway,--where the relations between spirit and +matter seem so incomprehensibly involved and complicated that we can +only feel, without being able to analyze them, and even the old words +created for our coarse material needs seem no more suitable than would +a sparrow's wings for the flight of an eagle. + +"It is emphatically true of these themes," I remarked, after a long +rambling talk, half reverie, half reason, "that language conceals the +ideas, or, rather, the imaginations they evolve; for the word idea +implies something more tangible than vagaries which the Greek poet +would have called 'the dream of the shadow of smoke.' But yet more +unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the +thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be +found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no +mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of +palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to +crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental +phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or +creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern +lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before +the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the +battalions into a stream of electricity." + +"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know +it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means +incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it +may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the +actual power which one human being may exert over another without the +intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted +scientists concede even more than this." + +"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent +grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed +to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between +soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort +to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night +bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' +I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or +to revive the lost mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood." + +"And yet, most of those marvels," answered my friend, "as well as the +later oracles of Greece, and the clairvoyance, mesmerism, etc., of +modern times, were probably the result of a certain power of the mind +to shake off for a time its fetters in defiance of physical +impediments, and even to exert its control over the senses and will and +perception of another. I do not doubt that in certain conditions of +the mind there arise potentialities wonderful as any ever conceived by +fiction, and that these are guided by laws unannounced as yet, but +which will be found in some future archives, inducted in symmetrical +clearness through the proper process of phenomena, classification, and +generalized statement. My own experience suffices to myself for both +assurance and prophecy. Although the loftiest, sweetest music of the +soul is yet unwritten, its faint articulations interblend with the +jangling discords of life, as the chimes of distant bells float through +the roar of winds and waves, and chant to imperilled hearts the songs +of hope and gladness." + +His voice fell to the low, earnest tone of one who has found in life a +pearl of truth unseen by others; and as his eye gleamed in the +starlight, I saw that it wore the same speculative expression as on the +battle-field twenty years before. A slight tremor fled through his +frame, as though he had been touched by an invisible hand, and a faint +smile of recognition brightened his features. + +"How can we explain," continued he, after a brief pause, "this mystery +of PRESENCE? Are you not often conscious of being actually nearer to a +mind a thousand miles distant than to one whose outer vestments you can +touch? We certainly feel, on the approach of a person repulsive, not +necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,--which in this case +are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,--as if our +entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in +absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, +in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the +barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the +individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We +are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. On the other +hand, does not fixed and earnest thought upon one we love seem to bring +the companion-spirit within the sacred temple of our own being, +infolded as a welcome guest in our warm charities and gentle joys, and +imparting in return the lustre of a serene and living beauty? If, then, +those whom we do not recognize as kindred are repelled, even though +they approach us through the aid and interpretation of the senses, why +may not the loved be brought near without that aid, through the more +subtile and more potent attraction of sympathy? I do not mean nearness +in the sense of memory or imagination, but that actual propinquity of +spirit which I suppose implied in the recognition of Presence. Nor do I +refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the +brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher +faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a +chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and +obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be +filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing." + +"Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is +based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess +that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a +point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than +the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever +persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material +intervention." + +"I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason +about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. +But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid +abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, +there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim +of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the +Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is +commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no +testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I +have received. + +"You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second +time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are +a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?" + +"I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the +pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from +the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others +from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that +theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves +the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative +interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will +have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain +how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears +to you unphilosophical, if not absurd." + +"I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel +the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation." + +Vilalba smiled slightly. + +"Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, +myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am +about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy. + +"It happened to me many years ago,--how flatteringly that little +phrase seems to extend the scale of one's being!--when I had just +entered on the active duties of manhood, that some affairs called me to +New Orleans, and detained me there several months. Letters of +friendship gave me admission into some of the most agreeable French +families of that _quasi_ Parisian city, and in the reception of +their hospitality I soon lost the feeling of isolation which attends a +stranger in a crowded mart. My life at that time was without shadows. I +had health, friends, education, position,--youth, as well, which then +seemed a blessing, though I would not now exchange for it my crown of +years and experience. Fortune only I then had not; and because I had it +not, I am telling you, to-night, this story. + +"It chanced, one day, that I was invited to dine at the house of an +aristocratic subject of the old French _régime_. I did not know +the family, and a previous engagement tempted me to decline the +invitation; but one of those mysterious impulses which are in fact the +messengers of Destiny compelled me to go, and I went. Thus slight may +be the thread which changes the entire web of the future! After +greeting my host, and the party assembled in the drawing-room, my +attention was arrested by a portrait suspended in a recess, and partly +veiled by purple curtains, like Isis within her shrine. The lovely, +living eyes beamed upon me out of the shrine, radiant with an internal +light I had never before seen on canvas. The features were harmonious, +the complexion pure and clear, and the whole picture wore an air of +graceful, gentle girlhood, glowing, like Undine, with the flush of 'the +coming soul.' I hardly knew whether the face was strictly beautiful +according to the canons of Art; for only a Shakspeare can be at the +same time critical and sympathetic, and my criticism was baffled and +blinded by the fascination of those wondrous eyes. They reminded me of +what a materialist said of the portraits of Prudhon,--that they were +enough to make one believe in the immortality of the soul. Life +multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was +mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the +significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering +the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller +revelation. + +"As I lingered before this fair shadow, I heard my name pronounced, +and, turning, beheld the not less fair original, the daughter of my +host. Now do not fear a catalogue of feminine graces, or a lengthened +romance of the heart, tedious with such platitudes as have been Elysium +to the actors, and weariness to the audience, ever since the world +began. The Enchanted Isles wear no enchantment to unanointed vision; +their skies of Paradise are fog, their angels Harpies, perchance, or +harsh-throated Sirens. Besides, we can never describe correctly those +whom we love, because we see them through the heart; and the heart's +optics have no technology. It is enough to say, that, from almost the +first time I looked upon Blanche, I felt that I had at last found the +gift rarely accorded to us here,--the fulfilment of a promise hidden +in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing +self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had +been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay +triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when +in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice +inspired, that new birth of + + 'A soul within the soul, evolving it sublimely,' + +had never until now wakened my pulses and opened my eyes to the higher +and holier heritage. Perhaps you doubt that Psychal fetters may be +forged in a moment's heat; but I believe that the love which is deepest +and most sacred, and which Plato calls the memory of divine beings whom +we knew in some anterior life, that recognition of kindred natures +which precedes reason and asks no leave of the understanding, is not a +gradual and cautious attraction, like the growth of a coral reef, but +sudden and magnetic as the coalescence of two drops of mercury. + +"During several following weeks we met many times, and yet, in looking +back to that dream of heaven, I cannot tell how often, nor for how +long. Time is merely the measure given to past emotions, and those +emotions flowed over me in a tidal sweep which merged all details in +one continuous memory. The lone hemisphere of my life was rounded into +completeness, and its feverish unrest changed to deep tranquillity, as +if a faint, tremulous star were transmuted into a calm, full-orbed +planet. Do you remember that story of Plato's--I recall the air-woven +subtilties of the delightful idealist, to illustrate, not to +prove--that story of the banquet where the ripe wines of the Aegean +Isles unchained the tongues of such talkers as Pausanias and Socrates +and others as witty and wise, until they fell into a discourse on the +origin of Love, and, whirling away on the sparkling eddies of fancy, +were borne to that preëxistent sphere which, in Plato's opinion, +furnished the key to all the enigmas of this? There they beheld the +complete and original souls, the compound of male and female, dual and +yet one, so happy and so haughty in their perfection of beauty and of +power that Jupiter could not tolerate his godlike rivals, and therefore +cut them asunder, sending the dissevered halves tumbling down to earth, +bewildered and melancholy enough, until some good fortune might restore +to each the _alter ego_ which constituted the divine unity. 'And +thus,' says Plato, 'whenever it happens that a man meets with his other +half, the very counterpart of himself, they are both smitten with +strong love; they recognize their ancient union; they are powerfully +attracted by the consciousness that they belong to each other; and they +are unwilling to be again parted, even for a short time. And if Vulcan +were to stand over them with his fire and forge, and offer to melt them +down and run them together, and of two to make them one again, they +would both say that this was just what they desired!' + +"I dare say you have read--unless your partiality for the soft Southern +tongues has chased away your Teutonic taste--that exquisite poem of +Schiller's, 'Das Geheimnitz der Reminiscenz,' the happiest possible +crystallization of the same theory. I recall a few lines from Bulwer's +fine translation:-- + +"'Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart? +Is it because its native home thou art? +Or were they brothers in the days of yore, +Twin-bound both souls, and in the links they bore +Sigh to be bound once more? + +"'Were once our beings blent and intertwining, +And therefore still my heart for thine is pining? +Knew we the light of some extinguished sun,-- +The joys remote of some bright realm undone, +Where once our souls were ONE? + +"'Yes, it is so! And thou wert bound to me +In the long-vanished eld eternally! +In the dark troubled tablets which enroll +The past my Muse beheld this blessed scroll,-- +'One with thy love, my soul'!" + +"Now the Athenian dreamer builded better than he knew. That phantom +which perpetually attends and perpetually evades us,--the inevitable +guest whose silence maddens and whose sweetness consoles,--whose filmy +radiance eclipses all beauty,--whose voiceless eloquence subdues all +sound,--ever beckoning, ever inspiring, patient, pleading, and +unchanging,--this is the Ideal which Plato called the dearer self, +because, when its craving sympathies find reflex and response in a +living form, its rapturous welcome ignores the old imperfect being, and +the union only is recognized as Self indeed, complete and undivided. +And that fulness of human love becomes a faint type and interpreter of +the Infinite, as through it we glide into grander harmonies and +enlarged relations with the Universe, urged on forever by insatiable +desires and far-reaching aspirations which testify our celestial +origin and intimate our immortal destiny. + +"'Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade, +From the rude Mongol to the starry Greek, +everywhere we seek +Union and bond, till in one sea sublime +Of love be merged all measure and all time!" + +"I never disclosed in words my love to Blanche. Through the lucid +transparency of Presence, I believed that she knew all and +comprehended all, without the aid of those blundering symbols. We never +even spoke of the future; for all time, past and to come, seemed to +converge and centre and repose in that radiant present. In the +enchantment of my new life, I feared lest a breath should disturb the +spell, and send me back to darkness and solitude. + +"Of course, this could not last forever. There came a time when I found +that my affairs would compel me to leave New Orleans for a year, or +perhaps a little longer. With the discovery my dream was broken. The +golden web which had been woven around me shrank beneath the iron hand +of necessity, and fell in fragments at my feet. I knew that it was +useless to speak to Blanch of marriage, for her father, a stern and +exacting man in his domestic relations, had often declared that he +would never give his daughter to a husband who had no fortune. If I +sought his permission to address her now, my fate was fixed. There was +no alternative, therefore, but to wait until my return, when I hoped to +have secured, in sufficient measure, the material passport to his +favor. Our parting was necessarily sudden, and, strange as it may seem, +some fatal repression sealed my lips, and withheld me from uttering the +few words which would have made the future wholly ours, and sculptured +my dream of love in monumental permanance. Ah! with what narrow and +trembling planks do we bridge the abyss of misery and despair! But be +patient while I linger for a moment here. The evening before my +departure, I went to take leave of her. There were other guests in the +drawing-room, the atmosphere was heated and oppressive, and after a +little time I proposed to her to retreat with me, for a few moments, to +the fragrant coolness of the garden. We walked slowly along through +clustering flowers and under arching orange-trees, which infolded us +tenderly within their shining arms, as in tremulous silence we waited +for words that should say enough and yet not too much. The glories of +all summer evenings seemed concentred in this one. The moon now +silvered leaf and blossom, and then suddenly fled behind a shadowing +cloud, while the stars shone out with gladness brief and bright as the +promises of my heart. Skilful artists in the music-room thrilled the +air with some of those exquisite compositions of Mendelssohn which +dissolve the soul in sweetness or ravish it with delight, until it +seems as if all past emotions of joy were melted in one rapid and +comprehensive reëxperience, and all future inheritance gleamed in +promise before our enraptured vision, and we are hurried on with +electric speed to hitherto unsealed heights of feeling, whence we catch +faint glimpses of the unutterable mysteries of our being, and +foreshadowings of a far-off, glorified existence. The eloquence of +earth and sky and air breathed more than language could have uttered, +and, as my eyes met the eyes of Blanche, the question of my heart was +asked and answered, once for all. I recognized the treasured ideal of +my restless, vagrant heart, and I seemed to hear it murmuring gently, +as if to a long-lost mate, _'Where hast thou stayed so long?'_ I +felt that henceforth there was for us no real parting. Our material +forms might be severed, but our spirits were one and inseparate. + +"'On the fountains of our life a seal was set +To keep their waters clear and bright +Forever.' + +"And thus, with scarce a word beside, I said the 'God be with you!' and +went out into the world alone, yet henceforth not alone. + +"Two years passed away. They had been years of success in my worldly +affairs, and were blessed by memories and hopes which grew brighter +with each day. I had not heard of Blanche, save indirectly through a +friend in New Orleans, but I never doubted that the past was as sacred, +the future as secure, in her eyes as in my own. I was now ready to +return, and to repeat in words the vows which my heart had sworn long +before. I fixed the time, and wrote to my friend to herald my coming. +Before that letter reached him, there came tidings which, like a storm +of desolation, swept me to the dust. Blanche was in France, and +married,--how or when or to whom, I knew not, cared not. The +relentless fact was sufficient. The very foundations of the earth +seemed to tremble and slide from beneath me. The sounds of day +tortured, the silence of night maddened me. I sought forgetfulness in +travel, in wild adventure, in reckless dissipation. With that strange +fatality which often leads us to seek happiness or repose where we have +least chance of finding it, I, too, married. But I committed no +perjury. I offered friendship, and it sufficed. Love I never professed +to give, and the wife whom I merely esteemed had not the mental or the +magnetic ascendancy which might have triumphed for a time over the +image shrined in my inmost heart. I sought every avenue through which +I might fly from that and from myself. I tried mental occupation, and +explored literature and science, with feverish ardor and some reward. I +think it is Coleridge who recommends to those who are suffering from +extreme sorrow the study of a new language. But to a mind of deep +feeling diversion is not relief. If we fly from memory, we are pursued +and overtaken like fugitive slaves, and punished with redoubled +tortures. The only sure remedy for grief is self-evolved. We must +accept sorrow as a guest, not shun it as a foe, and, receiving it into +close companionship, let the mournful face haunt our daily paths, even +though it shut out all friends and dim the light of earth and heaven. +And when we have learned the lesson which it came to teach, the fearful +phantom brightens into beauty, and reveals an 'angel unawares,' who +gently leads us to heights of purer atmosphere and more extended +vision, and strengthens us for the battle which demands unfaltering +heart and hope. + +"Do you remember the remark of the child Goethe, when his young reason +was perplexed by attempting to reconcile the terrible earthquake at +Lisbon with the idea of infinite goodness? 'God knows very well that an +immortal soul cannot suffer from mortal accident.' With similar faith +there came to me tranquil restoration. The deluge of passion rolled +back, and from the wreck of my Eden arose a new and more spiritual +creation. But forgetfulness was never possible. In the maddening +turbulence of my grief and the ghastly stillness of its reaction, the +lovely spirit which had become a part of my life seemed to have fled to +the inner temple of my soul, breaking the solitude with glimmering +ray and faint melodious murmur. And when I could bear to look and +listen, it grew brighter and more palpable, until at last it attended +me omnipresently, consoling, cheering, and stimulating to nobler +thought and action. + +"Nor was it a ghost summoned by memory, or the airy creation of fancy. +One evening an incident occurred which will test your credulity, or +make you doubt my sanity. I sat alone, and reading,--nothing more +exciting, however, than a daily newspaper. My health was perfect, my +mind unperturbed. Suddenly my eye was arrested by a cloud passing +slowly back and forth several times before me, not projected upon the +wall, but floating in the atmosphere. I looked around for the cause, +but the doors and windows were closed, and nothing stirred in the +apartment. Then I saw a point of light, small as a star at first, but +gradually enlarging into a luminous cloud which filled the centre of +the room. I shivered with strange coldness, and every nerve tingled as +if touched by a galvanic battery. From the tremulous waves of the cloud +arose, like figures in a dissolving view, the form and features of my +lost love,--not radiant as when I last looked upon them, but pale and +anguish-stricken, with clasped hands and tearful eyes; and upon my ears +fell, like arrows of fire, the words, _You have been the cause of all +this; oh, why did you not'_--The question was unfinished, and from +my riveted gaze, half terror, half delight, the vision faded, and I was +alone. + +"Of course you will pronounce this mere nervous excitement, but, I pray +you, await the sequel. Those burning words told the story of that +mistake which had draped in despair our earthly lives. They were no +reflection from my own mind. In the self-concentration of my +disappointment, I had never dreamed that I alone was in fault,--that I +should have anchored my hope on somewhat more defined than the +voiceless intelligence of sympathy. But the very reproach of the +mysterious visitor brought with it a conviction, positive and +indubitable, that the spiritual portion of our being possesses the +power to act upon the material perception of another, without aid from +material elements. From time to time I have known, beyond the +possibility of deception, that the kindred spirit was still my +companion, my own inalienable possession, in spite of all factitious +ties, of all physical intervention. + +"Have you heard that among certain tribes of the North-American Indians +are men who possess an art which enables them to endure torture and +actual death without apparent suffering or even consciousness? I once +chanced to fall in with one of these tribes, then living in Louisiana, +now removed to the far West, and was permitted to witness some +fantastic rites, half warlike, half religious, in which, however, +there was nothing noticeable except this trance-like condition, which +some of the warriors seemed to command at pleasure, manifested by a +tense rigidity of the features and muscles, and a mental exaltation +which proved to be both clairvoyant and clairoyant: a state analogous +to that of hypnotism, or the artificial sleep produced by gazing +fixedly on a near, bright object, and differing only in degree from +the nervous or imaginative control which has been known to arrest and +cure disease, which chained St. Simeon Stylites to his pillar, and +sustains the Hindoo fakirs in their apparently superhuman vigils. These +children of Nature had probed with direct simplicity some of the deep +secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous +devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a +concentrative energy of the will, which riveted the faculties upon a +single purpose or idea, and held every nerve and sense in absolute +abeyance. We are so little accustomed to test the potency of the will +out of the ordinary plane of its operation, that we have little +conception how mighty a lever it may be made, or to what new exercise +it may be directed; and yet we are all conscious of periods in our +lives when, like a vast rock in ocean, it has suddenly loomed up firm +and defiant amid our petty purposes and fretful indecisions, waxing +grander and stronger under opposition, a something apart from, yet a +conscious portion of ourselves,--a master, though a slave,--another +revelation of the divinity within. + +"I will confess that curiosity led me long ago to slight experiments in +the direction in which you say the diabolic lies, but my mind was +never concentrated on any one idea of sufficient interest to command +success, until, in some periods of mingled peril and excitement, the +memory of Blanche, and the conscious, even startling nearness of that +sweet presence, have lent to my will unwonted energy and inspiration. + +"Twenty years passed slowly away. It is common to speak of the +_flight_ of time. For me, time has no wings. The days and years +are faltering and tardy-footed, laden with the experiences of the +outer and the problems of the inner world, which seem perpetually +multiplied by reflection, like figures in a room mirrored on all +sides. Meanwhile, my wife had died. I have never since sought women +beyond the formal pale of the drawing-room: not from insensibility to +loveliness, but because the memory, 'dearer far than bliss,' of one +irretrievable affection shut out all inferior approach,--like a +solitary planet, admitting no dance of satellites within its orbit. + +"At last the long silence was broken. I heard that Blanche was free, +and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The +ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved +a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a +glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was in +Louisiana, and in the very dwelling and at the same hour which had +witnessed our parting. Again was it a soft summer evening. The same +faint golden rays painted the sun's farewell, and the same silver moon +looked eloquent response, as on the evening breeze floated sweet +remembered odors of jessamine and orange. Again the ideal beauty of the +lovely portrait met my gaze and seemed to melt into my heart; and +once more, softly, lightly, fell a footstep, and the Presence by which +I had never been forsaken, which I could never forsake, stood before me +in 'palpable array of sense.' It was indeed the living Blanche, calm +and stately as of old,--no longer radiant with the flush of youth, but +serene in tenderest grace and sweet reserve, and beautiful through the +lustre of the inner light of soul. She uttered a faint cry of joy, and +placing her trembling hand in mine, we stood transfixed and silent, +with riveted gaze, reading in each other's eyes feelings too sacred for +speech, too deep for smiles or tears. In that long, burning look, it +seemed as if the emotions of each were imparted to the other, not in +slow succession as through words and sentences, but daguerreotyped or +electrotyped in perfected form upon the conscious understanding. No +language could have made so clear and comprehensible the revelation of +that all-centring, unconquerable love which thrilled our inmost being, +and pervaded the atmosphere around us with subtile and tremulous +vibrations. In that moment all time was fused and forgotten. There was +for us no Past, no Future; there was only the long-waited, +all-embracing Now. I could willingly have died then and there, for I +knew that all life could bring but one such moment. My heart spoke +truly. A change passed over the countenance of Blanche,--an expression +of unutterable grief, like Eve's retrospective look at Eden. Quivering +with strange tremor, again she stood before me, with clasped hands and +tearful eyes, in the very attitude of that memorable apparition, and +again fell upon my ears the mysterious plaint and the uncompleted +question,--_'You have been the cause of all this; oh, why did you +not'_-- + +"Now, my friend, can your philosophy explain this startling +verification, this reflex action of the vision, or the fantasy, or +whatever else you may please to term it, whose prophetic shadow fell +upon my astonished senses long years before? In all the intervening +time, we were separated by great distance, no word or sign passed +between us, nor did we even hear of each other except indefinitely and +through chance. Is there, then, any explanation of that vision more +rational than that the spirit thus closely affined with my own was +enabled, through its innate potencies, or through some agency of which +we are ignorant, to impress upon my bodily perceptions its +uncontrollable emotions? That this manifestation was made through what +physiologists call the unconscious or involuntary action of the mind +was proved by the incredulity and surprise of Blanche when I told her +of the wonderful coincidence. + +"I need not relate, even if I could do so, the outpouring of long-pent +emotions which relieved the yearning love and haunting memories of sad, +silent, lingering years. It is enough to tell you briefly of the +story which was repeated in fragments through many hours of unfamiliar +bliss. Soon after my departure from New Orleans, the father of Blanche, +with the stern authority which many parents exercise over the +matrimonial affairs of their daughters, insisted upon her forming an +alliance to which the opposition of her own heart was the only +objection. So trifling an impediment was decisively put aside by him, +and Blanche, having delayed the marriage as long as possible, until the +time fixed for my return was past, and unable to plead any open +acknowledgment on my part which could justify her refusal, had no +alternative but to obey. 'I confess,' said she, in faltering tones, +'that, after my fate was fixed, and I was parted from you, as I +believed for life, I tried to believe that the love which had given so +slight witness in words to its truth and fervor must have faded +entirely away, and that I was forgotten, and perhaps supplanted. And +therefore, in the varied pursuits and pleasures of my new sphere, and +in the indulgence and kindness which ministered to the outer, but, +alas! never to the inner life, I sought happiness, and I, too, like +yourself, strove to forget. Ah! that art of forgetting, which the +Athenian coveted as the best of boons,--when was it ever found through +effort or desire? In all scenes of beauty or of excitement, in the +allurements of society, in solitude and in sorrow, my heart still +turned to you with ceaseless longing, as if you alone could touch its +master-chord, and waken the harmonies which were struggling for +expression. By slow degrees, as I learned to dissever you from the +material world, there came a conviction of the nearness of your spirit, +sometimes so positive that I would waken from a reverie, in which I +was lost to sights and sounds around me, with a sense of having been +in your actual presence. I was aware of an effect rather than of an +immediate consciousness,--as if the magnetism of your touch had swept +over me, cooling the fever of my brain, and charming to deep +tranquillity my troubled heart. And thus I learned, through similar +experience, the same belief as yours. I have felt the continuous +nearness, the inseparable union of our spirits, as plainly as I feel +it now, with my hand clasped in yours, and reading in your eyes the +unutterable things which we can never hope to speak, because they are +foreshadowings of another existence. + +"What I possess I see afar off lying, +And what I lost is real and undying." + +The material presence is indeed very dear, but I believe that it is not +essential to the perpetuity of that love which is nurtured through +mutual and perfect understanding.' + +"'It is not essential,' I replied, 'but it is, as you say, very, very +dear, because it is an exponent and participant of the hidden life +which it was designed to aid and to enframe. Blanche, it was you who +first wakened my soul to the glorious revelation, the heavenly +heritage of love. It was you who opened to me the world which lies +beyond the mere external, who gently allured me from the coarse and +clouding elements of sense, and infolded me in the holy purity of that +marriage of kindred natures which alone is hallowed by the laws of +God, and which no accidents of time or place can rend asunder. Apart +from the bitterness of this long separation, the lesson might not have +been learned; but now that it is ineffaceably engraven on both our +hearts, and confirmed in the assurance of this blessed reunion, may I +not hope that for the remainder of our earthly lives we may study +together in visible companionship such further lessons as may be held +in reserve for us?' + +"Her face glowed with a soft crimson flush, and again her eyes were +suffused with tears, through which beamed a look of sweet, heavenly +sorrow,--such as might have shone in the orbs of the angel who enforced +upon Adam the sentence of expulsion from Paradise, and who, while +sharing the exile's grief, beheld in the remote horizon, far beyond the +tangled wilderness of Earth, another gate, wide opening to welcome him +to the Immortal Land. She was silent for a little time, and then she +murmured, lingering gently on the words, 'No, it must not be. We are, +indeed, inalienably one, in a nearer and dearer sense than can be +expressed by any transient symbol. Let us not seek to quit the +spiritual sphere in which we have long dwelt and communed together, for +one liable to discord and misinterpretation. I have an irresistible +impression that my life here will be very brief. While I remain, come +to me when you will, let me be the Egeria of your hours of leisure, and +a consoler in your cares,--but let us await, for another and a higher +life, the more perfect consummation of our love. For, oh, believe, as I +believe, faith is no mockery, nor is the heart's prophecy a lie. We +were not born to be the dupes of dreams or the sport of chance. The +voice which whispered to me long ago the promise fulfilled in this hour +tells me that in a bright Hereafter we shall find compensation for +every sorrow, reality for every ideal, and that there at last shall be +resolved in luminous perception the veiled and troubled mystery of +PRESENCE!'" + + + * * * * * + +CHIEFLY ABOUT WAR-MATTERS. + +BY A PEACEABLE MAN. + + +There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically sealed +seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into which the +disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate. Of course, the +general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, +and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain +fantasies, to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring +to give a sufficiently life-like aspect to admit of their figuring in a +romance. As I make no pretensions to state-craft or soldiership, and +could promote the common weal neither by valor nor counsel, it seemed, +at first, a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial +business as I had contrived for myself, since nothing more genuine was +to be substituted for it. But I magnanimously considered that there is +a kind of treason in insulating one's self from the universal fear and +sorrow, and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil +war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would better +deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way +thither on the score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I +remembered the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to that +rural squire the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch's +ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and +constitution of England were to be set at stake. So I gave myself up to +reading newspapers and listening to the click of the telegraph, like +other people; until, after a great many months of such pastime, it grew +so abominably irksome that I determined to look a little more closely +at matters with my own eyes. + +Accordingly we set out--a friend and myself--towards Washington, while +it was still the long, dreary January of our Northern year, though +March in name; nor were we unwilling to clip a little margin off the +five months' winter, during which there is nothing genial in New +England save the fireside. It was a clear, frosty morning, when we +started. The sun shone brightly on snow-covered hills in the +neighborhood of Boston, and burnished the surface of frozen ponds; and +the wintry weather kept along with us while we trundled through +Worcester and Springfield, and all those old, familiar towns, and +through the village-cities of Connecticut. In New York the streets were +afloat with liquid mud and slosh. Over New Jersey there was still a +thin covering of snow, with the face of Nature visible through the +rents in her white shroud, though with little or no symptom of reviving +life. But when we reached Philadelphia, the air was mild and balmy; +there was but a patch or two of dingy winter here and there, and the +bare, brown fields about the city were ready to be green. We had met +the Spring half-way, in her slow progress from the South; and if we +kept onward at the same pace, and could get through the Rebel lines, we +should soon come to fresh grass, fruit-blossoms, green peas, +strawberries, and all such delights of early summer. + +On our way, we heard many rumors of the war, but saw few signs of it. +The people were staid and decorous, according to their ordinary +fashion; and business seemed about as brisk as usual,--though, I +suppose, it was considerably diverted from its customary channels into +warlike ones. In the cities, especially in New York, there was a rather +prominent display of military goods at the shopwindows,--such as +swords with gilded scabbards and trappings, epaulets, carabines, +revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon at the edge of the +pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there, +while hurrying to the field. As railway-companions, we had now and then +a volunteer in his French-gray great-coat, returning from furlough, or +a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment, in his new-made +uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had +about him,--but proud of his eagle-buttons, and likely enough to do +them honor before the gilt should be wholly dimmed. The country, in +short, so far as bustle and movement went, was more quiet than in +ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements +had been drawn towards the seat of conflict. But the air was full of a +vague disturbance. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a +solitude as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and +indefinable presentiments, since I had not lived, like other men, in +an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily +expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither +side of the river, all of us were looking towards the mysterious and +terrible Manassas, with the idea that somewhere in its neighborhood +lay a ghastly battlefield, yet to be fought, but foredoomed of old to +be bloodier than the one where we had reaped such shame. Of all haunted +places, methinks such a destined field should be thickest thronged with +ugly phantoms, ominous of mischief through ages beforehand. + +Beyond Philadelphia there was a much greater abundance of military +people. Between Baltimore and Washington a guard seemed to hold every +station along the railroad; and frequently, on the hill-sides, we saw a +collection of weather-beaten tents, the peaks of which, blackened with +smoke, indicated that they had been made comfortable by stove-heat +throughout the winter. At several commanding positions we saw +fortifications, with the muzzles of cannon protruding from the +ramparts, the slopes of which were made of the yellow earth of that +region, and still unsodded; whereas, till these troublous times, there +have been no forts but what were grass-grown with the lapse of at least +a lifetime of peace. Our stopping-places were thronged with soldiers, +some of whom came through the cars, asking for newspapers that +contained accounts of the battle between the Merrimack and Monitor, +which had been fought the day before. A railway-train met us, conveying +a regiment out of Washington to some unknown point; and reaching the +capital, we filed out of the station between lines of soldiers, with +shouldered muskets, putting us in mind of similar spectacles at the +gates of European cities. It was not without sorrow that we saw the +free circulation of the nation's life-blood (at the very heart, +moreover) clogged with such strictures as these, which have caused +chronic diseases in almost all countries save our own. Will the time +ever come again, in America, when we may live half a score of years +without once seeing the likeness of a soldier, except it be in the +festal march of a company on its summer tour? Not in this generation, +I fear, nor in the next, nor till the Millennium; and even that blessed +epoch, as the prophecies seem to intimate, will advance to the sound +of the trumpet. + +One terrible idea occurs, in reference to this matter. Even supposing +the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the +population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will +there be of military titles and pretensions for at least half a century +to come! Every country-neighborhood will have its general or two, its +three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without +end,--besides non-commissioned officers and privates, more than the +recruiting-offices ever knew of,--all with their campaign-stories, +which will become the staple of fireside-talk forevermore. Military +merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military +notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction. One +bullet-headed general will succeed another in the Presidential chair; +and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in +Congress and the State legislatures, and fill all the avenues of public +life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, +it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many +shams on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public +regard; but it behooves civilians to consider their wretched prospects +in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late. + +We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of +our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march +towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia +mud, the phantasmagory of a countless host and impregnable ramparts, +before which they had so long remained quiescent, dissolved quite +away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a +gigantic enemy, and, beholding him suddenly collapse, had discovered +to himself and the world that he had merely punctured an enormously +swollen bladder. There are instances of a similar character in old +romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of +necromancers, who build airy towers and battlements, and muster +warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a defence of seeming +impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes +forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him +melt away in the death-grapple. With such heroic adventures let the +march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole business, though +connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably a tinge of +the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material,--the +majestic patience and docility with which the people waited through +those weary and dreary months,--the martial skill, courage, and +caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,--and, at last, +the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against +nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, +but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, +when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel +artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect. + +The troops being gone, we had the better leisure and opportunity to +look into other matters. It is natural enough to suppose that the +centre and heart of Washington is the Capitol; and certainly, in its +outward aspect, the world has not many statelier or more beautiful +edifices, nor any, I should suppose, more skilfully adapted to +legislative purposes, and to all accompanying needs. But, etc., etc. +[Footnote: We omit several paragraphs here, in which the author speaks +of some prominent Members of Congress with a freedom that seems to have +been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he +admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly +recognize his qualification to estimate these gentlemen, in their +legislative and oratorical capacities.] + + * * * * * + +We found one man, however, at the Capitol, who was satisfactorily +adequate to the business which brought him thither. In quest of him, we +went through halls, galleries, and corridors, and ascended a noble +staircase, balustraded with a dark and beautifully variegated marble +from Tennessee, the richness of which is quite a sufficient cause for +objecting to the secession of that State. At last we came to a barrier +of pine boards, built right across the stairs. Knocking at a rough, +temporary door, we thrust a card beneath; and in a minute or two it was +opened by a person in his shirt-sleeves, a middle-aged figure, neither +tall nor short, of Teutonic build and aspect, with an ample beard of a +ruddy tinge and chestnut hair. He looked at us, in the first place, +with keen and somewhat guarded eyes, as if it were not his practice to +vouchsafe any great warmth of greeting, except upon sure ground of +observation. Soon, however, his look grew kindly and genial, (not that +it had ever been in the least degree repulsive, but only reserved,) and +Leutze allowed us to gaze at the cartoon of his great fresco, and +talked about it unaffectedly, as only a man of true genius can speak +of his own works. Meanwhile the noble design spoke for itself upon the +wall. A sketch in color, which we saw afterwards, helped us to form +some distant and flickering notion of what the picture will be, a few +months hence, when these bare outlines, already so rich in thought and +suggestiveness, shall glow with a fire of their own,--a fire which, I +truly believe, will consume every other pictorial decoration of the +Capitol, or, at least, will compel us to banish those stiff and +respectable productions to some less conspicuous gallery. The work +will be emphatically original and American, embracing characteristics +that neither art nor literature have yet dealt with, and producing new +forms of artistic beauty from the natural features of the +Rocky-Mountain region, which Leutze seems to have studied broadly and +minutely. The garb of the hunters and wanderers of those deserts, too, +under his free and natural management, is shown as the most +picturesque of costumes. But it would be doing this admirable painter +no kind office to overlay his picture with any more of my colorless +and uncertain words; so I shall merely add that it looked full of +energy, hope, progress, irrepressible movement onward, all represented +in a momentary pause of triumph; and it was most cheering to feel its +good augury at this dismal time, when our country might seem to have +arrived at such a deadly stand-still. + +It was an absolute comfort, indeed, to find Leutze so quietly busy at +this great national work, which is destined to glow for centuries on +the walls of the Capitol, if that edifice shall stand, or must share +its fate, if treason shall succeed in subverting it with the Union +which it represents. It was delightful to see him so calmly +elaborating his design, while other men doubted and feared, or hoped +treacherously, and whispered to one another that the nation would +exist only a little longer, or that, if a remnant still held together, +its centre and seat of government would be far northward and westward +of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, +drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and +idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have +an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest +truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what +with Leutze's undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly +encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries to weigh against a +sinister omen that was pointed out to me in another part of the +Capitol. The freestone walls of the central edifice are pervaded with +great cracks, and threaten to come thundering down, under the immense +weight of the iron dome,--an appropriate catastrophe enough, if it +should occur on the day when we drop the Southern stars out of our +flag. + +Everybody seems to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth +of imperatively noticeable people there. I question whether there are +half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence, at whom a stranger, +wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn +round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,--a +pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided +originality of gait and aspect, and a cigar in his mouth,--etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are again compelled to interfere with our friend's +license of personal description and criticism. Even Cabinet Ministers +(to whom the next few pages of the article were devoted) have their +private immunities, which ought to be conscientiously observed,--unless, +indeed, the writer chanced to have some very piquant motives for +violating them.] + + * * * * * + +Of course, there was one other personage, in the class of statesmen, +whom I should have been truly mortified to leave Washington without +seeing; since (temporarily, at least, and by force of circumstances) +he was the man of men. But a private grief had built up a barrier about +him, impeding the customary free intercourse of Americans with their +chief magistrate; so that I might have come away without a glimpse of +his very remarkable physiognomy, save for a semi-official opportunity +of which I was glad to take advantage. The fact is, we were invited to +annex ourselves, as supernumeraries, to a deputation that was about to +wait upon the President, from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with a +present of a splendid whip. + +Our immediate party consisted only of four or five, (including Major +Ben Perley Poore, with his note-book and pencil.) but we were joined +by several other persons, who seemed to have been lounging about the +precincts of the White House, under the spacious porch, or within the +hall, and who swarmed in with us to take the chances of a presentation. +Nine o'clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the +deputation, and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the +President, who sent us word that he was eating his breakfast, and would +come as soon as he could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must +have been a pretty fair one; for we waited about half an hour in one of +the antechambers, and then were ushered into a reception-room, in one +corner of which sat the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury, +expecting, like ourselves, the termination of the Presidential +breakfast. During this interval there were several new additions to +our group, one or two of whom were in a working-garb, so that we formed +a very miscellaneous collection of people, mostly unknown to each +other, and without any common sponsor, but all with an equal right to +look our head-servant in the face. By-and-by there was a little stir on +the staircase and in the passageway, etc., etc. + +[Footnote: We are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the +author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal +appearance and deportment of the President. The sketch appears to have +been written in a benign spirit, and perhaps conveys a not inaccurate +impression of its august subject; but it lacks _reverence_, and it +pains us to see a gentleman of ripe age, and who has spent years under +the corrective influence of foreign institutions, falling into the +characteristic and most ominous fault of Young America.] + + * * * * * + +Good Heavens! what liberties have I been taking with one of the +potentates of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important +consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of +the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a +liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above +allusions to President Lincoln's little peculiarities (already well +known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem +it proper to say a word or two, in regard to him, of unfeigned respect +and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties, +and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to +his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never +deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a +considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he +adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, +at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume +there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to +himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his +own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the +good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development +of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such +designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a +year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, +capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies +and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to +Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself +into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime-minister. + +Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the +neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a +little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves and docks, +resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the +respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it +no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness; but it was +now thronged with the Northern soldiery, whose stir and bustle +contrasted strikingly with the many closed warehouses, the absence of +citizens from their customary haunts, and the lack of any symptom of +healthy activity, while army-wagons trundled heavily over the +pavements, and sentinels paced the sidewalks, and mounted dragoons +dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very +disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town +of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at +the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the +sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with +rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human +life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from +their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly, +thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive persons have +joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal for the cause, but because, +between two conflicting loyalties, they chose that which necessarily +lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other Government against +which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by such plausible +arguments as against that of the United States. The anomaly of two +allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's +feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General +Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no +symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; +for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to +themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad +cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast +extent of our country,--too vast by far to be taken into one small +human heart,--we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, +to our own section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which +renders an Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the +dignity and well-being of his little island, that one hostile foot, +treading anywhere upon it, would make a bruise on each individual +breast. If a man loves his own State, therefore, and is content to be +ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an +honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not +thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, +but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency +impolitic in the present stage of our national difficulties.] + +In Alexandria, we visited the tavern in which Colonel Ellsworth was +killed, and saw the spot where he fell, and the stairs below, whence +Jackson fired the fatal shot, and where he himself was slain a moment +afterwards; so that the assassin and his victim must have met on the +threshold of the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better +understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. +Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal grudge for a deed like +that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking enemy. The memorial-hunters +have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with +their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well +as the adjacent doors and doorframes, have recently been renewed; the +walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having +been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a +metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists. + +Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to +inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a +very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church where +Washington used sometimes to attend service,--a pre-Revolutionary +edifice, with ivy growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly. +Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of +the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were +raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a +log-hut, or driven vertically into the soil in a circle,--thus forming +a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the +pyramidal shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the +occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: +some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the +open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by +gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; +and many were cleaning their arms and accoutrements,--the more +carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the +Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while +their comrades cut their hair,--it being a soldierly fashion (and for +excellent reasons) to crop it within an inch of the skull; others, +finally, lay asleep in breast-high tents, with their legs protruding +into the open air. + +We paid a visit to Fort Ellsworth, and from its ramparts (which have +been heaped up out of the muddy soil within the last few months, and +will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a +beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the +surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this +region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will +remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of +an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country +dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to +root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where +blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old +ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century +hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a +worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with +our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the +past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: +so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in +sacrificing good institutions to passionate impulses and impracticable +theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, may be found in the old +footprints of the war. + +Even in an aesthetic point of view, however, the war has done a great +deal of enduring mischief, by causing the devastation of great tracts +of woodland scenery, in which this part of Virginia would appear to +have been very rich. Around all the encampments, and everywhere along +the road, we saw the bare sites of what had evidently been tracts of +hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps of well-grown +trees, not smoothly felled by regular axe-men, but hacked, haggled, and +unevenly amputated, as by a sword, or other miserable tool, in an +unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army +destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for +the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like +those of the squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is +allowed to grow. As to other symptoms of devastation and obstruction, +such as deserted houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of +nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of +neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even +upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have +spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The +carcasses of horses were scattered along the way-side. + +One very pregnant token of a social system thoroughly disturbed was +presented by a party of contrabands, escaping out of the mysterious +depths of Secessia; and its strangeness consisted in the leisurely +delay with which they trudged forward, as dreading no pursuer, and +encountering nobody to turn them back. They were unlike the specimens +of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my +judgment, were far more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,--as if +their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,--so picturesquely natural +in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity, (which is +quite polished away from the Northern black man,) that they seemed a +kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite +as good, and akin to the fauns and rustic deities of olden times. I +wonder whether I shall excite anybody's wrath by saying this. It is no +great matter. At all events, I felt most kindly towards these poor +fugitives, but knew not precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in +the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent +in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt +almost as reluctant, on their own account, to hasten them forward to +the stranger's land; and I think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever +may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present +generation of negroes, the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, +and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world, on very +unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad, and can only hope +that an inscrutable Providence means good to both parties. + +There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the +children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia, in a very +singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from +the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth +a brood of Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, +spawned slaves upon the Southern soil,--a monstrous birth, but with +which we have an instinctive sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an +irresistible impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood +and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little +by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny offset her dark +one,--and two such portents never sprang from an identical source +before. + +While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly +into the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; +so he rode along by our side, and we pestered him with queries and +observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He +was on General McClellan's staff, and a gallant cavalier, high-booted, +with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which +trotted hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed +seat. His face had a healthy hue of exposure and an expression of +careless hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the +war had brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none +beside; since they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and +handle a sword, instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, +occupations, pleasures--all tedious alike--to which the artificial +state of society limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the +camp and the smoke of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the +hardy virtues flourish in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted weed. +The enervating effects of centuries of civilization vanish at once, +and leave these young men to enjoy a life of hardship, and the +exhilarating sense of danger,--to kill men blamelessly, or to be +killed gloriously,--and to be happy in following out their native +instincts of destruction, precisely in the spirit of Homer's heroes, +only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes +not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, +with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter one +another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as +in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no +wine so delicious as what they quaffed from an enemy's skull. Indeed, +if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that +old-fashioned kind of goblet has again come into use, at the expense of +our Northern head-pieces,--a costly drinking-cup to him that furnishes +it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!--only, +it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find +ourselves just here! [Footnote: We hardly expected this outbreak in +favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justice of our cause +makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in our outward life. We +have heard of twenty Quakers in a single company of a Pennsylvania +regiment.] + +We now approached General McClellan's head-quarters, which, at that +time, were established at Fairfield Seminary. The edifice was situated +on a gentle elevation, amid very agreeable scenery, and, at a +distance, looked like a gentleman's seat. Preparations were going +forward for reviewing a division of ten or twelve thousand men, the +various regiments composing which had begun to array themselves on an +extensive plain, where, methought, there was a more convenient place +for a battle than is usually found in this broken and difficult +country. Two thousand cavalry made a portion of the troops to be +reviewed. By-and-by we saw a pretty numerous troop of mounted officers, +who were congregated on a distant part of the plain, and whom we +finally ascertained to be the Commander-in-Chief's staff, with +McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself +in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we +had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, +with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss +nor pretension beyond what his character and rank inevitably gave him. + +Now, at that juncture, and, in fact, up to the present moment, there +was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction loud and +low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth, imbecility, +cowardice, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly denying his +ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was +this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a +general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an +enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own +troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, +whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer +itself in the very asking. Nevertheless, being most profoundly +ignorant of the art of war, like the majority of the General's critics, +and, on the other hand, having some considerable impressibility by +men's characters, I was glad of the opportunity to look him in the +face, and to feel whatever influence might reach me from his sphere. So +I stared at him, as the phrase goes, with all the eyes I had; and the +reader shall have the benefit of what I saw,--to which he is the more +welcome, because, in writing this article, I feel disposed to be +singularly frank, and can scarcely restrain myself from telling truths +the utterance of which I should get slender thanks for. + +The General was dressed in a simple, dark-blue uniform, without +epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, +at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of +particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age +and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very +compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical +vigor, which, in fact, he is said to possess,--he and Beauregard having +been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished above other men. +His complexion is dark and sanguine, with dark hair. He has a strong, +bold, soldierly face, full of decision; a Roman nose, by no means a +thin prominence, but very thick and firm; and if he follows it, (which +I should think likely,) it may be pretty confidently trusted to guide +him aright. His profile would make a more effective likeness than the +full face, which, however, is much better in the real man than in any +photograph that I have seen. His forehead is not remarkably large, but +comes forward at the eyebrows; it is not the brow nor countenance of a +prominently intellectual man, (not a natural student, I mean, or +abstract thinker,) but of one whose office it is to handle things +practically and to bring about tangible results. His face looked +capable of being very stern, but wore, in its repose, when I saw it, an +aspect pleasant and dignified; it is not, in its character, an American +face, nor an English one. The man on whom he fixes his eye is conscious +of him. In his natural disposition, he seems calm and self-possessed, +sustaining his great responsibilities cheerfully, without shrinking, +or weariness, or spasmodic effort, or damage to his health, but all +with quiet, deep-drawn breaths; just as his broad shoulders would bear +up a heavy burden without aching beneath it. + +After we had had sufficient time to peruse the man, (so far as it could +be done with one pair of very attentive eyes,) the General rode off, +followed by his cavalcade, and was lost to sight among the troops. They +received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar of which--now near, +now in the centre, now on the outskirts of the division, and now +sweeping back towards us in a great volume of sound--we could trace his +progress through the ranks. If he is a coward, or a traitor, or a +humbug, or anything less than a brave, true, and able man, that mass of +intelligent soldiers, whose lives and honor he had in charge, were +utterly deceived, and so was this present writer; for they believed in +him, and so did I; and had I stood in the ranks, I should have shouted +with the lustiest of them. Of course I may be mistaken; my opinion on +such a point is worth nothing, although my impression may be worth a +little more; neither do I consider the General's antecedents as +bearing very decided testimony to his practical soldiership. A +thorough knowledge of the science of war seems to be conceded to him; +he is allowed to be a good military critic; but all this is possible +without his possessing any positive qualities of a great general, just +as a literary critic may show the profoundest acquaintance with the +principles of epic poetry without being able to produce a single +stanza of an epic poem. Nevertheless, I shall not give up my faith in +General McClellan's soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his +courage and integrity even then. + +Another of our excursions was to Harper's Ferry,--the Directors of the +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad having kindly invited us to accompany +them on the first trip over the newly laid track, after its breaking up +by the Rebels. It began to rain, in the early morning, pretty soon +after we left Washington, and continued to pour a cataract throughout +the day; so that the aspect of the country was dreary, where it would +otherwise have been delightful, as we entered among the hill-scenery +that is formed by the subsiding swells of the Alleghanies. The latter +part of our journey lay along the shore of the Potomac, in its upper +course, where the margin of that noble river is bordered by gray, +overhanging crags, beneath which--and sometimes right through them--the +railroad takes its way. In one place the Rebels had attempted to arrest +a train by precipitating an immense mass of rock down upon the track, +by the side of which it still lay, deeply imbedded in the ground, and +looking as if it might have lain there since the Deluge. The scenery +grew even more picturesque as we proceeded, the bluffs becoming very +bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper's Ferry, +presents as striking a vista among the hills as a painter could desire +to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown +away amid discomfort; and when we alighted into the tenacious mud and +almost fathomless puddle, on the hither side of the Ferry, (the +ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge +had been destroyed by the Rebels,) I cannot remember that any very +rapturous emotions were awakened by the scenery. + +We paddled and floundered over the ruins of the track, and, scrambling +down an embankment, crossed the Potomac by a pontoon-bridge, a thousand +feet in length, over the narrow line of which--level with the river, +and rising and subsiding with it--General Banks had recently led his +whole army, with its ponderous artillery and heavily laden wagons. Yet +our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a +little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers, in the +rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which the Rebels had +precipitated there. + +As we passed over, we looked towards the Virginia shore, and beheld the +little town of Harper's Ferry, gathered about the base of a round hill +and climbing up its steep acclivity; so that it somewhat resembled the +Etruscan cities which I have seen among the Apennines, rushing, as it +were, down an apparently break-neck height. About midway of the ascent +stood a shabby brick church, towards which a difficult path went +scrambling up the precipice, indicating, one would say, a very fervent +aspiration on the part of the worshippers, unless there was some easier +mode of access in another direction. Immediately on the shore of the +Potomac, and extending back towards the town, lay the dismal ruins of +the United States arsenal and armory, consisting of piles of broken +bricks and a waste of shapeless demolition, amid which we saw +gun-barrels in heaps of hundreds together. They were the relics of the +conflagration, bent with the heat of the fire, and rusted with the +wintry rain to which they had since been exposed. The brightest +sunshine could not have made the scene cheerful, nor have taken away +the gloom from the dilapidated town; for, besides the natural +shabbiness, and decayed, unthrifty look of a Virginian village, it has +an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and +its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less +striking contrast between Southern and New-England villages, if the +former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is +prodigiously efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter. + +There was one small shop, which appeared to have nothing for sale. A +single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except +the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts +regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house +stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base +were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities, +to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly +sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown +seized upon as his fortress, and which, after it was stormed by the +United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old +engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man's hands in +this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a +short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the +pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each +side of the door, are two or three ragged loop-holes which John Brown +perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as +to give himself and his garrison a sight over their rifles. Through +these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief +among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting +against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not +pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy +with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect +ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose +happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that +saying, (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source,) that the +death of this blood-stained fanatic has "made the Gallows as venerable +as the Cross!" Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his +martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded, (such +was his natural integrity,) would have acknowledged that Virginia had a +right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would +have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could +generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its +enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at +the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual +satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his +preposterous miscalculation of possibilities. [Footnote: Can it be a +son of old Massachusetts who utters this abominable sentiment? For +shame!] + +But, coolly as I seem to say these things, my Yankee heart stirred +triumphantly when I saw the use to which John Brown's fortress and +prison-house has now been put. What right have I to complain of any +other man's foolish impulses, when I cannot possibly control my own? +The engine-house is now a place of confinement for Rebel prisoners. + +A Massachusetts soldier stood on guard, but readily permitted our whole +party to enter. It was a wretched place. A room of perhaps twenty-five +feet square occupied the whole interior of the building, having an +iron stove in its centre, whence a rusty funnel ascended towards a hole +in the roof, which served the purposes of ventilation, as well as for +the exit of smoke. We found ourselves right in the midst of the Rebels, +some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving +no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, +huddled close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the +visitors; two were astride of some planks, playing with the dirtiest +pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in +the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,--a man with +a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, +which he had contrived to arrange with a degree of soldierly smartness, +though it had evidently borne the brunt of a very filthy campaign. He +stood erect, and talked freely with those who addressed him, telling +them his place of residence, the number of his regiment, the +circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their +Northern inquisitiveness prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness of +his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the +slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious, but bore himself as +if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the +battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon in +his hand. + +Neither could I detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, +words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were +simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces +singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of +men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, +although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They +were peasants, and of a very low order: a class of people with whom our +Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were +exceedingly respectful,--more so than a rustic New-Englander ever +dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had +they worn any hats, they would probably have been self-constrained to +take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to +hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a +single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had +the remotest comprehension of what they had been fighting for, or how +they had deserved to be shut up in that dreary hole; nor, possibly, did +they care to inquire into this latter mystery, but took it as a godsend +to be suffered to lie here in a heap of unwashed human bodies, well +warmed and well foddered to-day, and without the necessity of bothering +themselves about the possible hunger and cold of to-morrow. Their dark +prison-life may have seemed to them the sunshine of all their lifetime. + +There was one poor wretch, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with +greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one +of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been +capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular +individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or +skirmish, a wounded Union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his +feet, and besought his assistance,--not dreaming that any creature in +human shape, in the Christian land where they had so recently been +brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you prefer to +call him so, though I would not advise it) flung a bitter curse at the +poor Northerner, and absolutely trampled the soul out of his body, as +he lay writhing beneath his feet. The fellow's face was horribly ugly; +but I am not quite sure that I should have noticed it, if I had not +known his story. He spoke not a word, and met nobody's eye, but kept +staring upward into the smoky vacancy towards the ceiling, where, it +might be, he beheld a continual portraiture of his victim's +horror-stricken agonies. I rather fancy, however, that his moral sense +was yet too torpid to trouble him with such remorseful visions, and +that, for his own part, he might have had very agreeable reminiscences +of the soldier's death, if other eyes had not been bent reproachfully +upon him and warned him that something was amiss. It was this reproach +in other men's eyes that made him look aside. He was a wild-beast, as I +began with saying,--an unsophisticated wild-beast,--while the rest of +us are partially tamed, though still the scent of blood excites some of +the savage instincts of our nature. What this wretch needed, in order +to make him capable of the degree of mercy and benevolence that exists +in us, was simply such a measure of moral and intellectual development +as we have received; and, in my mind, the present war is so well +justified by no other consideration as by the probability that it will +free this class of Southern whites from a thraldom in which they +scarcely begin to be responsible beings. So far as the education of the +heart is concerned, the negroes have apparently the advantage of them; +and as to other schooling, it is practically unattainable by black or +white. + +Looking round at these poor prisoners, therefore, it struck me as an +immense absurdity that they should fancy us their enemies; since, +whether we intend it so or no, they have a far greater stake on our +success than we can possibly have. For ourselves, the balance of +advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, +all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for +thence would come the regeneration of a people,--the removal of a foul +scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps them in a state of +disease and decrepitude, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, +the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine +themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has +ever yet resulted according to the purpose of its projectors. The +advantages are always incidental. Man's accidents are God's purposes. +We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for. +[Footnote: The author seems to imagine that he has compressed a great +deal of meaning into these little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic +wisdom. We disagree with him. The counsels of wise and good men are +often coincident with the purposes of Providence; and the present war +promises to illustrate our remark.] + +Our Government evidently knows when and where to lay its finger upon +its most available citizens; for, quite unexpectedly, we were joined +with some other gentlemen, scarcely less competent than ourselves, in +a commission to proceed to Fortress Monroe and examine into things in +general. Of course, official propriety compels us to be extremely +guarded in our description of the interesting objects which this +expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in +stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a +kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a +humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent peculiarities, yet +of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin old gentleman, set off by a +large pair of brilliant epaulets,--the only pair, so far as my +observation went, that adorn the shoulders of any officer in the Union +army. Either for our inspection, or because the matter had already +been arranged, he drew out a regiment of Zouaves that formed the +principal part of his garrison, and appeared at their head, sitting on +horseback with rigid perpendicularity, and affording us a vivid idea +of the disciplinarian of Baron Steuben's school. + +There can be no question of the General's military qualities; he must +have been especially useful in converting raw recruits into trained and +efficient soldiers. But valor and martial skill are of so evanescent a +character, (hardly less fleeting than a woman's beauty,) that +Government has perhaps taken the safer course in assigning to this +gallant officer, though distinguished in former wars, no more active +duty than the guardianship of an apparently impregnable fortress. The +ideas of military men solidify and fossilize so fast, while military +science makes such rapid advances, that even here there might be a +difficulty. An active, diversified, and therefore a youthful, +ingenuity is required by the quick exigencies of this singular war. +Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its +ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence +that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is +now pronounced absolutely incapable of resisting the novel modes of +assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the +flexible talent of a young man that will evolve a new efficiency out of +its obsolete strength. + +It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their +incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous +tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent +disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial +atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human +existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right +to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their +juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. In case of +death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative +sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of +a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood +in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit +to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such +a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the +opportunity to be exhaled! If I had the ordering of these matters, +fifty should be the tenderest age at which a recruit might be accepted +for training; at fifty-five or sixty, I would consider him eligible for +most kinds of military duty and exposure, excluding that of a forlorn +hope, which no soldier should be permitted to volunteer upon, short of +the ripe age of seventy. As a general rule, these venerable combatants +should have the preference for all dangerous and honorable service in +the order of their seniority, with a distinction in favor of those +whose infirmities might render their lives less worth the keeping. +Methinks there would be no more Bull Runs; a warrior with gout in his +toe, or rheumatism in his joints, or with one foot in the grave, would +make a sorry fugitive! + +On this admirable system, the productive part of the population would +be undisturbed even by the bloodiest war; and, best of all, those +thousands upon thousands of our Northern girls, whose proper mates will +perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid +their doom of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be +pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be +more disastrous than the one on which we began the war, when a young +army was struck with paralysis through the age of its commander. + +The waters around Fortress Monroe were thronged with a gallant array of +ships of war and transports, wearing the Union flag,--"Old Glory," as I +hear it called in these days. A little withdrawn from our national +fleet lay two French frigates, and, in another direction, an English +sloop, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red +portent in the air, wherever there is strife. In pursuance of our +official duty, (which had no ascertainable limits,) we went on board +the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her +depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful armament, her mighty +engines, and her furnaces, where the fires are always kept burning, as +well at midnight as at noon, so that it would require only five minutes +to put the vessel under full steam. This vigilance has been felt +necessary ever since the Merrimack made that terrible dash from +Norfolk. Splendid as she is, however, and provided with all but the +very latest improvements in naval armament, the Minnesota belongs to a +class of vessels that will be built no more, nor ever fight another +battle,--being as much a thing of the past as any of the ships of Queen +Elizabeth's time, which grappled with the galleons of the Spanish +Armada. + +On her quarter-deck, an elderly flag-officer was pacing to and fro, +with a self-conscious dignity to which a touch of the gout or +rheumatism perhaps contributed a little additional stiffness. He seemed +to be a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous school of +naval worthies, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette +which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are +somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of +nautical heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which +they fought valorously and strutted most intolerably. How can an +admiral condescend to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and +elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck dignity in the cramped lookout +of the Monitor, or even in the twenty-feet diameter of her cheese-box? +All the pomp and splendor of naval warfare are gone by. Henceforth +there must come up a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, +who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single +pair of eyes; and even heroism--so deadly a gripe is Science laying on +our noble possibilities--will become a quality of very minor +importance, when its possessor cannot break through the iron crust of +his own armament and give the world a glimpse of it. + +At no great distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking +craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with +the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse +of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular +structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no +great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a +machine,--and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed +in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it +looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable, suspicious, +evidently mischievous,--nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; +for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the +same breed, to annihilate whole navies and batter down old supremacies. +The wooden walls of Old England cease to exist, and a whole history of +naval renown reaches its period, now that the Monitor comes smoking +into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms +bury even her turret in green water, as she burrows and snorts along, +oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has +betrayed me into a more ambitious vein of description than I often +indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented myself with +simply saying that she looked very queer. + +Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her +interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten +feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and +sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and +ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft, +(for it is impossible to tell stem from stern,) the crew are relatively +quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a +palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility, +the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most +satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in +the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they +see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man +whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages +them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made +by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron +tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost +imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior +surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may +not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in +impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being +sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but +stifled. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in +this new craft. It was pleasant to see their benign exultation in her +powers of mischief, and the delight with which they exhibited the +circumvolutory movement of the tower, the quick thrusting forth of the +immense guns to deliver their ponderous missiles, and then the +immediate recoil, and the security behind the closed port-holes. Yet +even this will not long be the last and most terrible improvement in +the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is +to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no +other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming, and gush of +smoke, and belch of smothered thunder out of the yeasty waves, there +shall be a deadly fight going on below,--and, by-and-by, a sucking +whirlpool, as one of the ships goes down. + +The Monitor was certainly an object of great interest; but on our way +to Newport News, whither we next went, we saw a spectacle that +affected us with far profounder emotion. It was the sight of the few +sticks that are left of the frigate Congress, stranded near the +shore,--and still more, the masts of the Cumberland rising midway out +of the water, with a tattered rag of a pennant fluttering from one of +them. The invisible hull of the latter ship seems to be careened over, +so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite +unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The +flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under +the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, +although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide, +instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man +the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface. + +That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of +Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he +heard that his son's ship was surrendered? "Then Joe's dead!" said he; +and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring +renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of +the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and +himself out of inevitable disaster and defeat. That last gun from the +Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem of +many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe, and our +own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights +became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave +countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that +includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners of England, and other +mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance. +There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and +manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is +certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from +the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of +machinery, which by-and-by will fight out our wars with only the clank +and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging +nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the +tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as +manhood retains any part of its pristine value, no country can afford +to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, any more than that +of the brave Worden, pass unhonored and unrewarded. If the Government +do nothing, let the people take the matter into their own hands, and +cities give him swords, gold boxes, festivals of triumph, and, if he +needs it, heaps of gold. Let poets brood upon the theme, and make +themselves sensible how much of the past and future is contained within +its compass, till its spirit shall flash forth in the lightning of a +song! + +From these various excursions, and a good many others, (including one +to Manassas,) we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; +but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and +parlors of Willard's Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if +we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of +interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly +called the centre of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, +the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. +It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the +country,--not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take +a folded ballot from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into +the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither +by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest +atmosphere of the nation's life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this +life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but +all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a +miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign +States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; +you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You +are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, +poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, +_attachés_ of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, +diplomatists, mail-contractors, railway-directors, until your own +identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you +have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a +thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure +than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal +habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a +gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the +conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I +had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all +these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A +constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelopes the motley crowd, +and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk +more frankly than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke +in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring +about more valuable results. + +It is curious to observe what antiquated figures and costumes +sometimes make their appearance at Willard's. You meet elderly men with +frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment +passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It +is as if one of Stuart's portraits were walking abroad. I see no way of +accounting for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety +of traitors, and the peril of our sacred Union and Constitution have +disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of +the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated +and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are +not altogether extinguished in their ashes,--in their throats, I might +rather say;--for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such +a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be +loath to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where +these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many +remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and +forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken +by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement +put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the +matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces +than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an +extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the +rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an +interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come +hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of +finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in +its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to +not a few. + +We saw at Willard's many who had thus found out for themselves, that, +when Nature gives a young man no other utilizable faculty, she must be +understood as intending him for a soldier. The bulk of the army had +moved out of Washington before we reached the city; yet it seemed to +me that at least two-thirds of the guests and idlers at the hotel wore +one or another token of the military profession. Many of them, no +doubt, were self-commissioned officers, and had put on the buttons and +the shoulder-straps, and booted themselves to the knees, merely +because captain, in these days, is so good a travelling-name. The +majority, however, had been duly appointed by the President, but might +be none the better warriors for that. It was pleasant, occasionally, +to distinguish a grizzly veteran among this crowd of carpet-knights, +--the trained soldier of a lifetime, long ago from West Point, +who had spent his prime upon the frontier, and very likely could +show an Indian bullet-mark on his breast,--if such decorations, won in +an obscure warfare, were worth the showing now. + +The question often occurred to me,--and, to say the truth, it added an +indefinable piquancy to the scene,--what proportion of all these +people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the Union, +and what part were tainted, more or less, with treasonable sympathies +and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. Traitors +there were among them,--no doubt of that,--civil servants of the +public, very reputable persons, who yet deserved to dangle from a cord; +or men who buttoned military coats over their breasts, hiding perilous +secrets there, which might bring the gallant officer to stand +pale-faced before a file of musketeers, with his open grave behind him. +But, without insisting upon such picturesque criminality and punishment +as this, an observer, who kept both his eyes and heart open, would find +it by no means difficult to discern that many residents and visitors of +Washington so far sided with the South as to desire nothing more nor +better than to see everything reestablished on a little worse than its +former basis. If the cabinet of Richmond were transferred to the +Federal city, and the North awfully snubbed, at least, and driven back +within its old political limits, they would deem it a happy day. It is +no wonder, and, if we look at the matter generously, no unpardonable +crime. Very excellent people hereabouts remember the many dynasties in +which the Southern character has been predominant, and contrast the +genial courtesy, the warm and graceful freedom of that region, with +what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity of +our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They +have a conscientious, though mistaken belief, that the South was +driven out of the Union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we +are responsible for having compelled true patriots to love only half +their country instead of the whole, and brave soldiers to draw their +swords against the Constitution which they would once have died +for,--to draw them, too, with a bitterness of animosity which is the +only symptom of brotherhood (since brothers hate each other best) that +any longer exists. They whisper these things with tears in their eyes, +and shake their heads, and stoop their poor old shoulders, at the +tidings of another and another Northern victory, which, in their +opinion, puts farther off the remote, the already impossible chance of +a reunion. + +I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. +Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on +winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another +generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the +present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo +the South "as the Lion wooes his bride"; it is a rough courtship, but +perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we +stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as +Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded +from its golden palaces,--and perhaps all the more heavenly, because +so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive hearts, had gone to plot +ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere. [Footnote: We regret the +innuendo in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to +terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We +hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it +by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally +within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily +efficacious. In truth, the work is already done. + +We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man's loyalty, but +he will allow us to say that we consider him premature in his kindly +feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author +himself says of John Brown, (and, so applied, we thought it an +atrociously cold-blooded _dictum_,) "any common-sensible man +would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it +only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities." There +are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and +affect us like an intolerable crime,--which this Rebellion is, into +the bargain.] + + + + +THE MINUTE-GUNS. + + +I stood within the little cove, +Full of the morning's life and hope, +While heavily the eager waves +Charged thundering up the rocky slope. + +The splendid breakers! how they rushed, +All emerald green and flashing white, +Tumultuous in the morning sun, +With cheer, and sparkle, and delight! + +And freshly blew the fragrant wind, +The wild sea-wind, across their tops, +And caught the spray and flung it far, +In sweeping showers of glittering drops. + +Within the cove all flashed and foamed, +With many a fleeting rainbow hue; +Without, gleamed, bright against the sky, +A tender, wavering line of blue, + +Where tossed the distant waves, and far +Shone silver-white a quiet sail, +And overhead the soaring gulls +With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. + +And all my pulses thrilled with joy, +Watching the wind's and water's strife,-- +With sudden rapture,--and I cried, +"Oh, sweet is Life! Thank God for Life!" + +Sailed any cloud across the sky, +Marring this glory of the sun's? +Over the sea, from distant forts, +There came the boom of minute-guns! + +War-tidings! Many a brave soul fled, +And many a heart the message stuns!-- +I saw no more the joyous waves, +I only heard the minute-guns. + + + + +ORIGINALITY. + + +A great contemporary writer, so I am told, regards originality as much +rarer than is commonly supposed. But, on the contrary, is it not far +more frequent than is commonly supposed? For one should not identify +originality with mere primacy of conception or utterance, as if a +thought could be original but once. In truth, it may be so thousands or +millions of times; nay, from the beginning to the end of man's times +upon the earth, the same thoughts may continue rising from the same +fountains in his spirit. Of the central or stem thoughts of +consciousness, of the imperial presiding imaginations, this is actually +true. Ceaseless re-origination is the method of Nature. This alone +keeps history alive. For if every Mohammedan were but a passive +appendage to the dead Mohammed, if every disciple were but a copy in +plaster of his teacher, and if history were accordingly living and +original only in such degree as it is an unprecedented invention, the +laws of decay should at once be made welcome to the world. + +The fact is otherwise. As new growths upon the oldest cedar or baobab +do not merely spin themselves out of the wood already formed,--as they +thrive and constitute themselves only by original conversation with +sun, earth, and air,--that is, in the same way with any seed or +sapling,--so generations of Moslems, Parsees, or Calvinists, while +obeying the structural law of their system, yet quaff from the mystical +fountains of pure Life the sustenance by which they live. Merely out +of itself the tree can give nothing,--literally, nothing. True, if cut +down, it may, under favorable circumstances, continue for a time to +feed the growing shoots out of its own decay. Yet not even at the cost +of decay and speedy exhaustion could the old trunk accomplish this +little, but for the draft made upon it by the new growths. It is +_their_ life, it is the relationship which they assert with sun +and rain and all the elements, which is foremost in bringing about even +this result. So it is with the great old literatures, with the old +systems of philosophy and faith. They are simply avenues, or structural +forms, through which succeeding generations of souls come into +conversation with eternal Nature, and express their original life. + +Observe, again, that the tree lives only while new shoots are produced +upon it. The new twigs and leaves not only procure sustenance for +themselves, but even keep the trunk itself alive: so that the chief +order of support is just opposite what it seems; and the tree lives +from above, down,--as do men and all other creatures. So in history, it +requires a vast amount of original thought or sentiment to sustain the +old structural forms. This gigantic baobab of Catholicism, for example, +is kept alive by the conversion of Life into Belief, which takes place +age after age in the bosoms of women and men. The trunk was long ago in +extensive decay; every wind menaces it with overthrow; but the hearts +that bud and blossom upon it yearly send down to the earth and up to +the sky such a claim for resource as surrounds the dying trunk with +ever new layers of supporting growth. Equally are the thought, poetry, +rhetoric of by-gone times kept in significance by the perceiving, the +imagining, and the sense of a flowing symbolism in Nature, which our +own time brings to them. To make Homer alive to this age,--what an +expenditure of imagination, of pure feeling and penetration does it +demand! Let the Homeric heart or genius die out of mankind, and from +that moment the "Iliad" is but dissonance, the long melodious roll of +its echoes becomes a jarring chop of noises. What chiefly makes Homer +great is the vast ideal breadth of relationship in which he establishes +human beings. But he in whose narrow brain is no space for high +Olympus and deep Orcus,--he whose coarse fibre never felt the +shudder of the world at the shaking of the ambrosial locks, nor a +thrill in the air when a hero fails,--what can this grand stoop of the +ideal upon the actual world signify to him? To what but an ethical +genius in men can appeal for guest-rites be made by the noble +"Meditations" of Marcus Antoninus, or the exquisite, and perhaps +incomparable, "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Browne? +Appreciative genius is centrally the same with productive +genius; and it is the Shakspeare in men alone that prints Shakspeare +and reads him. So it is that the works of the masters are, as it were, +perpetually re-written and renewed in life by the genius of mankind. + +In saying that constant re-origination is the method of Nature, I do +not overlook the element nor underrate the importance of Imitation. +This it is that secures continuity, connection, and structural unity. +By vital imitation the embryonic man assumes the features and +traits of his progenitors. After birth the infant remains in the +matrix of the household; after infancy the glowing youth is held in +that of society; and processes kindred with those which bestowed +likeness to father and mother go on to assimilate him with a social +circle or an age. Complaint is made, and by good men, of that implicit +acquiescence which keeps in existence Islam, Catholicism, and the like, +long after their due time has come to die; yet, abolish the law of +imitation which causes this, and the immediate disintegration of +mankind will follow. Mortar is much in the way, when we wish to take +an old building to pieces and make other use of the bricks; do you +therefore advise its disuse? + +But imitation would preserve nothing, did not the law of re-origination +keep it company. We are not born from our parents alone, but from the +loins of eternal Nature no less. Was Orpheus the grandson of Zeus and +Mnemosyne,--of sovereign Unity and immortal Memory? Equally is +Shakspeare and every genuine bard. Could the heroes of old Greece +trace their derivation from the gods? + +Little of a hero is he, even in these times of ours, who is not of the +like lineage. And indeed, one and all, we have a father and mother +whose marriage-morn is of more ancient date than our calendars, and of +whose spousal solemnities this universe is the memorial. All life, +indeed, whatsoever be its form and rank, has, along with connections of +pedigree and lateral association, one tap-root that strikes straight +down into the eternal. + +Because Life is of this unsounded depth, it may well afford to repeat +the same forms forever, nor incurs thereby any danger of exhausting its +significance and becoming stale. Vital repetition, accordingly, goes +on in Nature in a way not doubtful and diffident, but frank, open, +sure, as if the game were one that could not be played out. It is now a +very long while that buds have burst and grass grown; yet Spring comes +forward still without bashfulness, fearing no charge of having +plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its +blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from +the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll +without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the +bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful +that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks +were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night +after night forever the stars, and age after age the eyes of women and +men, shine on without apology, or the least promise that this shall be +positively their last appearance. Life knows itself original always, +nor a whit the less so for any repetition of its elected and +significant forms. Youth and newness are, indeed, inseparable from it. +Death alone is senile; and we become physically aged only by the +presence and foothold of this dogged intruder in our bodies. The body +is a fortress for the possession of which Death is perpetually +contending; only the incessant activity of Life at every foot of the +rampart keeps him at bay; but, with, the advance of years, the +assailants gain, here and there a foothold, pressing the defenders +back; and just in proportion as this defeat take a place the man +becomes _old_. But Life sets out from the same basis of mystery to +build each new body, no matter how many myriads of such forms have been +built before; and forsaking it finally, is no less young, inscrutable, +enticing than before. + +Now Thought, as part of the supreme flowering of Life, follows its law. +It cannot be anticipated by any anticipation of its forms and results. +There were hazel-brown eyes in the world before my boy was born; but +the light that shines in these eyes comes direct from the soul +nevertheless. The light of true thought, in like manner, issues only +from an inward sun; and shining, it carries always its perfect +privilege, its charm and sacredness. Would you have purple or yellow +eyes, because the accustomed colors have been so often repeated? Black, +blue, brown, gray, forever! May the angels in heaven have no other! +Forever, too, and equally, the perpetual loves, thoughts, and melodies +of men! Let them come out of their own mystical, ineffable haunts,--let +them, that is, be _real_,--and we ask no more. + +The question of originality is, therefore, simply one of vitality. Does +the fruit really grow on the tree? does it indeed come by vital +process?--little more than this does it concern us to know. Truths +become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's +bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying +is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the +throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the +honors that are not theirs, the throne and government are disgraced. + +Truisms are corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every +stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an +impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step +nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude +me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does +he draw a film of eclipse over the sun, and cast a shadow on city and +field, but he throws over the salutation itself a more permanent +shadow; and were the words never to reach us save from such lips, they +would, in no long time, become terms of insult or of malediction. But +so often as the sweet greeting comes from wife, child, or friend, its +proper savors are restored. A jesting editor says that "You tell a +telegram" is the polite way of giving the lie; and it is quite possible +that his witticism only anticipates a serious use of language some +century hence. Terms and statements are perpetually saturated by the +uses made of them. Etymology and the dictionary resist effects in vain. +And as single words may thus be discharged of their lawful meaning, so +the total purport of words, that is, truths themselves, may in like +manner be disgraced. If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously +patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or +feeble pietist repeat the word _God_ or recite the raptures of +adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie +are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn +atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest +of morality aver that he writes for money alone. + +But Truth does not share the fortunes of her verbal body. The grand +ideas, the master-imaginations and moving faiths of men, run in the +blood of the race; and a given degree of pure human heat infallibly +brings them out. Not more surely does the rose appear on the rose-bush, +or the apple, pear, or peach upon the trees of the orchard, than these +fruits of the soul upon nations of powerful and thrifty spirit. For +want of vitality the shrub may fail to flower, the tree to bear fruit, +and man to bring forth his spiritual product; but if Thought be +attained, certain thoughts and imaginations will come of it. Let two +nations at opposite sides of the globe, and without intercommunication +arrive at equal stages of mental culture, and the language of the one +will, on the whole, be equivalent to that of the other, nay, the very +rhetoric, the very fancies of the one will, in a broad way of +comparison, be tantamount to those of the other. The nearer we get to +any past age, the more do we find that the totality of its conceptions +and imaginings is much the same with that of our own. There are +specific variation and generic unity; and he whom the former blinds to +the latter reads the old literatures without eyes, and knows neither +his own time nor any other. Owen, Agassiz, Carpenter explain the +homologies of anatomy and physiology; but a doctrine of the homologies +of thought is equally possible, and will sometime be set forth. + +The basis, then, of any sufficient doctrine of literature and literary +production is found in two statements:-- + +First, that the perfect truth of the universe issues, by vital +representation, into the personality of man. + +Secondly, that this truth _tends_ in every man, though often in +the obscurest way, toward intellectual and artistic expression. + +Now just so far as by any man's speech we feel ourselves brought into +direct relationship with this ever-issuing fact, so far the impressions +of originality are produced. That all his words were in the dictionary +before he used them,--that all his thoughts, under some form of +intimation, were in literature before he arrived at them,--matters not; +it is the verity, the vital process, the depth of relationship, which +concerns us. + +Nay, in one sense, the older his truth, the _more_ do the effects +of originality lie open to him. The simple, central, imperial elements +of human consciousness are first in order of expression, and continue +forever to be first in order of power and suggestion. The great +purposes, the great thoughts and melodies issue always from these. This +is the quarry which every masterly thinker or poet must work. Homer is +Homer because he is so simply true alike to earth and sky,--to the +perpetual experience and perpetual imagination of mankind. Had he gone +working around the edges, following the occasional _détours_ and +slips of consciousness, there would have been no "Iliad" or "Odyssey" +for mankind to love and for Pope to spoil. The great poets tell us +nothing new. They remind us. They bear speech deep into our being, and +to the heart of our heart lend a tongue. They have words that +correspond to facts in all men and women. But they are not newsmongers. + +Yesterday, I read in a prose translation of the "Odyssey" the exquisite +idyl of Nausicaa and her Maids, and the discovery of himself by +Ulysses. Perhaps the picture came out more clearly than ever before; at +any rate, it filled my whole day with delight, and to-day I seem to +have heard some sweetest good tidings, as if word had come from an old +playmate, dear and distant in memory, or a happy and wealthy letter had +arrived from a noble friend. Whence this enrichment? There was nothing +in this idyl, to which, even on a first reading, I could give the name +of "new truth." The secret is, that I _have_ indeed had tidings of +old playmates, dear and distant in memory,--of those bright-eyed, +brave, imaging playmates of all later ages, the inhabitants of Homer's +world. And little can one care for novelties of thought, in comparison +with these tones from the deeps of undying youth. Bring to our lips +these cups of the fresh wine of life, if you would do good. Bring us +these; for it is by perpetual rekindlings of the youth in us that our +life grows and unfolds. Each advancing epoch of the inward life is no +less than this,--a fresh efflux of adolescence from the immortal and +exhaustless heart. Everywhere the law is the same,--Become as a little +child, to reach the heavenly kingdoms. This, however, we become not by +any return to babyhood, but by an effusion or emergence from within of +pure life,--of life which takes from years only their wisdom and their +chastening, and gives them in payment its perfect renewal. + +This, then, is the proof of originality,--that one shall utter the pure +consciousness of man. If he live, and live humanly, in his speech, the +speech itself will live; for it will obtain hospitality in all wealthy +and true hearts. + +But if the most original speech be, as is here explained, of that which +is oldest and most familiar in the consciousness of man, it +nevertheless does not lack the charm of surprise and all effects of +newness. For, in truth, nothing is so strange to men as the very facts +they seem to confess every day of their lives. Truisms, I have said, +are the corpses of truths; and they are as far from the fact they are +taken to represent as the perished body from the risen soul. The +mystery of truth is hidden behind them; and when next it shall come +forth, it will bring astonishment, as at first. Every time the grand +old truths are livingly uttered, the world thinks it never heard them +before. The news of the day is hardly spoken before it is antiquated. +For this an hour too late is a century, is forever, too late. But truth +of life and the heart, the world-old imaginations, the root-thoughts of +human consciousness,--these never lose their privilege to surprise, and +at every fresh efflux are wellnigh sure to be persecuted by some as +unlawful impositions upon the credence of mankind. Nay, the same often +happens with the commonest truths of observation. Mr. Ruskin describes +leaves and clouds, objects that are daily before all eyes; and the very +artists cry, "Fie upon him!" as a propounder of childish novelties: +slowly they perceive that it was leaves and clouds which were novel. +Luther thunders in the ears of the Church its own creed; the Pope asks, +"Is it possible that he believes all this?" and the priesthood scream, +"To the stake with the heretic!" A poet prints in the "Atlantic +Monthly" a simple affirmation of the indestructibility of man's true +life; numbers of those who would have been shocked and exasperated to +hear questioned the Church dogma of immortality exclaim against this as +a ridiculous paradox. Once in a while there is grown a heart so +spacious that Nature finds in it room to chant aloud the word +_God_, and set its echoes rolling billowy through one man's being; +and he, lifting up his voice to repeat it among men from that inward +hearing, invariably astounds, and it may be infuriates his +contemporaries. The simple proposition, GOD IS, could it once be +_wholly_ received, would shake our sphere as no earthquake ever +did, and would leave not one stone upon another, I say not merely of +some city of Lisbon, but of entire kingdoms and systems of +civilization. The faintest inference from this cannot be vigorously +announced in modern senates without sending throbs of terror over half +a continent, and eliciting shrieks of remonstrance from the very +shrines of worship. + +The ancient perpetual truths prove, at each fresh enunciation, not only +surprising, but incredible. The reason is, that they overfill the +vessels of men's credence. If you pour the Atlantic Ocean into a pint +basin, what can the basin do but refuse to contain it, and so spill it +over? Universal truths are as spacious and profound as the universe +itself; and for the cerebral capacity of most of us the universe is +really somewhat large! + +But as the major numbers of mankind are too little self-reverent to +dispense with the services of self-conceit, they like to think +themselves equal, and very easily equal, to any truth, and habitually +assume their extempore, off-hand notion of its significance as a +perfect measure of the fact. As if a man hollowed his hand, and, +dipping it full out of Lake Superior, said, "Lake Superior just fills +my hand!" To how many are the words _God, Love, Immortality_ just +such complacent handfuls! And when some mariner of God seizes them with +loving mighty arms, and bears them in his bark beyond sight of their +wonted shores, what wonder that they perceive not the identity of this +sky-circled sea with their accustomed handful? Yet, despite egotism and +narrowness of brain and every other limitation, the spirit of man will +claim its privilege and assert its affinity with all truth; and in such +measure as one utters the pure heart of mankind, and states the real +relationships of human nature, is he sure of ultimate audience and +sufficing love. + + + + +ERICSSON AND HIS INVENTIONS. + + +No events of the present war will be longer remembered, or will hold a +more prominent place in History, than those which took place on the +eighth and ninth of March in Hampton Roads, when the Rebel steamer +Merrimack attacked the Federal fleet. We all know what havoc she made +in her first day's work. When the story of her triumphs flashed over +the wires, it fell like a thunderbolt upon all loyal hearts. + +The Cumberland, manned by as gallant a crew as ever fought under the +Stars and Stripes, had gone down helplessly before her. The Congress, +half-manned, but bravely defended, had been captured and burnt. +Sailing frigates, such as were deemed formidable in the days of Hull +and Decatur, and which some of our old sea-dogs still believed to be +the main stay of the navy, were found to be worse than useless against +this strange antagonist. Our finest steam-frigates, though +accidentally prevented from getting fairly into action, seemed likely, +however skilfully handled, to have proved almost as inefficient; for +all our batteries and broadsides had produced no effect on this +iron-clad monster. She had gone back to her lair uninjured. What was to +prevent her from coming out again to break the blockade, bombard our +seaports, sink and destroy everything that came in her way? + +But we had only seen the first act of the drama. The curtain was to +rise again, and a new character was to appear on the stage. The +champion of the Union, in complete armor, was about to enter the lists. +When the Merrimack steamed out defiantly on Sunday morning, the Monitor +was there to meet her. Then, for the first time in naval warfare, two +iron-clad vessels were pitted against each other. The Merrimack was +driven back disabled. We breathed freely again at this +_dénouement_, and congratulated ourselves that the nation had +been saved from enormous damage and disgrace. We did not foresee that +the great Rebel monster, despairing of a successful encounter with her +antagonist, was to end her career by suicide. We thought only of the +vast injury which she might have done, and might yet be capable of +doing, to the Union cause, but from which we had so providentially +escaped. It was indeed a narrow escape. Nothing but the opportune +arrival of the Monitor saved us; and for this impregnable vessel we +are indebted to the genius of Ericsson. + +This distinguished engineer and inventor, although a foreigner by +birth, has long been a citizen of the United States. His first work in +this country--by which, as in the present instance, he added honor and +efficiency to the American navy--was the steam-frigate Princeton, a +vessel which in her day was almost as great a novelty as the Monitor is +now. The improvements in steam machinery and propulsion and in the arts +of naval warfare, which he introduced in her, formed the subject of a +lecture delivered before the Boston Lyceum by John O. Sargent, in 1844, +from which source we derive some interesting particulars concerning +Ericsson's early history. + +John Ericsson was born in 1803, in the Province of Vermeland, among the +iron mountains of Sweden. His father was a mining proprietor, so that +the youth had ample opportunities to watch the operation of the +various engines and machinery connected with the mines. These had been +erected by mechanicians of the highest scientific attainments, and +presented a fine study to a mind of mechanical tendencies. Under such +influences, his innate mechanical talent was early developed. At the +age of ten years, he had constructed with his own hands, and after his +own plans, a miniature sawmill, and had made numerous drawings of +complicated mechanical contrivances, with instruments of his own +invention and manufacture. + +In 1814 he attracted the attention of the celebrated Count Platen, who +had heard of his boyish efforts, and desired an interview with him. +After carefully examining various plans and drawings which the youth +exhibited, the Count handed them back to him, simply observing, in an +impressive manner, "Continue as you have commenced, and you will one +day produce something extraordinary." + +Count Platen was the intimate personal friend of Bernadotte, the King +of Sweden, and was regarded by him with a feeling little short of +veneration. It was Count Platen who undertook and carried through, in +opposition to the views of the Swedish nobility, and of nearly the +whole nation, that gigantic work, the Grand Ship Canal of Sweden, which +connects the North Sea with the Baltic. He died Viceroy of Norway, and +left behind him the reputation of one of the greatest men of the +century. The few words of kind encouragement which he spoke, on the +occasion to which we have referred, sank deeply into the mind of the +young mechanician, and confirmed him in the career on which he had +entered. + +Immediately after this interview young Ericsson was made a cadet in the +corps of engineers, and, after six months' tuition, at the age of +twelve years, was appointed _niveleur_ on the Grand Ship Canal +under Count Platen. In this capacity, in the year 1816, he was required +to set out the work for more than six hundred men. The canal was +constructed by soldiers. He was at that time not tall enough to look +through the levelling-instrument; and in using it, he was obliged to +mount upon a stool, carried by his attendants for that purpose. As the +discipline in the Swedish army required that the soldier should always +uncover the head in speaking to his superior, gray-headed men came, cap +in hand, to receive their instructions from this mere child. + +While thus employed in the summer months, he was constantly occupied +during the winter with his pencil and pen; and there are many +important works on the canal constructed after drawings made by +Ericsson at this early age. During his leisure hours, he measured up +and made working-drawings of every implement and piece of machinery +connected with this great enterprise; so that at the age of fifteen he +was in possession of accurate plans of the whole work, drawn by his own +hand. + +His associations with military men on the canal had given him an +inclination for military life; and at the age of seventeen he entered +the Swedish army as an ensign, without the knowledge of his friend and +patron, Count Platen. This step excited the indignation of the Count, +who tried to prevail upon him to change his resolution; but finding all +his arguments useless, he terminated an angry interview by bidding +the young ensign "go to the Devil." The affectionate regard which he +entertained for the Count, and gratitude for the interest taken by him +in his education, caused the circumstances of this interview to make a +deep impression upon Ericsson, but were not sufficient to shake his +determination. + +Soon after the young ensign had entered upon his regimental duties, an +affair occurred which threatened to obscure his hitherto bright +prospects. His Colonel, Baron Koskull, had been disgraced by the King, +about the time that he had recommended Ericsson for promotion. This +circumstance induced the King to reject the recommendation. The Colonel +was exceedingly annoyed by this rejection; and having in his possession +a military map made by the expectant ensign, he took it to his Royal +Highness the Crown Prince Oscar, and besought him to intercede for the +young man with the King. The Prince received the map very kindly, +expressing great admiration of its beautiful finish and execution, and +presented himself in person with it to the King, who yielded to the +joint persuasion of the Prince and the map, and promoted the young +ensign to the lieutenancy for which he had been recommended. + +About the time of this promotion, the Government had ordered the +northern part of Sweden to be accurately surveyed. It being the desire +of the King that officers of the army should be employed in this +service, Ericsson, whose regiment was stationed in the northern +highlands, proceeded to Stockholm, for the purpose of submitting +himself to the severe examination then a prerequisite to the +appointment of Government surveyor. + +The mathematical education which he had received under Count Platen now +proved very serviceable. He passed the examination with great +distinction, and in the course of it, to the surprise of the examiners, +showed that he could repeat Euclid _verbatim_,--not by the +exercise of the memory, which in Ericsson is not remarkably retentive, +but from his perfect mastery of geometrical science. There is no doubt +that it is this thorough knowledge of geometry to which he is indebted +for his clear conceptions on all mechanical subjects. + +Having returned to the highlands, he entered on his new vocation with +great assiduity; and, supported by an unusually strong constitution, he +mapped a larger extent of territory than any other of the numerous +surveyors employed on the work. There are yet in the archives of Sweden +detailed maps of upwards of fifty square miles made by his hand. + +Neither the great labors attending these surveys, nor his military +duties, could give sufficient employment to the energies of the young +officer. In connection with a German engineer, Major Pentz, he now +began the arduous task of compiling a work on Canals, to be illustrated +by sixty-four large plates, representing the various buildings, +machines, and instruments connected with the construction of such +works. The part assigned to him in this enterprise was nothing less +than that of making all the drawings, as well as of engraving the +numerous plates; and as all the plates were to be executed in the style +of what is called machine-engraving, he undertook to construct a +machine for the purpose, which he successfully accomplished. This work +he prosecuted with so much industry, in the midst of his other various +labors, that, within the first year of its commencement, he had +executed eighteen large plates, which were pronounced by judges of +machine-engraving to be of superior merit. + +While thus variously occupied, being on a visit to the house of his +Colonel, Ericsson on one occasion showed his host, by a very simple +experiment, how readily mechanical power may be produced, independently +of steam, by condensing flame. His friend was much struck by the beauty +and simplicity of the experiment, and prevailed upon Ericsson to give +more attention to a principle which he considered highly important. The +young officer accordingly made sonic experiments on an enlarged scale, +and succeeded in the production of a motive power equal to that of a +steam-engine of ten-horse power. So satisfactory was the result, from +the compact form of the machine employed, as well as the comparatively +small consumption of fuel, that he conceived the idea of at once +bringing it out in England, the great field for all mechanical +inventions. + +Ericsson accordingly obtained, leave from the King to visit England, +where he arrived on the eighteenth of May, 1826. He there proceeded to +construct a working engine on the principle above mentioned, but soon +discovered that his _flame-engine_, when worked by the combustion +of mineral coals, was a different thing from the experimental model he +had tried in the highlands of Sweden, with fuel composed of the +splinters of fine pine wood. Not only did he fail to produce an +extended and vivid flame, but the intense heat so seriously affected +all the working parts of the machine as soon to cause its destruction. + +These experiments, it may well be supposed, were attended with no +trifling expenditure; and, to meet these demands upon him, our young +adventurer was compelled to draw on his mechanical resources. + +Invention now followed invention in rapid succession, until the records +of the Patent-Office in London were enriched with the drawings of the +remarkable steam-boiler on the principle of _artificial draught_; +to which principle we are mainly indebted for the benefits conferred on +civilization by the present rapid communication by railways. In +bringing this important invention before the public, Ericsson thought +it advisable to join some old and established mechanical house in +London; and accordingly he associated himself with John Braithwaite, a +name favorably known in the mechanical annals of England. This +invention was hardly developed, when an opportunity was presented for +testing it in practice. + +The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, before erecting +the stationary engines by which they had intended to draw their +passenger and freight carriages, determined to appeal to the mechanical +talent of the country, in the hope of securing some preferable form of +motor. A prize was accordingly offered, in the autumn of 1829, for the +best locomotive engine, to be tested on the portion of the railway then +completed. Ericsson was not aware that any such prize had been offered, +until within seven weeks of the day fixed for the trial. He was not +deterred by the shortness of the time, but, applying all his energies +to the task, planned an engine, executed the working-drawings, and had +the whole machine constructed within the seven weeks. + +The day of trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the +prize,--namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by +Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the +railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of +spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for +inanimate matter was to be put in motion, and that moves only in +accordance with immutable laws. The signal was given for the start. +Instead of the application of whip and spur, the gentle touch of the +steam-valve gave life and motion to the novel machine. + +Up to that period, the greatest speed at which man had been carried +along the ground was that of the race-horse; and no one of the +multitude present on this occasion expected to see that speed +surpassed. It was the general belief that the maximum attainable by the +locomotive engine would not much exceed ten miles. To the surprise and +admiration of the crowd, however, the Novelty steam-carriage, the +_fastest_ engine started, guided by its inventor Ericsson, +assisted by John Braithwaite, darted along the track at the rate of +upwards of fifty miles an hour! + +The breathless silence of the multitude was now broken by thunders of +hurras, that drowned the hiss of the escaping steam and the rolling of +the engine-wheels. To reduce the surprise and delight excited on this +occasion to the universal standard, and as an illustration of the +extent to which the value of property is sometimes enhanced by the +success of a mechanical invention, it may be stated, that, when the +Novelty had run her two miles and returned, the shares of the Liverpool +and Manchester Railway had risen _ten per cent_. + +But how easily may the just expectations of an inventor be +disappointed! Although the principle of _artificial draught_--the +principle which gave to the Novelty such decided superiority in +speed--is yet retained in all locomotive engines, the mode of producing +this draught in our present engines is far different from that +introduced by Ericsson, and was discovered by the merest accident; and +so soon was this discovery made, after the successful display of the +Novelty engine, that Ericsson had no time to derive the least advantage +from its introduction. To him, however, belongs the credit of having +disproved the correctness of the once established theory, that it was +absolutely necessary that a certain _extensive_ amount of +_surface_ should be exposed to the fire, to generate a given +quantity of steam. + +The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by +Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it +had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the +steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. +Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, and which excited so +much interest in London at the time the Argyle Rooms were on fire. A +similar engine of greater power was subsequently constructed by +Ericsson and Braithwaite for the King of Prussia, which was mainly +instrumental in saving several valuable buildings at a great fire in +Berlin. For this invention Ericsson received, in 1842, the large gold +medal offered by the Mechanics' Institute of New York for the best plan +of a steam fire-engine. + +In the year 1833 Ericsson brought before the scientific world in London +his invention of the Caloric-Engine, which had been a favorite subject +of speculation and reflection with him for many years. From the +earliest period of his mechanical labors, he had been in the habit of +regarding heat as an agent, _which, whilst it exerts mechanical +force, undergoes no change._ The steam in the cylinder of a +steam-engine, after having lifted the weight of the piston, contains +just as much heat as it did before leaving the boiler,--minus only the +loss by radiation. Yet in the low-pressure engine we turn the steam, +after having performed its office, into a condensing-apparatus, where +the heat is in a manner annihilated; and in the high-pressure engine we +throw it away into the atmosphere. + +The acting medium employed in the Caloric-Engine is atmospheric air; +and the leading peculiarity of the machine, as originally designed by +Ericsson, is, that by means of an apparatus styled the Regenerator the +heat contained in the air which escapes from the working cylinder is +taken up by the air which enters it at each stroke of the piston and +used over and over again. + +The machine constructed by Ericsson in London was a working engine of +five-horse power, the performance of which was witnessed by many +gentlemen of scientific pretensions in that metropolis. Among others, +the popular author, Sir Richard Phillips, examined it; and in his +"Dictionary of the Arts of Life and of Civilization," he thus notices +the result of this experiment:--"The author has, with inexpressible +delight, seen the first model machine of five-horse power at work. With +a handful of fuel, applied to the very sensible medium of atmospheric +air, and a most ingenious disposition of its differential powers, he +beheld a resulting action in narrow compass, capable of extension to as +great forces as ever can be wielded or used by man." Dr. Andrew Ure +went so far as to say that the invention would "throw the name of his +great countryman, James Watt, into the shade." Professor Faraday gave +it an earnest approval. But, with these and some other eminent +exceptions, the scientific men of the day condemned the principle on +which the invention was based as unsound and untenable. + +The interest which the subject excited did not escape the British +Government. Before many days had elapsed, the Secretary of the Home +Department, accompanied by Mr. Brunel, the constructor of the Thames +Tunnel, made his appearance in the engine-room where the new motive +power was in operation. Mr. Brunel, who was at that time somewhat +advanced in years, conceived at the outset an erroneous notion of the +nature of the new power, which he would not suffer to be corrected by +explanations. A discussion sprang up between him and the inventor, +which was followed by a long correspondence. The result was, that an +unfavorable impression of the invention was communicated to the British +Government. + +The invention fared little better at the hands of Professor Faraday, +from whose efficient advocacy the most favorable results might have +been anticipated. This gentleman had announced that he would deliver a +lecture on the subject in London, in the spacious theatre of the Royal +Institution. The novelty of the invention, combined with the +reputation of the lecturer, had attracted a very large audience, +including many individuals of eminent scientific attainments. Just +half an hour, however, before he was expected to enlighten this +distinguished assembly, the celebrated lecturer discovered that he had +mistaken the expansive principle which is the very life of the +machine. Although he had spent many hours in studying the +Caloric-Engine in actual operation, and in testing its absolute force +by repeated experiments, Professor Faraday was compelled to inform his +hearers, at the very outset, that he did not know why the engine worked +at all. He was obliged to confine himself, therefore, to the +explanation of the Regenerator, and the process by which the heat is +continually returned to the cylinder, and re-employed in the +production of force. To this part of the invention he rendered ample +justice, and explained it in that felicitous style to which he is +indebted for the reputation he deservedly enjoys, as the most agreeable +and successful lecturer in England. + +Other causes than the misconception of a Brunel and a Faraday operated +to retard the practical success of this beautiful invention. The high +temperature which it was necessary to keep up in the circulating medium +of the engine, and the consequent oxidation, soon destroyed the +pistons, valves, and other working parts. These difficulties the +inventor endeavored to remedy, in an engine, which he subsequently +constructed, of much larger powers, but without success. His failure in +this respect, however, did not deter him from prosecuting his +invention. He continued his experiments from time to time, as +opportunity permitted, confident that he was gradually, but surely, +approaching the realization of his great scheme. + +Meanwhile he applied himself with his accustomed energy to the +practical working out of another favorite idea. The principle of the +Ericsson propeller was first suggested to the inventor by a study of +the means employed to propel the inhabitants of the air and deep. He +satisfied himself that all such propulsion in Nature is produced by +oblique action; though, in common with all practical men, he at first +supposed that it was inseparably attended by a loss of power. But when +he reflected that this was the principle invariably adopted by the +Great Mechanician of the Universe, in enabling the birds, insects, and +fishes to move through their respective elements, he knew that he must +be in error. This he was soon able to demonstrate, and he became +convinced, by a strict application of the laws which govern matter and +motion, that no loss of power whatever attends the oblique action of +the propelling surfaces applied to Nature's locomotives. After +having satisfied himself on the theory of the subject, the first step +of the inventor was the construction of a small model, which he tried +in the circular basin of a bath in London. To his great delight, so +perfectly was his theory borne out in practice, that this model, though +less than two feet long, performed its voyage about the basin at the +rate of three English miles an hour. + +The next step in the invention was the construction of a boat forty +feet long, eight feet beam, and three feet draught of water, with two +propellers, each of five feet three inches in diameter. So successful +was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the +boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without +a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she +attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was +found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons' +burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and +the American packet-ship Toronto was towed in the river Thames by this +miniature steamer at the rate of more than five English miles an hour. +This feat excited no little interest among the boatmen of the Thames, +who were astonished at the sight of this novel craft moving against +wind and tide without any visible agency of propulsion, and, ascribing +to it some supernatural origin, united in giving it the name of the +_Flying Devil_. But the engineers of London Hoarded the +experiment with silent neglect; and the subject, when laid before the +Lords of the British Admiralty, failed to attract any favorable notice +from that august body. + +Perceiving its peculiar and admirable fitness for ships of war, +Ericsson was confident that their Lordships would at once order the +construction of a war-steamer on the new principle. He invited them, +therefore, to take an excursion in tow of his experimental boat. +Accordingly, the gorgeous and gilt Admiralty Barge was ordered up to +Somerset House, and the little steamer was lashed along-side. The barge +contained Sir Charles Adam, Senior Lord of the Admiralty,--Sir William +Simonds, Chief Constructor of the British Navy,--Sir Edward Parry, the +celebrated Arctic navigator,--Captain Beaufort, the Chief of the +Topographical Department of the British Admiralty,--and others of +scientific and naval distinction. + +In the anticipation of a severe scrutiny from so distinguished a +personage as the Chief Constructor of the British Navy, the inventor +had carefully prepared plans of his new mode of propulsion, which were +spread on the damask cloth of the magnificent barge. To his utter +astonishment, as we may well imagine, this scientific gentleman did not +appear to take the slightest interest in his explanations. On the +contrary, with those expressive shrugs of the shoulder and shakes of +the head which convey so much to the bystander without absolutely +committing the actor,--with an occasional sly, mysterious, undertone +remark to his colleagues,--he indicated very plainly, that, though his +humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause for so much +unhappiness, yet that "he could, an if he would," demonstrate by a +single word the utter futility of the whole invention. + +Meanwhile the little steamer, with her precious charge, proceeded at a +steady progress of ten miles an hour, through the arches of the lofty +Southwark and London bridges, towards Limehouse, and the steam-engine +manufactory of the Messrs. Seaward. Their Lordships having landed, and +inspected the huge piles of ill-shaped cast-iron, misdenominated marine +engines, intended for some of His Majesty's steamers, with a look at +their favorite propelling--apparatus, the Morgan paddle-wheel, they +reembarked, and were safely returned to Somerset House by the +disregarded, noiseless, and unseen propeller of the new steamer. + +On parting, Sir Charles Adam, with a sympathizing air, shook the +inventor cordially by the hand, and thanked him for the trouble he had +been at in showing him and his friends this _interesting_ +experiment, adding that he feared he had put himself to too great an +expense and trouble on the occasion. Notwithstanding this somewhat +ominous _finale_ of the day's excursion, Ericsson felt confident +that their Lordships could not fail to perceive the great importance of +the invention. To his surprise, however, a few days afterwards, a +friend put into his hands a letter written by Captain Beaufort, at the +suggestion, probably, of the Lords of the Admiralty, in which that +gentleman, who had himself witnessed the experiment, expressed regret +to state that their Lordships had certainly been very much disappointed +at its result. The reason for the disappointment was altogether +inexplicable to the inventor; for the speed attained at this trial far +exceeded anything that had ever been accomplished by any paddle-wheel +steamer on so small a scale. + +An accident soon relieved his astonishment, and explained the +mysterious givings-out of Sir William Simonds on the day of the +excursion. The subject having been started at a dinner-table where a +friend of Ericsson's was present, Sir William ingeniously and +ingenuously remarked, that, "even if the propeller had the power of +propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, +_because_, the power being applied in the _stern_, it would +be _absolutely impossible_ to make the vessel steer." It may not +be obvious to every one how our naval philosopher derived his +conclusion from his premises; but his hearers doubtless readily +acquiesced in the oracular proposition, and were much amused at the +idea of undertaking to steer a vessel when the power was applied in her +stern. + +But we may well excuse the Lords of the British Admiralty for +exhibiting no interest in the invention, when we reflect that the +engineering corps of the empire were arrayed in opposition to +it,--alleging that it was constructed upon erroneous principles, and +full of practical defects, and regarding its failure as too certain to +authorize any speculations even as to its success. The plan was +specially submitted to many distinguished engineers, and was publicly +discussed in the scientific journals; and there was no one but the +inventor who refused to acquiesce in the truth of the numerous +demonstrations proving the vast loss of mechanical power which must +attend this proposed substitute for the old-fashioned paddle-wheel. + +While opposed by such a powerful array of English scientific wisdom, +the inventor had the satisfaction of submitting his plan to a citizen +of the New World, Mr. Francis B. Ogden,--for many years Consul of the +United States at Liverpool,--who was able to understand its philosophy +and appreciate its importance. Though not an engineer by profession, +Mr. Ogden was distinguished for his eminent attainments in mechanical +science, and is entitled to the honor of having first applied the +important principle of the expansive power of steam, and of having +originated the idea of employing right-angular cranks in marine +engines. His practical experience and long study of the subject--for he +was the first to stem the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi, and the +first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam alone--enabled him at +once to perceive the truth of the inventor's demonstrations. And not +only did he admit their truth, but he also joined Ericsson in +constructing the experimental boat to which we have alluded, and +which the inventor launched into the Thames with the name of the +"Francis B. Ogden," as a token of respect to his Transatlantic friend. + +Other circumstances soon occurred which consoled the inventor for his +disappointment in the rejection of the propeller by the British +Admiralty. The subject had been brought to the notice of an officer of +the United States navy. Captain Robert F. Stockton, who was at that +time on a visit to London, and who was induced to accompany him in one +of his experimental excursions on the Thames. Captain Stockton is +entitled to the credit of being the first naval officer who heard, +understood, and dared to act upon the suggestions of Ericsson, as to +the application of the propeller to ships of war. At the first glance, +he saw the important bearings of the invention; and his acute judgment +enabled him at once to predict that it was destined to work a +revolution in naval warfare. After making a single trip in the +experimental steamboat, from London Bridge to Greenwich, he ordered +the inventor to build for him forthwith two iron boats for the United +States, with steam-machinery and propeller on the plan of this rejected +invention. "I do not want," said Stockton, "the opinions of your +scientific men; what I have seen this day satisfies me." He at once +brought the subject before the Government of the United States, and +caused numerous plans and models to be made, at his own expense, +explaining the peculiar fitness of the invention for ships of war. So +completely persuaded was he of its great importance in this aspect, +and so determined that his views should be carried out, that he boldly +assured the inventor that the Government of the United States would +test the propeller on a large scale; and so confident was Ericsson +that the perseverance and energy of Captain Stockton would sooner or +later accomplish what he promised, that he at once abandoned his +professional engagements in England, and came to the United States, +where he fixed his residence in the city of New York. This was in the +year 1839. + +Circumstances delayed, for some two years, the execution of their plan. +With the change of the Federal Administration, Stockton was first able +to obtain a favorable hearing; and having at length received the +necessary authority, the Princeton was built under his superintendence, +from the designs of Ericsson. She was completed and ready for sea +early in 1844, when she was pronounced by Stockton "the cheapest, +fastest, and most certain ship of war in the world." + +In this vessel, in addition to the propeller, Ericsson introduced his +semicylindrical steam-engine, a beautiful invention, so compact that +it occupied only one-eighth of the bulk of the British marine engine +of corresponding power, and was placed more than four feet below the +water-line. The boilers were also below the water-line, having a +peculiar heating-apparatus attached which effected a great saving of +fuel, and with their furnaces and flues so constructed as to burn +anthracite as well as bituminous coal. Instead of the ordinary tall +smoke-pipe,--an insuperable objection to a steamer as a ship of +war,--he constructed a smoke-pipe upon the principle of the telescope, +which could be elevated or depressed at pleasure; and in order to +provide a draught independent of the height of the smoke-pipe, he +placed centrifugal blowers in the bottom of the vessel, which were +worked by separate small engines,--an arrangement originally applied +by him to marine engines in the steam-packet Corsair in 1831. Thus the +steam-machinery of the Princeton fulfilled the most important +requisites for a war-steamer, combining lightness, compactness, +simplicity, and efficiency, and being placed wholly out of reach of the +enemy's fire. + +The armament of the ship also exhibited many peculiarities. "By the +application of the various arts to the purposes of war on board of the +Princeton," says Captain Stockton, in his report to the Navy +Department, "it is believed that the art of gunnery for sea-service +has, for the first time, been reduced to something like mathematical +certainty. The distance to which the guns can throw their shot at every +necessary angle of elevation has been ascertained by a series of +careful experiments. The distance from the ship to any object is +readily ascertained with an instrument on board, contrived for that +purpose, by an observation which it requires but an instant to make, +and by inspection without calculation. By self-acting locks, the guns +can be fired accurately at the necessary elevation,--no matter what +the motion of the ship may be." The instruments here referred to, +namely, the Distance-Instrument and the Self-Acting Gun-Lock, and also +the wrought-iron gun-carriage, by means of which Captain Stockton's +enormous guns were readily handled and directed, all were the +productions of Ericsson's fertile mechanical genius. + +A committee of the American Institute, by whom this remarkable vessel +was examined, thus concluded their report:--"Your Committee take leave +to present the Princeton as every way worthy the highest honors of the +Institute. She is a sublime conception, most successfully +realized,--an effort of genius skilfully executed,--a grand +_unique_ combination, honorable to the country, as creditable to +all engaged upon her. Nothing in the history of mechanics surpasses the +inventive genius of Captain Ericsson, unless it be the moral daring of +Captain Stockton, in the adoption of so many novelties at one time." We +may add that in the Princeton was exhibited the first successful +application of screw-propulsion to a ship of war, and that she was the +first steamship ever built with the machinery below the water-line and +out of the reach of shot. + +Ericsson spent the best part of two years in his labors upon the +Princeton. Besides furnishing the general plan of the ship and +supplying her in every department with his patented improvements, he +prepared, with his own hand, the working-drawings for every part of +the steam-machinery, propelling-apparatus, and steering-apparatus in +detail, and superintended their whole construction and arrangement, +giving careful and exact instructions as to the most minute +particulars. In so doing, he was compelled to make frequent journeys +from New York to Sandy Hook and Philadelphia, involving no small amount +of trouble and expense. For the use of his patent rights in the engine +and propeller, he had, at the suggestion of Captain Stockton, refrained +from charging the usual fees, consenting to accept, as full +satisfaction, whatever the Government, after testing the inventions, +should see fit to pay. He never imagined, however, that his laborious +services as engineer were to go unrequited, or that his numerous +inventions and improvements, unconnected with the engine and propeller, +were to be furnished gratuitously. Yet, when, after the Princeton, as +we have seen, had been pronounced on all hands a splendid success, +Ericsson presented his bill to the Navy Department,--not for the +patent-fees in question, but for the bare repayment of his +expenditures, and compensation for his time and labor in the service +of the United States,--he was informed that his claim could not be +allowed; it could not be recognized as a "legal claim." It was not +denied that the services alleged had been rendered,--that the work for +which compensation was asked had been done by Ericsson, and well +done,--nor that the United States were in the enjoyment of the unpaid +results of his labor and invention. A claim based upon such +considerations might, it would seem, have been brought within the +definition of a legal claim. But if not admissible under the strict +rules of the Navy Department, it was certainly an equitable demand +against the United States; and Ericsson could not believe that the +representatives of the great American people would stand upon +technicalities. He accordingly made a direct appeal to them in a +Memorial to Congress. + +We may as well here give the further history of this claim. It met with +the usual delays and obstructions that private claims, having nothing +but their intrinsic merits to support them, are compelled to +encounter. It called forth the usual amount of legislative +pettifogging. Session after session passed away, and still it hung +between the two Houses of Congress, until the very time which had +elapsed since it was first presented began to be brought up as an +argument against it. At length, when Congress established the Court of +Claims, a prospect opened of bringing it to a fair hearing and a +final decision. It was submitted to that tribunal six years ago. The +Court decided in its favor,--the three judges (Gilchrist, Scarborough, +and Blackford) being unanimous in their judgment. A bill directing its +payment was reported to the Senate,--and there it is still. Although +favorably reported upon by two committees at different sessions, and +once passed by the Senate, without a vote recorded against it, it has +never yet got through both Houses of Congress. For furnishing this +Government with the magnificent war-steamer which was pronounced by +Captain Stockton "the cheapest, fastest, and most certain ship of war +in the world," Ericsson has never been paid a dollar. It remains to be +seen whether the present Congress will permit this stain upon the +national good faith to continue. If it does, its "votes of thanks" are +little better than a mockery. + +The efficiency and utility of the propeller having been established +beyond a doubt, it went at once into extensive use. But the inventor +was again disappointed in his just expectation of reaping an adequate +pecuniary benefit from his exertions. Upon the strength of some +attempts at screw-propulsion,--made and abandoned by various +experimenters,--which had never resulted, and probably never would +have resulted, in any practical application, rival machines, which +conflicted with Ericsson's patent, soon made their appearance. A long +litigation followed, during which all attempts to collect patent-fees +were necessarily suspended; and the result was, that the invention was +virtually abandoned to the public. But no one can take from Ericsson +the honor of having first introduced the screw-propeller into actual +use, and demonstrated its value,--an honor which is now freely +accorded to him by the highest scientific authorities at home and +abroad. + +Although the first five years of his American experience had been less +profitable, in a pecuniary sense, than he had anticipated, he +continued to reside in the city of New York, where he found an ample +field for the exercise of his great powers in the line of his +profession. He planned the war-steamer Pomone, the first screw-vessel +introduced into the French navy. He planned revenue-cutters for the +United States Government, taking care always to have his contracts so +distinctly made that no question could again arise as to his "legal +claim." He invented a useful apparatus for supplying the boilers of +sea-going steamers with fresh water. He invented various modifications +of the steam-engine. + +In the American division of the London Industrial Exhibition of all +Nations in 1851, he exhibited the Distance-Instrument, for measuring +distances at sea,--the Hydrostatic Gauge, for measuring the volume of +fluids under pressure,--the Reciprocating Fluid-Metre, for measuring +the quantity of water which passes through pipes during definite +periods,--the Alarm-Barometer,--the Pyrometer, intended as a standard +measure of temperature, from the freezing-point of water up to the +melting-point of iron,--a Rotary Fluid-Metre, the principle of which +is the measurement of fluids by the velocity with which they pass +through apertures of different dimensions,--and a Sea-Lead, contrived +for taking soundings at sea without rounding the vessel to the wind, +and independently of the length of the lead-line. For these inventions +he received the prize-medal of the Exhibition. + +But while thus continually occupied with new enterprises and objects, +he did not lose sight of his great idea, the Caloric-Engine. All his +spare hours and spare funds were devoted to experiments with the view +of overcoming the practical difficulties which stood in the way of its +success. Towards the end of the year 1851 he seemed to be on the point +of realizing his hopes, having constructed a large stationary engine, +which was applied with great success, at the Phoenix Foundry in New +York, to the actual work of pumping water. Soon after, through the +liberality of Mr. John B. Kitching, a well-known merchant of New +York, he was enabled to test the invention on a magnificent scale. A +ship of two thousand tons, propelled by the power of caloric-engines, +was planned and constructed by him in the short space of seven months, +and in honor of the inventor received the name of the "Ericsson." + +Every one will remember the interest which this caloric-ship excited +throughout the country. She made a trip from New York to Alexandria on +the Potomac, in very rough weather, in the latter part of February, +1853. On this trip the engines were in operation for seventy-three +hours without being stopped for a moment, and without requiring the +slightest adjustment, the consumption of fuel being only five tons in +twenty-four hours. At Alexandria she was visited by the President and +President elect, the heads of the departments, a large number of naval +officers, and many members of both Houses of Congress, and +subsequently by the foreign ministers in a body, and by the Legislature +of Virginia, then in session. Ericsson was invited by a committee of +the Legislature to visit Richmond, as the guest of the State. The +Secretary of the Navy recommended, in a special communication to +Congress, the passage of a resolution authorizing him to contract for +the construction of a frigate of two thousand tons to be equipped with +caloric-engines, and to appropriate for this purpose five hundred +thousand dollars. This recommendation failed in consequence of the +pressure of business at the close of the session. + +But notwithstanding the surprise and admiration which this achievement +excited in the scientific world, the speed attained was not sufficient +to meet the practical exigencies of commerce; and the repetition of +the engines on this large scale could not be undertaken at the charge +of individuals. Ericsson accordingly wisely devoted himself to +perfecting the Calorie-Engine on a small scale, and in 1859 he +produced it in a form which has since proved a complete success. It is +no longer a subject of experiment, but exists as a perfect, practical +machine. More than five hundred of these engines, with cylinders +varying from a diameter of six inches to one of forty inches, are now +in successful operation. It is applied to purposes of pumping, +printing, hoisting, grinding, sawing, turning light machinery, working +telegraphic instruments and sewing-machines, and propelling boats. No +less than forty daily papers (among which we may mention the "National +Intelligencer") are printed by means of this engine. In Cuba it is +used for grinding sugar-cane, on Southern plantations for ginning +cotton; and there is an endless variety of domestic, agricultural, and +mechanical uses to which it may be advantageously applied. + +The extent of power attainable by this machine, consistently with its +application to practical uses, is not yet precisely defined. Within +the limit thus far given to it, its power is certain, uniform, and +entirely sufficient. It is not attended with the numerous perils that +make the steam-engine so uncomfortable a servant, but is absolutely +free from danger. It requires no engineering supervision. It consumes a +very small amount of fuel (about one-third of the amount required by +the steam-engine) and requires no water. These peculiarities not only +make it a very desirable substitute for the steam-engine, but render +it available for many purposes to which the steam-engine would never +be applied. + +In addition to his regular professional avocations, Ericsson was +industriously occupied in devising new applications of the +Calorie-Engine, when the attempted secession of the Southern States +plunged the country into the existing war and struck a blow at all the +arts of peace. Ills whole heart and mind were given at once to the +support of the Union. Liberal in all his ideas, he is warmly attached +to republican institutions, and has a hearty abhorrence of intolerance +and oppression in all their forms. His early military education and +his long study of the appliances of naval warfare increased the +interest with which he watched the progress of events. The abandonment +of the Norfolk navy-yard to the Rebels struck him as a disgrace that +might have been avoided. He foresaw the danger of a formidable +antagonist from that quarter in the steamship which we had so +obligingly furnished them. The building of gun-boats with +steam-machinery _above_ the water-line--where the first shot from +an enemy might render it useless--seemed to him, in view of what he +had done and was ready to do again, a very unnecessary error. Knowing +thoroughly all the improvements made and making in the war-steamers of +England and France, and feeling the liability of their interference in +our affairs, he could not appreciate the wisdom of building new +vessels according to old ideas. The blockade of the Potomac by Rebel +batteries, in the very face of our navy, seemed to him an indignity +which need not be endured, if the inventive genius of the North could +have fair play. + +An impregnable iron gun-boat was, in his judgment, the thing that was +needed; and he determined that the plan of such a vessel should be his +contribution towards the success of the war. The subject was not a +new one to him. He had given it much consideration, and his plan, in +all its essential features, had been matured long before. Proposals +for iron-clad vessels having been invited by the Navy Department, +Ericsson promptly submitted his plans and specifications. Knowing the +opposition that novelties always encounter, he had no great expectation +that his proposal would be accepted. "I have done my part," said he; "I +have offered my plan. It is for the Government to say whether I shall +be allowed to carry it out." He felt confident, however, that, if the +plan should be brought to the notice of the President, his practical +wisdom and sound common sense could not fail to decide in its favor. +Fortunately for the country, Ericsson's offer was accepted by the Navy +Department. He immediately devoted all his energies to the execution of +his task, and the result was the construction of the vessel to which he +himself gave the name of the "Monitor." What she is and what she has +accomplished, we need not here repeat. Whatever may be her future +history, we may safely say, in the words of the New York Chamber of +Commerce, that "the floating-battery Monitor deserves to be, and will +be, forever remembered with gratitude and admiration." + +We rejoice to believe that the merits and services of Ericsson are now +fully appreciated by the people of the United States. The thanks of the +nation have been tendered to him by a resolution of Congress. The +Boston Board of Trade and the New York Chamber of Commerce have passed +resolutions expressive of their gratitude. The latter body expressed +also their desire that the Government of the United States should make +to Captain Ericsson "such suitable return for his services as will +evince the gratitude of a great nation." Upon hearing this suggestion, +Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,--"All the remuneration +I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is +all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of +consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he +discountenanced the movement set on foot among the merchants of New +York for the subscription of a sum of money to be presented to him. He +asks nothing but fair remuneration for services rendered,--and that, it +is to be hoped, the people will take care that he shall receive. + +Ericsson is now zealously at work in constructing six new iron +gun-boats on the plan of the Monitor. If that remarkable structure can +be surpassed, he is the man to accomplish it. His ambition is to render +the United States impregnable against the navies of the world. "Give me +only the requisite means," he writes, "and in a very short time we can +say to those powers now bent on destroying republican institutions, +'_Leave the Gulf with your frail craft, or perish_!' I have all my +life asserted that mechanical science will put an end to the power of +England over the seas. The ocean is Nature's highway between the +nations. It should be free; and surely Nature's laws, when properly +applied, will make it so." + +His reputation as an engineer is worldwide. In 1852 he was made a +Knight of the Order of Vasa by King Oscar of Sweden. The following +extract from a poem "To John Ericsson" we translate from "Svenska +Tidningen," the Government journal of Stockholm. It is eloquently +expressive of the pride and admiration with which he is regarded in his +native country. + +"World-wide his fame, so gracefully adorning +His native Sweden with enduring radiance! +Not a king's crown could give renown so noble: +For his is Thought's great triumph, and the sceptre +He wields is over elements his subjects!" + +Although now in his sixtieth year, Ericsson has the appearance of a man +of forty. He is in the very maturity of a vigorous manhood, and retains +all the fire and enthusiasm of youth. He has a frame of iron, cast in a +large and symmetrical mould. His head and face are indicative of +intellectual power and a strong will. His presence impresses one, at +the first glance, as that of an extraordinary man. His bearing is +dignified and courteous, with a touch perhaps of military +_brusquerie_ in his mode of address. He has a keen sense of humor, +a kindly and generous disposition, and a genial and companionable +nature. He is a "good hater" and a firm friend. Like all men of strong +character and outspoken opinions, he has some enemies; but his chosen +friends he "grapples to his heart with hooks of steel." + +He is not a mere mechanician, but has great knowledge of men and of +affairs, and an ample fund of information on all subjects. His +conversation is engaging and instructive; and when he seeks to enlist +coöperation in his mechanical enterprises, few men can withstand the +force of his arguments and the power of his personal magnetism. + +Although his earnings have sometimes been large, his heavy expenditures +in costly experiments have prevented him from acquiring wealth. Money +is with him simply a means of working out new ideas for the benefit of +mankind; and in this way he does not scruple to spend to the utmost +limit of his resources. He lives freely and generously, but is strictly +temperate and systematic in all his habits. + +The amount of labor which he is capable of undergoing is astonishing. +While engaged in carrying out his inventions, it is a common thing for +him to pass sixteen hours a day at his table, in the execution of +detailed mechanical drawings, which he throws off with a facility and +in a style that have probably never been surpassed. He does not seem to +need such recreation as other men pine after. He never cares to run +down to the seashore, or take a drive into the country, or spend a week +at Saratoga or at Newport. Give him his drawing-table, his plans, his +models, the noise of machinery, the clatter of the foundry, and he is +always contented. Week in and week out, summer and winter, he works on +and on,--and the harder he works, the more satisfied he seems to be. He +is as untiring as one of his own engines, which never stop so long as +the fire burns. Endowed with such a constitution, it is to be hoped +that new triumphs and many years of honor and usefulness are yet before +him. + + * * * * * + + +MOVING. + + +Man is like an onion. He exists in concentric layers. He is born a +bulb and grows by external accretions. The number and character of his +involutions certify to his culture and courtesy. Those of the boor are +few and coarse. Those of the gentleman are numerous and fine. But strip +off the scales from all and you come to the same germ. The core of +humanity is barbarism. Every man is a latent savage. + +You may be startled and shocked, but I am stating fact, not theory. I +announce not an invention, but a discovery. You look around you, and +because you do not see tomahawks and tattooing you doubt my assertion. +But your observation is superficial. You have not penetrated into the +secret place where souls abide. You are staring only at the outside +layer of your neighbors; just peel them and see what you will find. + +I speak from the highest possible authority,--my own. Representing the +gentler half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and +good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with +the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand +and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my +circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of +Americans,--and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the +moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten +that stand lower. Yet through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of +my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty +to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization +leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be +just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white +shores of Britain fifteen hundred years ago. + +For we have been moving. + +People who live in cities and move regularly every year from one good, +finished, right-side-up house to another will think I give a very small +reason for a very broad fact; but they do not know what they are +talking about. They have fallen into a way of looking upon a house only +as an exaggerated trunk, into which they pack themselves annually with +as much nonchalance as if it were only their preparation for a summer +trip to the seashore. They don't strike root anywhere. They don't have +to tear up anything. A man comes with cart and horses. There is a stir +in the one house,--they are gone;--there is a stir in the other +house,--they are settled,--and everything is wound up and set going to +run another year. We do these things differently in the country. We +don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, +then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, +and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then +it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then +it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,--but keep living in it all +the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just +such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown +like a fungus ever since there was anything to grow,--where your life +and luggage have crept into all the crevices and corners, and every +wall is festooned with associations thicker than the cobwebs, though +the cobwebs are pretty thick,--where the furniture and the pictures and +the knick-knacks are so become a part and parcel of the house, so grown +with it and into it, that you do not know they are chiefly rubbish till +you begin to move them and they fall to pieces, and don't know it then, +but persist in packing them up and carrying them away for the sake of +auld lang syne, till, set up again in your new abode, you suddenly find +that their sacredness is gone, their dignity has degraded into +dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only +comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has +suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and +the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this +tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the _débris_ of many +generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary +new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough +for it, and you will perhaps comprehend how it is that I find a great +crack in my life. On the farther side are prosperity, science, +literature, philosophy, religion, society, all the refinements, and +amenities, and benevolences, and purities of life,--in short, all the +arts of peace, and civilization, and Christianity,--and on this +side--moving. You will also understand why that one word comprises, to +my thinking, all the discomforts short of absolute physical torture +that can be condensed into the human lot. Condensed, did I say? If it +were a condensed agony, I could endure it. One great, stunning, +overpowering blow is undoubtedly terrible, but you rally all your +fortitude to meet and resist it, and when it is over it is over and the +recuperative forces go to work; but a trouble that worries and baffles +and pricks and rasps you, that penetrates into all the ramifications of +your life, that fills you with profound disgust, and fires you with +irrepressible fury, and makes of you an Ishmaelite indeed, with your +hand against every man and every man's hand against you,--ah! that is +the _experimentum crucis_. Such is moving, in the country,--not an +act, but a process,--not a volition, but a fermentation. + +We will say that the first of September is the time appointed for the +transit. The day approaches. It is the twenty-ninth of August. I +prepare to take hold of the matter in earnest. I am nipped in the bud +by learning that the woman who was to help about the carpets cannot +come, because her baby is taken with the croup. I have not a doubt of +it. I never knew a baby yet that did not go and have the croup, or the +colic, or the cholera infantum, just when it was imperatively necessary +that it should not have them. But there is no help for it. I shudder +and bravely gird myself for the work. I tug at the heavy, bulky, +unwieldy carpets, and am covered with dust and abomination. I think +carpets are the most untidy, unwholesome nuisances in the whole world. +It is impossible to be clean with them under your feet. You may sweep +your carpet twenty times and raise a dust on the twenty-first. I am +sure I heard long ago of some new fashion that was to be +introduced,--some Italian style, tiles, or mosaic-work, or something of +the sort. I should welcome anything that would dispense with these vile +rags. I sigh over the good old sanded floors that our grandmothers +rejoiced in,--and so, apotheosizing the past and anathematizing the +present, I pull away, and the tacks tear my fingers, and the hammer +slips and lets me back with a jerk, and the dust fills my hair and nose +and eyes and mouth and lungs, and my hands grow red and coarse and +ragged and sore and begrimed, and I pull and choke and cough and +strangle and pull. + +So the carpets all come up and the curtains all come down. The bureaus +march out of the chamber-windows and dance on a tight-rope down into +the yard below. The chairs are set at "heads and points." The clothes +are packed into the trunks. The flour and meal and sugar, all the +wholesale edibles, are carted down to the new house and stored. The +forks are wrapped up and we eat with our fingers, and have nothing to +eat at that. Then we are informed that the new house will not be ready +short of two weeks at least. Unavoidable delays. The plasterers were +hindered; the painters misunderstood orders; the paperers have +defalcated, and the universe generally comes to a pause. It is no +matter in what faith I was nurtured, I am now a believer in total +depravity. Contractors have no conscience; masons are not men of their +word; carpenters are tricky; all manner of cunning workmen are bruised +reeds. But there is nothing to do but submit and make the best of +it,--a horrible kind of mechanism. We go forthwith into a chrysalis +state for two weeks. The only sign of life is an occasional lurch +towards the new house, just sufficient to keep up the circulation. One +day I dreamily carry down a basket of wine-glasses. At another time I +listlessly stuff all my slippers into a huge pitcher and take up the +line of march. Again a bucket is filled with tea-cups, or I shoulder +the fire-shovel. The two weeks drag themselves away, and the cry is +still, "Unfinished!" To prevent petrifying into a fossil remain, or +relapsing into primitive barbarism, or degenerating into a dormouse, I +rouse my energies and determine to put my own shoulder to the wheel and +see if something cannot be accomplished. I rise early in the morning +and walk to Dan, to hire a painter who is possessed of "gumption," +"faculty." Arrived in Dan, I am told that he is in Beersheba. Nothing +daunted, I take a short cut across the fields to Beersheba, bearding +manifold dangers from rickety stone-walls, strong enough to keep women +in, but not strong enough to keep bears, bulls, and other wild beasts +out,--toppling enough to play the mischief with draperies, but not +toppling enough to topple over when urgently pressed to do so. But I +secure my man, and remember no more my sorrow of bulls and stones for +joy at my success. From Beersheba I proceed to Padan-aram to buy seven +pounds of flour, thence to Galilee of the Gentiles for a pound of +cheese, thence to the land of Uz for a smoked halibut, thence to the +ends of the earth for a lemon to make life tolerable,--and the days +hobble on. + +"The flying gold of the ruined woodlands" drives through the air, the +signal is given, and there is no longer "quiet on the Potomac." The +unnatural calm gives way to an unearthly din. Once more I bring myself +to bear on the furniture and the trumpery, and there is a small +household whirlpool. All that went before "pales its ineffectual +fires." Now comes the strain upon my temper, and my temper bends, and +quivers, and creaks, and cracks. Ithuriel touches me with his spear; +all the integuments of my conventional, artificial, and acquired +gentleness peel off, and I stand revealed a savage. Everything around +me sloughs off its usual habitude and becomes savage. Looking-glasses +are shivered by the dozen. A bit is nicked out of the best China +sugar-bowl. A pin gets under the matting that is wrapped around the +centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished +surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, +and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of +woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the +closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a +moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush +rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. +"I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his leg. A +fractured leg is easily mended; but who shall restore me the nose of +my nymph, marred into irremediable deformity and dishonor? + +Occasionally a gleam of sunshine shoots athwart the darkness to keep me +back from rash deeds. Behind the sideboard I find a little cross of +dark, bright hair and gold and pearls, that I lost two years ago and +would not be comforted. O happy days woven in with the dark, bright +hair! O golden, pearly days, come back to me again! "Never mind your +gewgaws," interposes real life; "what is to be done with the things in +this drawer?" Lying atop of a heap of old papers in the front-yard, +waiting the match that is to glorify them into flame, I find a letter +that mysteriously disappeared long since and caused me infinite alarm +lest indelicate eyes might see it and indelicate hands make ignoble use +of its honest and honorable meaning. I learn also sundry new and +interesting facts in mechanics. I become acquainted for the first time +with the _modus operandi_ of "roller-cloths." I never understood +before how the roller got inside the towel. It was one of those gentle +domestic mysteries that repel even while they invite investigation. I +shall not give the result of my discovery to the public. If you wish +very much to find out, you can move, as I did. + +But the rifts of sunshine disappear, the clouds draw together and close +in. The savage walks abroad once more, and I go to bed tired of life. + +I have scarcely fallen asleep, when I am reluctantly, by short and +difficult stages, awakened. A rumbling, grating, strident noise first +confuses, then startles me. Is it robbers? Is it an earthquake? Is it +the coming of fate? I lie rigid, bathed in a cold perspiration. I hear +the tread of banditti on the moaning stairs. I see the flutter of +ghostly robes by the uncurtained windows. A chill, uncanny air rushes +in and grips at my damp hair. I am nerved by the extremity of my +terror. I will die of anything but fright. I jerk off the bedclothes, +convulse into an upright posture, and glare into the darkness. Nothing. +I rise softly, creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that always +creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. A light gleams through +the open door of the opposite room whence the sound issues. A familiar +voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It is Petronius, the +unprincipled scoundrel, who is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly +through innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail came near +giving me an epilepsy. My savage lets loose the dogs of war. Petronius +would fain defend himself by declaring that it is morning. I +indignantly deny it. He produces his watch. A fig for his watch! I +stake my consciousness against twenty watches, and go to bed again; but +Sleep, angry goddess, once repulsed, returns no more. The dawn comes up +the sky and confirms the scorned watch. The golden daggers of the +morning prick in under my eyelids, and Petronius introduces himself +upon the scene once more to announce, that, if I don't wish to be +corded up myself, I must abdicate that bed. The threat does not terrify +me. Indeed, nothing at the moment seems more inviting than to be corded +up and let alone; but duty still binds me to life, and, assuring +Petronius that the just law will do that service for him, if he does +not mend his ways, I slowly emerge again into the world,--the dreary, +chaotic world,--the world that is never at rest. + +And there is hurrying to and fro, and a clang of many voices, and the +clatter of much crockery, and a lifting, and balancing, and battering +against walls and curving around corners, and sundry contusions, and a +great waste of expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of +patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, +steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of +something from upsetting with the other, and both arms stretched around +a very big and very square picture-frame that knocks against my nose or +my chin every time the cart goes over a stone or drops into a rut, and +the wind threatening to blow my hat off, and blowing it off, and my +"back-hair" tumbling down,--and the old house is at last despoiled. The +rooms stand bare and brown and desolate. The sun, a hand-breadth above +the horizon, pours in through the unblinking windows. The last load is +gone. The last man has departed. I am left alone to lock up the house +and walk over the hill to the new home. Then, for the first time, I +remember that I am leaving. As I pass through the door of my own room, +not regretfully, I turn. I look up and down and through and through the +place where I shall never rest again, and I rejoice that it is so. As I +stand there, with the red, solid sunshine lying on the floor, lying on +the walls, unfamiliar in its new profusion, the silence becomes +audible. In the still October evening there is an effort in the air. +The dumb house is striving to find a voice. I feel the struggle of its +insensate frame. The old timbers quiver with the unusual strain. The +strong, blind, vegetable energy agonizes to find expression, and, +wrestling like a pinioned giant, the soul of matter throws off the +weight of Its superincumbent inertia. Slowly, gently, most sorrowfully +through the golden air cleaves a voice that is somewhat a wail, yet not +untuned by love. Inarticulate at first, I catch only the low +mournfulness; but it clears, it concentrates, it murmurs into cadence, +it syllables into intelligence, and thus the old house speaks:-- + +"Child, my child, forward to depart, stay for one moment your eager +feet. Put off from your brow the crown which the sunset has woven, and +linger yet a little longer in the shadow which enshrouds me forever. I +remember, in this parting hour, the day of days which the tremulous +years bore in their bosom,--a day crimson with the woodbine's happy +flush and glowing with the maple's gold. On that day a tender, tiny +life came down, and stately Silence fled before the pelting of +baby-laughter. Faint memories of far-off olden time were softly +stirred. Blindly thrilled through all my frame a vague, dim sense of +swelling buds, and singing-birds, and summer-gales,--of the purple +beauty of violets, the smells of fragrant earth, and the sweetness of +summer dews and darks. Many a harvest-moon since then has filled her +yellow horn, and queenly Junes crowned with roses have paled before the +sternness of Decembers. But Decembers and Junes alike bore royal gifts +to you,--gifts to the busy brain and the awakening heart. In dell and +copse and meadow and gay green-wood you drank great draughts of life. +Yet, even as I watched, your eyes grew wistful. Your lips framed +questions for which the Springs found no reply, and the sacred mystery +of living brought its sweet, uncertain pain. Then you went away, and a +shadow fell. A gleam passed out of the sunshine and a note from the +robin's song. The knights that pranced on the household hearth grew +faint and still, and died for want of young eyes to mark their +splendor. But when your feet, ever and anon, turned homeward, they used +a firmer step, and I knew, that, though the path might be rough, you +trod it bravely. I saw that you had learned how doing is a nobler thing +than dreaming, yet kept the holy fire burning in the holy place. But +now you go, and there will be no return. The stars are faded from the +sky. The leaves writhe on the greensward. The breezes wail a dirge. The +summer rain is pallid like winter snow. And--O bitterest cup of +all!--the golden memories of the past have vanished from your heart. I +totter down to the grave, while you go on from strength to strength. +The Junes that gave you life brought death to me, and you sorrow not. O +child of my tender care, look not so coldly on my pain! Breathe one +sigh of regret, drop one tear of pity, before we part!" + +The mournful murmur ceased. I am not adamant. My savage crouched out of +sight among the underbrush. I think something stirred in the back of my +eyes. There was even a suspicion of dampness in front. I thrust my hand +in my pocket to have my handkerchief ready in case of a catastrophe. It +was an unfortunate proceeding. My pocket was crammed full. I had to +push my fingers in between all manner of rubbish, to get at the +required article, and when I got hold of it, I had to pull with all my +might to get it out, and when it did come, out with it came a tin box +of mustard seed, a round wooden box of tooth-powder, a ball of twine, a +paper of picture-books, and a pair of gloves. Of course, the covers of +both the boxes came off. The seed scattered over the floor. The +tooth-powder puffed a white cloud into my face. The ball of twine +unrolled and trundled to the other side of the room. I gathered up what +I could, but, by the time order was restored and my handkerchief ready +for use, I had no use for it. The stirring in the back of my eyes had +stopped. The dewiness had disappeared. My savage sprang out from the +underbrush and brandished his tomahawk. And to the old house I made +answer as a Bushman of Caffraria might, or a Sioux of the +Prae-Pilgrimic Age:-- + +"Old House, hush up! Why do you talk stuff? 'Golden memories' indeed! +To hear you, one might suppose you were an ivied castle on the Rhine, +and I a fair-haired princess, cradled in the depths of regal luxury, +feeding on the blossoms of a thousand generations, and heroic from +inborn royalty. 'Tender care'! Did you not wake me in the middle of the +night, last summer, by trickling down water on my face from a passing +shower? and did I not have to get up at that unearthly hour to move the +bed, and step splash into a puddle, and come very near being floated +away? Did not the water drip, drip, drip upon my writing-desk, and soak +the leather and swell the wood, and stain the ribbon and spoil the +paper inside, and all because you were treacherous at the roof and let +it? Have you not made a perfect rattery of yourself, yawning at every +possible chink and crumbling at the underpinning, and keeping me awake +night after night by the tramp of a whole brigade of the Grand Army +that slaughtered Bishop Hatto? Whenever a breeze comes along stout +enough to make an aspen-leaf tremble, don't you immediately go into +hysterics, and rock, and creak, and groan, as if you were the shell of +an earthquake? Don't you shrivel at every window to let in the +northeasters and all the snow-storms that walk abroad? Whenever a +needle, or a pencil, or a penny drops, don't you open somewhere and +take it in? 'Golden memories'! Leaden memories! Wooden memories! Madden +memories!" + +My savage gave a war-whoop. I turned scornfully. I swept down the +staircase. I banged the front-door. I locked it with an accent, and +marched up the hill. A soft sighing breathed past me. I knew it was the +old house mourning for her departing child. The sun had disappeared, +but the western sky was jubilant in purple and gold. The cool evening +calmed me. The echoes of the war-whoop vibrated almost tenderly along +the hushed hillside. I paused on the summit of the hill and looked +back. Down in the valley stood the sorrowful house, tasting the first +bitterness of perpetual desolation. The maples and the oaks and the +beech-trees hung out their flaming banners. The pond lay dark in the +shadow of the circling hills. The years called to me,--the happy, +sun-ripe years that I had left tangled in the apple-blossoms, and +moaning among the pines, and tinkling in the brook, and floating in the +cups of the water-lilies. They looked up at me from the orchard, dark +and cool. They thrilled across from the hill-tops, glowing still with +the glowing sky. I heard their voice by the lilac-bush. They smiled at +me under the peach-trees, and where the blackberries had ripened +against the southern wall. I felt them once more in the clover-smells +and the new-mown hay. They swayed again in the silken tassels of the +crisp, rustling corn. They hummed with the bees in the garden-borders. +They sang with the robins in the cherry-trees, and their tone was +tender and passing sweet. They besought me not to cast away their +memory for despite of the black-browed troop whose vile and sombre +robes had mingled in with their silver garments. They prayed me to +forget, but not all. They minded me of the sweet counsel we had taken +together, when summer came over the hills and walked by the +watercourses. They bade me remember the good tidings of great joy which +they had brought me when my eyes were dim with unavailing tears. My +lips trembled to their call. The war-whoop chanted itself into a +vesper. A happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered out over the +valley, and a comfort settled on the sad old house as I stretched forth +my hands and from my inmost soul breathed down a _Benedicite!_ + + * * * * * + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +It may seem to some of my readers that I have wandered from my subject +and forgotten the title of these articles, which purport to be a series +of papers on "Methods of Study in Natural History." But some idea of +the progress of Natural History, of its growth as a science, of the +gradual evolving of general principles out of a chaotic mass of facts, +is a better aid to the student than direct instruction upon special +modes of investigation; and it is with the intention of presenting the +study of Natural History from this point of view that I have chosen my +title. + +I have endeavored thus far to show how scientific facts have been +systematized so as to form a classification that daily grows more true +to Nature, in proportion as its errors are corrected by a more intimate +acquaintance with the facts; but I will now attempt a more difficult +task, and try to give some idea of the mental process by which facts +are transformed into scientific truth. I fear that the subject may seem +very dry to my readers, and I would again ask their indulgence for +details absolutely essential to my purpose, but which would indeed be +very wearisome, did they not lead us up to an intelligent and most +significant interpretation of their meaning. + +I should be glad to remove the idea that science is the mere amassing +of facts. It is true that scientific results grow out of facts, but not +till they have been fertilized by thought The facts must be collected, +but their mere accumulation will never advance the sum of human +knowledge by one step;--it is the comparison of facts and their +transformation into ideas that lead to a deeper insight into the +significance of Nature. Stringing words together in incoherent +succession does not make an intelligible sentence; facts are the words +of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach +us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations and +recognize the thought that binds them together as a consistent whole. + +I have spoken of the plans that lie at the foundation of all the +variety of the Animal Kingdom as so many structural ideas which must +have had an intellectual existence in the Creative Conception +independently of any special material expression of them. Difficult +though it be to present these plans as pure abstract formulae, distinct +from the animals that represent them, I would nevertheless attempt to +do it, in order to show how the countless forms of animal life have +been generalized into the few grand, but simple intellectual +conceptions on which all the past populations of the earth as well as +the present creation are founded. In such attempts to divest the +thought of its material expression, especially when that expression is +multiplied in such thousand-fold variety of form and color, our +familiarity with living animals is almost an obstacle to our success. +For I shall hardly be able to allude to the formula of the Radiates, +for instance,--the abstract idea that includes all the structural +possibilities of that division of the Animal Kingdom,--without +recalling to my readers a Polyp or a Jelly-Fish, a Sea-Urchin or a +Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk +plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a +Cuttle-Fish,--or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the +form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,--or of the Vertebrate plan, +without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or +Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes +of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the +limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural +elements, though each branch is entirely distinct. If this be true, +and if these organic formulae have the precision of mathematical +formulae, with which I have compared them, they should be susceptible +of the same tests. + +The mathematician proves the identity of propositions that have the +same mathematical value and significance by their convertibility. If +they have the same mathematical quantities, it must be possible to +transform them, one into another, without changing anything that is +essential in either. The problem before us is of the same character. +If, for instance, all Radiates, be they Sea-Anemones, Jelly-Fishes, +Star-Fishes, or Sea-Urchins, are only various modes of expressing the +same organic formula, each having the sum of all its structural +elements, it should be possible to demonstrate that they are +reciprocally convertible. This is actually the case, and I hope to be +able to convince my readers that it is no fanciful theory, but may be +demonstrated as clearly as the problems of the geometer. The +naturalist has his mathematics, as well as the geometer and the +astronomer; and if the mathematics of the Animal Kingdom have a greater +flexibility than those of the positive sciences, and are therefore not +so easily resolved into their invariable elements, it is because they +have the freedom and pliability of life, and evade our efforts to bring +all their external variety within the limits of the same structural +law which nevertheless controls and includes them all. + +I wish that I could take as the illustration of this statement animals +with whose structure the least scientific of my readers might be +presumed to be familiar; but such a comparison of the Vertebrates, +showing the identity and relation of structural elements throughout +the Branch, or even in any one of its Classes, would be too extensive +and complicated, and I must resort to the Radiates,--that branch of the +Animal Kingdom which, though less generally known, has the simplest +structural elements. + +I will take, then, for the further illustration of my subject, the +Radiates, and especially the class of Echinoderms, Star-Fishes, +Sea-Urchins, and the like, both in the fossil and the living types; and +though some special description of these animals is absolutely +essential, I will beg my readers to remember that the general idea, +and not its special manifestations, is the thing I am aiming at, and +that, if we analyze the special parts characteristic of these +different groups, it is only that we may resolve them back again into +the structural plan that includes them all. + +I have already in a previous article named the different Orders of this +Class in their relative rank, and have compared the standing of the +living ones, according to the greater or less complication of their +structure, with the succession of the fossil ones. Of the five Orders, +Beches-de-Mer, Sea-Urchins, Star-Fishes, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--or, to name them all according to their scientific +nomenclature, Holothurians, Echinoids, Asteroids, Ophiurans, and +Crinoids,--the last-named are lowest in structure and earliest in time. +Cuvier was the first naturalist who detected the true nature of the +Crinoids, and placed them where they belong in the classification of +the Animal Kingdom. They had been observed before, and long and +laborious investigations had been undertaken upon them, but they were +especially baffling to the student, because they were known only in the +fossil condition from incomplete specimens; and though they still have +their representatives among the type of Echinoderms as it exists at +present, yet, partly owing to the rarity of the living specimens and +partly to the imperfect condition of the fossil ones, the relation +between them was not recognized. The errors about them certainly did +not arise from any want of interest in the subject among naturalists, +for no less than three hundred and eighty different authors have +published their investigations upon the Crinoids, and the books that +have been printed about these animals, many of which were written long +before their animal nature was suspected, would furnish a library in +themselves. The ancients knew little about them. The only one to be +found in the European seas resembles the Star-Fish closely, and they +called it Asterias; but even Aristotle was ignorant of its true +structural relations, and alludes only to its motion and general +appearance. Some account of the gradual steps by which naturalists have +deciphered the true nature of these lowest Echinoderms and their +history in past times may not be without interest, and is very +instructive as showing bow such problems may be solved. + +In the sixteenth century some stones were found bearing the impression +of a star on their surface. They received the name of Trochites, and +gave rise to much discussion. Naturalists puzzled their brains about +them, called them star-shaped crystals, aquatic plants, corals; and to +these last Linnaeus himself, the great authority of the time on all +such questions, referred them. Beside these stony stars, which were +found in great quantities when attention was once called to them, +impressions of a peculiar kind had been observed in the rocks, +resembling flowers on long stems, and called "stone lilies" naturally +enough, for their long, graceful stems, terminating either in a +branching crown or a closer cup, recall the lily tribe among flowers. +The long stems of these seeming lilies are divided transversely at +regular intervals;--the stem is easily broken at any of these natural +divisions, and on each such fragment is stamped a star-like impression +resembling those found upon the loose stones or Trochites. + +About a century ago, Guettard the naturalist described a curious +specimen from Porto Rico, so similar to these fossil lilies of the +rocks that he believed they must have some relation to each other. He +did not detect its animal nature, but from its long stem and branching +crown he called it a marine palm. Thus far neither the true nature of +the living specimen, nor of the Trochites, nor of the fossil lilies +was understood, but it was nevertheless an important step to have found +that there was a relation between them. A century passed away, and +Guettard's specimen, preserved at the Jardin des Plantes, waited with +Sphinx-like patience for the man who should solve its riddle. + +Cuvier, who held the key to so many of the secrets of Nature, detected +at last its true structure; he pronounced it to be a Star-Fish with a +stem, and at once the three series of facts respecting the Trochites, +the fossil lilies, and Guettard's marine palm assumed their true +relation to each other. The Troehites were recognized as simply the +broken portions of the stem of some of these old fossil Crinoids, and +the Crinoids themselves were seen to be the ancient representatives of +the present Comatulae and Star-Fishes with stems. So is it often with +the study of Nature; many scattered links are collected before the man +comes who sees the connection between them and speaks the word that +reconstructs the broken chain. + +I will begin my comparison of all Echinoderms with an analysis of the +Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, because I think I can best show the +identity of parts between them, notwithstanding the difference in +their external form; the Sea-Urchins having always a spherical body, +while the Star-Fishes are always star-shaped, though in some the star +is only hinted at, sketched out, as it were, in a simply pentagonal +outline, while in others the indentations between the rays are very +deep, and the rays themselves so intricate in their ramifications as to +be broken up into a complete net-work of branches. But under all this +variety of outline, our problem remains always the same: to build with +the same number of pieces a star and a sphere, having the liberty, +however, of cutting the pieces differently and changing their relative +proportions. Let us take first the Sea-Urchin and examine in detail +all parts of its external structure. I shall say nothing of the +internal structure of any of these animals, because it does not affect +the comparison of their different forms and the external arrangement of +parts, which is the subject of the present article. + +On the lower side is the mouth, and we may call that side and all the +parts that radiate from it the oral region. On the upper side is a +small area to which the parts converge, and which, from its position +just opposite the so-called mouth or oral opening, we may call the +_ab-oral region_. I prefer these more general terms, because, if +we speak of the mouth, we are at once reminded of the mouth in the +higher animals, and in this sense the word, as applied to the aperture +through which the Sea-Urchins receive their food, is a misnomer. Very +naturally the habit has become prevalent of naming the different parts +of animals from their function, and not from their structure; and in +all animals the aperture through which food enters the body is called +the mouth, though there is not the least structural relation between +the organs so designated, except within the limits of each different +branch or division. To speak of these opposite regions in the +Sea-Urchin as the upper and lower sides would equally mislead us, +since, as we have seen, there is, properly speaking, no above and +below, no right and left sides, no front and hind extremities in these +animals, all parts being evenly distributed around a vertical axis. I +will, therefore, although it has been my wish to avoid technicalities +as much as possible in these papers, make use of the unfamiliar terms +oral and ab-oral regions, to indicate the mouth with the parts +diverging from it and the opposite area towards which all these parts +converge. [Footnote: When reference is made to the whole structure, +including the internal organs as well as the solid parts of the +surface, the terms _actinal_ and _ab-actinal_ are preferable +to oral and ab-oral.] + +[Illustration: Sea-Urchin seen from the oral side, showing the zones +with the spines and suckers; for the ab-oral side, on the summit of +which the zones unite, see February Number, p. 216.] + +The whole surface of the animal is divided by zones,--ten in number, +five broader ones alternating with five narrower ones. The five broad +zones are composed of large plates on which are the most prominent +spines, attached to tubercles that remain on the surface even when the +spines drop off after death, and mark the places where the spines have +been. The five small zones are perforated with regular rows of holes, +and through these perforations pass the suckers or water-tubes which +are their locomotive appendages. For this reason these narrower zones +are called the _ambulacra_, while the broader zones intervening +between them and supporting the spines are called the +_interambulacra_. Motion, however, is not the only function of +these suckers; they are subservient also to respiration and +circulation, taking in water, which is conveyed through them into +various parts of the body. + +[Illustration: Portion of Sea-Urchin representing one narrow zone with +a part of the broad zones on either side and the ab-oral area on the +summit.] + +The oral aperture is occupied by five plates, which may be called jaws, +remembering always that here again this word signifies the function, +and not the structure usually associated with the presence of jaws in +the higher animals; and each of these jaws or plates terminates in a +tooth. Even the mode of eating in these animals is controlled by their +radiate structure; for these jaws, evenly distributed about the +circular oral aperture, open to receive the prey and then are brought +together to crush it, the points meeting in the centre, thus working +concentrically, instead of moving up and down or from right to left, +as in other animals. From the oral opening the ten zones diverge, +spreading over the whole surface, like the ribs on a melon, and +converging in the opposite direction till they meet in the small space +which we have called the ab-oral region opposite the starting-point. + +Here the broad zones terminate in five large plates differing somewhat +from those that form the zones in other parts of the body, and called +ovarian plates, because the eggs pass out through certain openings in +them; while the five narrow zones terminate in five small plates on +each of which is an eye, making thus five eyes alternating with five +ovarian plates. The centre of this area containing the ovarian plates +and the visual plates is filled up with small movable plates closing +the space between them. I should add that one of the five ovarian +plates is larger than the other four, and has a peculiar structure, +long a puzzle to naturalists. It is perforated with minute holes, +forming an exceedingly delicate sieve, and this is actually the purpose +it serves. It is, as it were, a filter, and opens into a canal which +conducts water through the interior of the body; closed by this sieve +on the outside, all the water that passes into it is purified from all +foreign substances that might be injurious to the animal, and is thus +fitted to pass into the water-system, from which arise the main +branches leading to the minute suckers which project through the holes +in the narrow zones of plates. + +[Illustration: Star-Fish from the ab-oral side.] + +Now in order to transform theoretically our Sea-Urchin into a +Star-Fish, what have we to do? Let the reader imagine for a moment that +the small ab-oral area closing the space between the ovarian plates and +the eye-plates is elastic and may be stretched out indefinitely; then +split the five broad zones along the centre and draw them down to the +same level with the mouth, carrying the ovarian plates between them. +We have then a star, just as, dividing, for instance, the peel of an +orange into five compartments, leaving them, of course, united at the +base, then stripping it off and spreading it out flat, we should have a +five-rayed star. + +[Illustration: One arm of Star-Fish from the oral side.] + +But in thus dividing the broad zones of the Sea-Urchins, we leave the +narrow zones in their original relation to them, except that every +narrow zone, instead of being placed between two broad zones, has now +one-half of each of the zones with which it alternated in the +Sea-Urchin on either side of it and lies between them. The adjoining +wood-cut represents a single ray of a Star-Fish, drawn from what we +call its lower side or the oral side. Along the centre of every such +ray, diverging from the central opening or the mouth, we have a +furrow, corresponding exactly to the narrower zones of the Sea-Urchin. +It is composed of comparatively small perforated plates through which +pass the suckers or locomotive appendages. On either side of the +furrows are other plates corresponding to the plates of the broad zones +in the Sea-Urchin. Where shall we look for the five eyes? Of course, at +the tip of every ray; exactly where they were when the rays were drawn +up to form the summit of a sphere, so that the eyes, which are now at +their extremities, were clustered together at their point of meeting. +Where shall we look for the ovarian plates? At each angle of the five +rays, because, when the broad zones of which they formed the summit +were divided, they followed the split, and now occupy the place which, +though it seems so different on the surface of the Star-Fish, is +nevertheless, relatively to the rest of the body, the same as they +occupied in the Sea-Urchin. Assuming, as we premised, that the central +area of the ab-oral region, forming the space between the plates at the +summit of the zones in the Sea-Urchin, is elastic, it has stretched +with the spreading out of the zones, following the indentation between +the rays, and now forms the whole upper surface of the body. All the +internal organs of the animal lie between the oral and ab-oral +regions, just as they did in the Sea-Urchin, only that in the Star- +Fish these regions are coequal in extent, while in the Sea-Urchin the +ab-oral region is very contracted, and the oral region with the parts +belonging to it occupies the greater part of its surface. + +Such being the identity of parts between a Star-Fish and a Sea-Urchin, +let us see now how the Star-Fish may be transformed into the +Pedunculated Crinoid, the earliest representative of its Class, or +into a Comatula, one of the free animals that represent the Crinoids in +our day. + +[Illustration: Crinoid with branching crown; oral side turned upward.] + +We have seen that in the Sea-Urchins the ab-oral region is very +contracted, the oral region and the parts radiating from it and forming +the sides being the predominant features in the structure; and we +shall find, as we proceed in our comparison, that the different +proportion of these three parts, the oral and ab-oral regions and the +sides, determines the different outlines of the various Orders in this +Class. In the Sea-Urchin the oral region and the sides are predominant, +while the ab-oral region is very small. In the Star-Fish, the oral and +ab-oral regions are brought into equal relations, neither +preponderating over the other, and the sides are compressed, so that, +seen in profile, the outline of the Star-Fish is that of a slightly +convex disk, instead of a sphere, as in the Sea-Urchin. But when we +come to the Crinoids, we find that the great preponderance of the +ab-oral region determines all that peculiarity of form that +distinguishes them from the other Echinoderms, while the oral region is +comparatively insignificant. The ab-oral region in the Crinoid rises +to form a sort of cup-like or calyx-like projection. The plates forming +it, which in the Star-Fish or the Sea-Urchin are movable, are soldered +together so as to be perfectly immovable in the Crinoid. Let this +seeming calyx be now prolonged into a stem, and we see at once how +striking is the resemblance to a flower; turn it downwards, an attitude +which is natural to these Crinoids, and the likeness to a drooping +lily is still more remarkable The oral region, with the radiating +ambulacra, is now limited to the small flat area opposite the juncture +of the stem with the calyx; and whether it stretches out to form long +arms, or is more compact, so as to close the calyx like a cup, it +seems in either case to form a flower-like crown. In these groups of +Echinoderms the interambulacral plates are absent; there are no rows +of plates of a different kind alternating with the ambulacral ones, as +in the Sea-Urchins and the Star-Fishes, but the ab-oral region closes +immediately upon the ambulacra. + +It seems a contradiction to say, that, though these Crinoids were the +only representatives of their Class in the early geological ages, +while it includes five Orders at the present time, Echinoderms were as +numerous and various then as now. But, paradoxical as it may seem, this +is nevertheless true, not only for this Class, but for many others in +the Animal Kingdom. The same numerical proportions, the same richness +and vividness of conception were manifested in the early creation as +now; and though many of the groups were wanting that are most prominent +in modern geological periods, those that existed were expressed in such +endless variety that the Animal Kingdom seems to have been as full +then as it is to-day. The Class of the Echinoderms is one of the most +remarkable instances of this. In the Silurian period, the Crinoids +stood alone; there were neither Ophiurans, Asteroids, Echinoids, nor +Holothurians; and yet in one single locality, Lockport, in the State +of New York, over an area of not more than a few square miles, where +the Silurian deposits have been carefully examined, there have been +found more different Species of Echinoderms than are living now along +our whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. + +There is nothing more striking in these early populations of the earth +than the richness of the types. It would seem as if, before the world +was prepared for the manifold existences that find their home here now, +when organic life was limited by the absence of many of the present +physical conditions, the whole wealth of the Creative Thought lavished +itself upon the forms already introduced upon the globe. After thirty +years' study of the fossil Crinoids, I am every day astonished by some +new evidence of the ingenuity, the invention, the skill, if I may so +speak, shown in varying this single pattern of animal life. When one +has become, by long study of Nature, in some sense intimate with the +animal creation, it is impossible not to recognize in it the immediate +action of thought, and even to specialize the intellectual faculties +it reveals. It speaks of an infinite power of combination and analysis, +of reminiscence and prophecy, of that which has been in eternal harmony +with that which is to be; and while we stand in reverence before the +grandeur of the Creative Conception as a whole, there breaks from it +such lightness of fancy, such richness of invention, such variety and +vividness of color, nay, even the ripple of mirthfulness,--for Nature +has its humorous side also,--that we lose our grasp of its completeness +in wonder at its details, and our sense of its unity is clouded by its +marvellous fertility. There may seem to be an irreverence in thus +characterizing the Creative Thought by epithets which we derive from +the exercise of our own mental faculties; but it is nevertheless true, +that, the nearer we come to Nature, the more does it seem to us that +all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of the Almighty +Mind, and that the eternal archetypes of all manifestations of thought +in man are found in the Creation of which he is the crowning work. + +In no group of the Animal Kingdom is the fertility of invention more +striking than in the Crinoids. They seem like the productions of one +who handles his work with an infinite ease and delight, taking pleasure +in presenting the same thought under a thousand different aspects. +Some new cut of the plates, some slight change in their relative +position is constantly varying their outlines, from a close cup to an +open crown, from the long pear-shaped oval of the calyx in some to its +circular or square or pentagonal form in others. An angle that is +simple in one projects by a fold of the surface and becomes a fluted +column in another; a plate that was smooth but now has here a +symmetrical figure upon it drawn in beaded lines; the stem which is +perfectly unbroken in one, except by the transverse divisions common to +them all, in the next puts out feathery plumes at every such transverse +break. In some the plates of the stem are all rigid and firmly soldered +together; in others they are articulated upon each other in such a +manner as to give it the greatest flexibility, and allow the seeming +flower to wave and bend upon its stalk. It would require an endless +number of illustrations to give even a faint idea of the variety of +these fossil Crinoids. There is no change that the fancy can suggest +within the limits of the same structure that does not find expression +among them. Since I have become intimate with their wonderful +complications, I have sometimes amused myself with anticipating some +new variation of the theme, by the introduction of some undescribed +structural complication, and then seeking for it among the specimens +at my command, and I have never failed to find it in one or other of +these ever-changing forms. + +The modern Crinoid without stem, or the Comatula, though agreeing with +the ancient in all the essential elements of structure, differs from it +in some specific features. It drops its stem when full-grown, though +the ab-oral region still remains the predominant part of the body and +retains its cup-like or calyx-like form. The Comatulae are not +abundant, and though represented by a number of Species, yet the type +as it exists at present is meagre in comparison to its richness in +former times. Indeed, this group of Echinoderms, which in the earliest +periods was the exponent of all its kind, has dwindled gradually, in +proportion as other representatives of the Class have come in, and +there exists only one species now, the Pentacrinus of the West Indies, +which retains its stem in its adult condition. It is a singular fact, +to which I have before alluded, and which would seem to have especial +reference to the maintenance of the same numeric proportions in all +times, that, while a Class is represented by few types, those types are +wonderfully rich and varied, but in proportion as other expressions of +the same structure are introduced, the first dwindle, and, if they do +not entirely disappear, become at least much less prominent than +before. + +[Illustration: Ophiuran; showing one ray from the oral side.] + +There remain only two other Orders to be considered, the Ophiurans and +the Holothurians. The Ophiurans approach the Crinoids more nearly than +any other group of Echinoderms, and in our classifications are placed +next above them. In them the ab-oral region, which has such a +remarkable predominance in the Crinoid, has become depressed; it no +longer extends into a stem, nor does it even rise into the calyx-like +or cup-like projection so characteristic of the Crinoids,--though, +when the animal is living, the ab-oral side of the disk is still quite +convex. The disk in the Ophiurans is small in comparison to the length +of the arms, and perfectly circular; it does not merge gradually in the +arms as in the Star-Fish, but the arms start abruptly from its +periphery. In these, as in the Crinoids, the interambulacral plates are +absent, and the interambulacral spaces are filled by an encroachment of +the ab-oral region upon them. There is an infinite variety and beauty +both of form and color in these Sea-Stars. The arms frequently measure +many times the diameter of the whole disk, and are so different in +size and ornamentation in the different Species that at first sight +one might take them for animals entirely distinct from each other. In +some the arms are comparatively short and quite simple,--in others +they are very long, and may be either stretched to their full length or +partly contracted to form a variety of graceful curves; in some they +are fringed all along the edges,--in others they are so ramified that +every arm seems like a little bush, as it were, and, intertwining with +each other, they make a thick network all around the animal. In the +geological succession, these Ophiurans follow the Crinoids, being +introduced at about the Carboniferous period, and perhaps earlier. +They have had their representatives in all succeeding times, and are +still very numerous in the present epoch. + +To show the correspondence of the Holothurians with the typical formula +of the whole class of Echinoderms, I will return to the Sea-Urchins, +since they are more nearly allied with that Order than with any of the +other groups. We have seen that the Sea-Urchins approach most nearly to +the sphere, and that in them the oral region and the sides predominate +so greatly over the ab-oral region that the latter is reduced to a +small area on the summit of the sphere. In order to transform the +Sea-Urchin into a Holothurian, we have only to stretch it out from end +to end till it becomes a cylinder, with the oral region or mouth at +one extremity, and the ab-oral region, which in the Holothurian is +reduced to its minimum, at the other. The zones of the Sea-Urchin now +extend as parallel rows on the Holothurian, running from one end to the +other of the long cylindrical body. On account of their form, some of +them have been taken for Worms, and so classified by naturalists; but +as soon as their true structure was understood, which agrees in every +respect with that of the other Echinoderms, and has no affinity +whatever with the articulated structure of the Worms, they found their +true place in our classifications. + +[Illustration: Holothurian.] + +The natural attitude of these animals is different from that of the +other Echinoderms: they lie on one side, and move with the oral +opening forward, and this has been one cause of the mistakes as to +their true nature. But when we would compare animals, we should place +them, not in the attitude which is natural to them in their native +element, but in what I would call their normal position,--that is, such +a position as brings the corresponding parts in all into the same +relation. For instance, the natural attitude of the Crinoid is with +the ab-oral region downward, attached to a stem, and the oral region or +mouth upward; the Ophiuran turns its oral region, along which all the +suckers or ambulacra are arranged, toward the surface along which it +moves; the Star-Fish does the same; the Sea-Urchin also has its oral +opening downward; but the Holothurian moves on one side, mouth +foremost, as represented in the adjoining wood-cut, dragging itself +onward, like all the rest, by means of its rows of suckers. If, now, we +compare these animals in the various attitudes natural to them, we may +fail to recognize the identity of parts, or, at least, it will not +strike us at once. But if we place them all--Holothurian, Sea-Urchin, +Star-Fish, Ophiuran, and Crinoid--with the oral or mouth side +downward, for instance, we shall see immediately that the small area at +the opposite end of the Holothurian corresponds to the area on the top +of the Sea-Urchin; that the upper side of the Star-Fish is the same +region enlarged; that, in the Ophiuran, that region makes one side of +the small circular disk; while in the Crinoid it is enlarged and +extended to make the calyx-like projection and stem. In the same way, +if we place them in the same attitude, we shall see that the long, +straight rows of suckers along the length of the Holothurian, and the +arching zones of suckers on the spherical body of the Sea-Urchin, and +the furrows with the suckers protruding from them along the arms of +the Star-Fish and Ophiuran, and the radiating series of pores from the +oral opening in the Crinoid are one and the same thing in all, only +altered somewhat in their relative proportion and extent. Around the +oral opening of the Holothurian there are appendages capable of the +most extraordinary changes, which seem at first to be peculiar to these +animals, and to have no affinity with any corresponding feature in the +same Class. But a closer investigation has shown them to be only +modifications of the locomotive suckers of the Star-Fish and +Sea-Urchin, but ramifying to such an extent as to assume the form of +branching feelers. The little tufts projecting from the oral side in +the Sea-Urchins, described as gills, are another form of the same kind +of appendage. + +The Holothurians have not the hard, brittle surface of the other +Echinoderms; on the contrary, their envelope is tough and leathery, +capable of great contraction and dilatation. No idea can be formed of +the beauty of these animals either from dried specimens or from those +preserved in alcohol. Of course, in either case, they lose their color, +become shrunken, and the movable appendages about the mouth shrivel up. +One who had seen the Holothurian only as preserved in museums would be +amazed at the spectacle of the living animal, especially if his first +introduction should be to one of the deep, rich crimson-colored +species, such as are found in quantities in the Bay of Fundy. I have +seen such an animal, when first thrown into a tank of sea-water, remain +for a while closely contracted, looking like a soft crimson ball. +Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as it becomes accustomed to its new +position, it begins to elongate; the fringes creep softly out, +spreading gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal +seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate +tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals +are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on +the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring +than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion +surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The +habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily growing constantly +more popular, and before long the beauty of these inhabitants of the +ocean will be as familiar to us as that of Birds and Insects. Many of +the most beautiful among them are, however, difficult to obtain, and +not easily kept alive in confinement, so that they are not often seen +in aquariums. + +Having thus endeavored to sketch each different kind of Echinoderm, let +us try to forget them all in their individuality, and think only of the +structural formula that applies equally to each. In all, the body has +three distinct regions, the oral, the ab-oral, and the sides; but by +giving a predominance to one or other of these regions, a variety of +outlines characteristic of the different groups is produced. In all, +the parts radiate from the oral opening, and join in the ab-oral +region. In all, this radiation is accompanied by rows of suckers +following the line of the diverging rays. It is always the same +structure, but, endowed with the freedom of life, it is never +monotonous, notwithstanding its absolute permanence. In short, drop +off the stem of the Crinoid, and depress its calyx to form a flat disk, +and we have an Ophiuran; expand that disk, and let it merge gradually +in the arms, and we have a Star-Fish; draw up the rays of the +Star-Fish, and unite them at the tips so as to form a spherical +outline, and we have a Sea-Urchin; stretch out the Sea-Urchin to form +a cylinder, and we have a Holothurian. + +And now let me ask,--Is it my ingenuity that has imposed upon these +structures the conclusion I have drawn from them?--have I so combined +them in my thought that they have become to me a plastic form, out of +which I draw a Crinoid, an Ophiuran, a Star-Fish, a Sea-Urchin, or a +Holothurian at will? or is this structural idea inherent in them all, +so that every observer who has a true insight into their organization +must find it written there? Had our scientific results anything to do +with our invention, every naturalist's conclusions would be colored +by his individual opinions; but when we find all naturalists +converging more and more towards each other, arriving, as their +knowledge increases, at exactly the same views, then we must believe +that these structures are the Creative Ideas in living reality. In +other words, so far as there is truth in them, our systems are what +they are, not because Aristotle, Linnaeus, Cuvier, or all the men who +ever studied Nature, have so thought and so expressed their thought, +but because God so thought and so expressed His thought in material +forms when He laid the plan of Creation, and when man himself existed +only in the intellectual conception of his Maker. + + + + +LYRICS OF THE STREET. + + +II. + +THE WEDDING. + +In her satin gown so fine +Trips the bride within the shrine. +Waits the street to see her pass, +Like a vision in a glass. +Roses crown her peerless head: +Keep your lilies for the dead! + +Something of the light without +Enters with her, veiled about; +Sunbeams, hiding in her hair, +Please themselves with silken wear; +Shadows point to what shall be +In the dim futurity. + +Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke +Might of mortal never broke! +From the altar of her vows +To the grave's unsightly house +Measured is the path, and made; +All the work is planned and paid. + +As a girl, with ready smile, +Where shall rise some ponderous pile, +On the chosen, festal day, +Turns the initial sod away, +So the bride with fingers frail +Founds a temple or a jail,-- + +Or a palace, it may be, +Flooded full with luxury, +Open yet to deadliest things, +And the Midnight Angel's wings. +Keep its chambers purged with prayer: +Faith can guard it, Love is rare. + +Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! +Priest, recite the sacred runes! +Hast no ghostly help nor art +Can enrich a selfish heart, +Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, +Joy with bloom for bargain sold? + +Hail, the wedded task of life! +Mending husband, moulding wife. +Hope brings labor, labor peace; +Wisdom ripens, goods increase; +Triumph crowns the sainted head, +And our lilies wait the dead. + + * * * * * + + +FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER. + + +I. + +The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor +reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow +his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of +satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the +Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches +of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, +fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone +fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days, +but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a +New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the +scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted +how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up +and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and +Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the +hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the +spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers +of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible +lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and +waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson. + +Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the world,--that is, so +much of the world as he acknowledged. Beyond the community of his own +sect, and a few personal friends who were privileged to live on its +borders, he neither knew, nor cared to know, much more of the human +race than if it belonged to a planet farther from the sun. In the +discipline of the Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on +the high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling +brethren from other States, who visited Bucks County, invariably +blessed his house with a family-meeting. His farm was one of the best +on the banks of the Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest +of a few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on real +estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him in the consideration +she enjoyed within the limits of the sect; and his two children, Moses +and Asenath, vindicated the paternal training by the strictest sobriety +of dress and conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways led +him among "the world's people"; and Asenath had never been known to +wear, or to express a desire for, a ribbon of a brighter tint than +brown or fawn-color. Friend Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his +sixtieth year in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and +looked forward with confidence to the final change, as a translation +into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous eternity of mild +voices, subdued colors, and suppressed emotions. + +He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned "chair," with its heavy +square canopy and huge curved springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the +Hicksite Friends, in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and +grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air which made +him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart of his master among +men. He would no more have thought of kicking than the latter would of +swearing a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was gained, +and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable which had been his +home since colthood, he showed no undue haste or impatience, but waited +quietly, until Frient Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines, +gave him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon set +forward once more, jogging soberly down the eastern slope of the +hill,--across the covered bridge, where, in spite of the tempting level +of the hollow-sounding floor, he was as careful to abstain from +trotting as if he had read the warning notice,--along the wooded edge +of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance were +grazing,--and finally, wheeling around at the proper angle, halted +squarely in front of the gate which gave entrance to the private lane. + +The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a green little hollow +just below it, the walled garden, with its clumps of box and lilac, and +the vast barn on the left, all joined in expressing a silent welcome to +their owner, as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five, left +his work in the garden, and walked forward in his shirt-sleeves. + +"Well, father, how does thee do?" was his quiet greeting, as they shook +hands. + +"How's mother, by this time?" asked Eli. + +"Oh, thee needn't have been concerned," said the son. "There she is. Go +in: I'll 'tend to the horse." + +Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The mother was a woman +of fifty, thin and delicate in frame, but with a smooth, placid beauty +of countenance which had survived her youth. She was dressed in a +simple dove-colored gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so +scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with her for six +months without ever discovering a spot on the former or an uneven fold +in the latter. Asenath, who followed, was almost as plainly attired, +her dress being a dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard +sun-bonnet, with broad cape, covered her head. + +"Well, Abigail, how art thou?" said Eli, quietly giving his hand to his +wife. + +"I'm glad to see thee back," was her simple welcome. + +No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but Asenath had +witnessed this manifestation of affection but once in her life,--after +the burial of a younger sister. The fact impressed her with a peculiar +sense of sanctity and solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a +season of tribulation, and therefore was too earnest to be profaned to +the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal embrace, +she would have felt, had it been given, like the doomed daughter of the +Gileadite, consecrated to sacrifice. + +Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings of the +Meeting, and to receive personal news of the many friends whom Eli had +seen; but they asked few questions until the supper table was ready and +Moses had come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking, but it +must be in his own way and at his own good time. They must wait until +the communicative spirit should move him. With the first cup of coffee +the inspiration came. Hovering, at first, over indifferent details, he +gradually approached those of more importance,--told of the addresses +which had been made, the points of discipline discussed, the testimony +borne, and the appearance and genealogy of any new Friends who had +taken a prominent part therein. Finally, at the close of his relation, +he said,-- + +"Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about. Friend +Speakman's partner--perhaps thee's heard of him, Richard Hilton--has a +son who is weakly. He's two or three years younger than Moses. His +mother was consumptive, and they're afraid he takes after her. His +father wants to send him into the country for the summer,--to some +place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate exercise, and +Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought I'd mention it to thee, and if +thee thinks well of it, we can send word down next week, when Josiah +Comly goes." + +"What does _thee_ think?" asked his wife, after a pause. + +"He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman says, and would +be very little trouble to thee. I thought perhaps his board would buy +the new yoke of oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat +ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to decide." + +"I suppose we could take him," said Abigail, seeing that the decision +was virtually made already; "there's the corner-room, which we don't +often use. Only, if he should get worse on our hands"-- + +"Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He's only weak-breasted, as +yet, and clerking isn't good for him. I saw the young man at the store. +If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly." + +So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an inmate +of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer. + + +II. + +At the end of ten days he came. + +In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of +three-and-twenty Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly interest. +Having received him as a temporary member of the family, she considered +him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an +invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature is but a thin +crust, if one knows how to break it; and in Richard Hilton's case, it +was already broken before his arrival. His only embarrassment, in +fact, arose from the difficulty which he naturally experienced in +adapting himself to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The +greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar +and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally +of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like a +new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position among +them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or +at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was not easy for him to assume, +at such short notice, those of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath +as "Miss Mitchenor," Eli turned to him with a rebuking face. + +"We do not use compliments, Richard," said he; "my daughter's name is +Asenath." + +"I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your ways, since you +have been so kind as to take me for a while," apologized Richard +Hilton. + +"Thee's under no obligation to us," said Friend Mitchenor, in his +strict sense of justice; "thee pays for what thee gets." + +The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose. + +"We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard," she remarked, +with a kind expression of face, which had the effect of a smile; "but +our ways are plain and easily learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're +no respecters of persons." + +It was some days, however, before the young man could overcome his +natural hesitation at the familiarity implied by these new forms of +speech. "Friend Mitchenor" and "Moses" were not difficult to learn, but +it seemed a want of respect to address as "Abigail" a woman of such +sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and he was fain to avoid either +extreme by calling her, with her cheerful permission, "Aunt Mitchenor." +On the other hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won the +confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally busied +himself in the garden, by way of exercise, or accompanied Moses to the +cornfield or the woodland on the hill, but was careful never to +interfere at inopportune times, and willing to learn silently, by the +simple process of looking on. + +One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall which separated +the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired in a new gown of +chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled willow workbasket on +her arm, issued from the house. As she approached him, she paused and +said,-- + +"The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard. If thee's strong +enough to walk to the village and back, it might do thee more good than +sitting still." + +Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall. + +"Certainly I am able to go," said he, "if you will allow it." + +"Haven't I asked thee?" was her quiet reply. + +"Let me carry your basket," he said, suddenly, after they had walked, +side by side, some distance down the lane. + +"Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and +some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee +mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,--I'm told,--if +they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, +thee mustn't over-exert thy strength." + +Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with which she uttered +the last sentence. + +"Why, Miss--Asenath, I mean--what am I good for, if I have not strength +enough to carry a basket?" + +"Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost as lief be +thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help being weakly-inclined, and it's +only right that thee should be careful of thyself. There's surely +nothing in that that thee need be ashamed of." + +While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in order, +unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his steps. + +"Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom!" she exclaimed, +pointing to a shady spot beside the brook; "does thee know them?" + +Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a handful of the +nodding yellow bells, trembling above their large, cool, spotted +leaves. + +"How beautiful they are!" said he; "but I should never have taken them +for violets." + +"They are misnamed," she answered. "The flower is an +_Erythronium_; but I am accustomed to the common name, and like +it. Did thee ever study botany?" + +"Not at all--I can tell a geranium, when I see it, and I know a +heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a +rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable +distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew +something about them." + +"If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to learn. I think a +study of this kind would pleasantly occupy thy mind. Why couldn't thee +try? I would be very willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not +much, indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show thee how +simple the principles are." + +Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath, as they slowly +walked forward, proceeded to dissect it, explained the mysteries of +stamens and pistils, pollen, petals, and calyx, and, by the time they +had reached the village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of +the Linnaean system of classification. His mind took hold of the +subject with a prompt and profound interest. It was a new and wonderful +world which suddenly opened before him. How surprised he was to learn +that there were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected from +a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed, that the gray +lichens on the rocks belonged to the vegetable kingdom! His respect for +Asenath's knowledge thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her +youth and sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal, friend; and +the simple, candid manner which was the natural expression of her +dignity and purity thoroughly harmonized with this relation. + +Although, in reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a +gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of +mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before +observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well +imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted +dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual +griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had +developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded +below the reach of tides and storms. + +She would have been very much surprised, if any one had called her +handsome; yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive beauty, which seemed to +grow and deepen from day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek +standard, it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine and +straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled, and the lips +calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown hair, parted over a high +white forehead, was smoothly laid across the temples, drawn behind the +ears, and twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sunbonnet +gave her face a nun-like character, which set her apart, in the +thoughts of "the world's people" whom she met, as one sanctified for +some holy work. She might have gone around the world, repelling every +rude word, every bold glance, by the protecting atmosphere of purity +and truth which inclosed her. + +The days went by, each bringing some new blossom to adorn and +illustrate the joint studies of the young man and maiden. For Richard +Hilton had soon mastered the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla +Wakefield,--the only source of Asenath's knowledge,--and entered, with +her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he procured from +Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken her in his knowledge of the +technicalities of the science, her practical acquaintance with plants +and their habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring the +meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought home his discoveries +to enjoy her aid in classifying and assigning them to their true +places. Asenath had generally an hour or two of leisure from domestic +duties in the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was over; +and sometimes, on "Seventh-days," she would be his guide to some +locality where the rarer plants were known to exist. The parents saw +this community of interest and exploration without a thought of +misgiving. They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any +possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed by the +absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued his study. An +earnest discussion as to whether a certain leaf was ovate or +lanceolate, whether a certain plant belonged to the species +_scandens_ or _canadensis_, was, in their eyes, convincing +proof that the young brains were touched, and therefore _not_ the +young hearts. + +But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical +emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study +requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of +communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that +his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams, +even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the +possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from the +genial season, the pure country air, and the release from gloomy +thoughts which his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a +future--though brief, perhaps, still a _future_--began to glimmer +before him. If this could be his life,--an endless summer, with a +search for new plants every morning, and their classification every +evening, with Asenath's help, on the shady portico of Friend +Mitchenor's house,--he could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of +life unthinkingly. + +The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis and trillium +followed, then the yellow gerardias and the feathery purple pogonias, +and finally the growing gleam of the golden-rods along the wood-side +and the red umbels of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced the +close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection, +brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed,-- + +"Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year." + +"What sign?" he asked. + +"That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then +nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and +golden-rods." + +Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life +would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets, +its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. How could +he give up the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed through +the summer? The question suddenly took a more definite form in his +mind: How could he give up Asenath? Yes,--the quiet, unsuspecting girl, +sitting beside him, with her lap full of the September blooms he had +gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life. Pure and beautiful +as she was, almost sacred in his regard, his heart dared to say.--"I +need her and claim her!" + +"Thee looks pale to-night, Richard," said Abigail, as they took their +seats at the supper-table. "I hope thee has not taken cold." + + +III. + +"Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the rudbeckias grow," said +Asenath, on the following "Seventh-day" afternoon. + +They crossed the meadows, and followed the course of the stream, under +its canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the +hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall +autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like +young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia, +tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike +of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive +sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves +dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer streaming from its bushy +fringe, gurgled over the pebbles in its bed. Here and there, on its +banks, shone the deep yellow stars of the flower they sought. + +Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically plucking a stem of +rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently, into the water. + +"Why, Richard! what's thee doing?" cried Asenath; "thee has thrown away +the very best specimen." + +"Let it go," he answered, sadly. "I am afraid everything else is thrown +away." + +"What does thee mean?" she asked, with a look of surprised and anxious +inquiry. + +"Don't ask me, Asenath. Or--yes, I _will_ tell you. I must say it +to you now, or never afterwards. Do you know what a happy life I've +been leading since I came here?--that I've learned what life is, as if +I'd never known it before? I want to live, Asenath,--and do you know +why?" + +"I hope thee will live, Richard," she said, gently and tenderly, her +deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed tears. + +"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't understand +that, because you do not know what you are to me. No, you never guessed +that all this while I've been loving you more and more, until now I +have no other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you, not +to share your life!" + +"Oh, Richard!" + +"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this to +myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb the +peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take it back, +if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for loving +you,--forgive me now and every day of my life." + +He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on the +edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight frame +trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had become very +pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and brow as +she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered flowers fell from her +hands, and she hid her face. For a few minutes no sound was heard but +the liquid gurgling of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the +thicket beside them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice of +hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name,-- + +"Asenath!" + +She took away her hands and slowly lifted her face. She was pale, but +her eyes met his with a frank, appealing, tender expression, which +caused his heart to stand still a moment. He read no reproach, no +faintest thought of blame; but--was it pity?--was it pardon?--or-- + +"We stand before God, Richard," said she, in a low, sweet, solemn tone. +"He knows that I do not need to forgive thee. If thee requires it, I +also require His forgiveness for myself." + +Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow, she met his gaze with +the bravery of a pure and innocent heart. Richard, stunned with the +sudden and unexpected bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of +it into a being which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first +impulse was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his arms, and +hold her in the embrace which encircled, for him, the boundless promise +of life; but she stood there, defenceless, save in her holy truth and +trust, and his heart bowed down and gave her reverence. + +"Asenath," said he, at last, "I never dared to hope for this. God bless +you for those words! Can you trust me?--can you indeed love me?" + +"I can trust thee,--I do love thee!" + +They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging pressure. No kiss +was given, but side by side they walked slowly up the dewy meadows, in +happy and hallowed silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old +farm-house appeared through the trees. + +"Father and mother must know of this, Richard," said she. "I am afraid +it may be a cross to them." + +The same fear had already visited his own mind, but he answered, +cheerfully,-- + +"I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of life, and shall soon +be strong enough to satisfy them. Besides, my father is in prosperous +business." + +"It is not that," she answered; "but thee is not one of us." + +It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim +candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence +was attributed to fatigue. + +The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring +Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various +special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting +parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers +which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was +taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him. + +"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with +thee." + +"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a +seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand. + +"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to +approach so important a crisis in his life, + +"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live +with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man." + +"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does +thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say +against thee." + +"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and +she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my +hands?" + +"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker, +with a face too amazed to express any other feeling. + +"Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care? I love her with my +whole heart and soul, and the fortune of my life depends on your +answer." + +The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow deeper and more +rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill glitter of steel. Richard, not +daring to say a word more, awaited his reply in intense agitation. + +"So!" he exclaimed at last, "this is the way thee's repaid me! I didn't +expect _this_ from thee! Has thee spoken to her?" + +"I have." + +"Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded her to think as +thee does. Thee'd better never have come here. When I want to lose my +daughter, and can't find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know." + +"What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?" Richard sadly asked, +forgetting, in his excitement, the Quaker speech he had learned. + +"Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall be a Friend while +_I_ live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings and vanities are not +for her. Thee belongs to the world, and thee may choose one of the +world's women." + +"Never!" protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor was already ascending +the garden-steps on his way to the house. + +The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to the nearest grove and +threw himself on the ground. Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion, +unable to grasp any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards +evening, he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It was Moses. + +The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents, and expected +to "pass meeting" in a few weeks. He knew what had happened, and felt a +sincere sympathy for Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His +face was very grave, but kind. + +"Thee'd better come in, Richard," said he; "the evenings are damp, and +I've brought thy overcoat I know everything, and I feel that it must be +a great cross for thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it." + +"Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?" he asked, in +a tone of despondency which anticipated the answer. + +"Father's very hard to move," said Moses; "and when mother and Asenath +can't prevail on him, nobody else need try. I'm afraid thee must make +up thy mind to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think +thee'd better go back to town." + +"I'll go to-morrow,--go and die!" he muttered hoarsely, as he followed +Moses to the house. + +Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed his +hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an Iceland +rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and +his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the +morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went +up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the +farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him. + +"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as +he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the +village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word +of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved +face, he was taken away. + + +IV. + +True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor, +the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind. +It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard +Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the +few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely +dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it +back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when +he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it +there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its +folded leaves. If that day came not, she would at the last give it back +to God, saying, "Father, here is Thy most precious gift: bestow it as +Thou wilt." + +As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it +was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not +heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in +dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles with +herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's +departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to +the summer's companionship with him. She performed her household +duties, if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as +before; and her father congratulated himself that the unfortunate +attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however, +was not deceived by this external resignation. She noted the faint +shadows under the eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the +unconscious traces of pain which sometimes played about the dimpled +corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter with a silent, tender +solicitude. + +The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she +stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her +position with such sweet composure that many of the older female +Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli +Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young +Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed +with worldly goods--followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he +thought, "before she is consoled." + +Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment of +Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's +conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented +as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last +assumed such a definite form that Friend Mitchenor brought them to the +notice of his family. + +"I met Josiah Comly in the road," said he, one day at dinner. "He's +just come from Philadelphia, and brings bad news of Richard Hilton. +He's taken to drink, and is spending in wickedness the money his father +left him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it seems he's +not to be reclaimed." + +Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he either disregarded or +failed to understand her look. Asenath, who had grown very pale, +steadily met her father's gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never +yet heard from her lips,-- + +"Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's name when I am +by?" + +The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was that of authority. +The old man was silenced by a new and unexpected power in his +daughter's heart: he suddenly felt that she was not a girl, as +heretofore, but a woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer +compel. + +"It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath," he said; "we had best forget +him." + +Of their friends, however, she could not expect this reserve, and she +was doomed to hear stories of Richard which clouded and embittered her +thoughts of him. And a still severer trial was in store. She +accompanied her father, in obedience to his wish, and against her own +desire, to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has passed into a +proverb, that the Friends, on these occasions, always bring rain with +them; and the period of her visit was no exception to the rule. The +showery days of "Yearly-Meeting Week" glided by, until the last, and +she looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to Bucks County, +glad to have escaped a meeting with Richard Hilton, which might have +confirmed her fears, and could but have given her pain in any case. + +As she and her father joined each other, outside the meeting-house, at +the close of the afternoon meeting, a light rain was falling. She took +his arm, under the capacious umbrella, and they were soon alone in the +wet streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained +them. At a crossing, where the water, pouring down the gutter towards +the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood, +staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered +clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair +hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a +song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend +Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by +the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly, +face to face with them. + +"Asenath!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish pierced through the +confusion of his senses, and struck down into the sober quick of his +soul. + +"Richard!" she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low, terrified voice. + +It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her, or rather--as she +afterwards thought, in recalling the interview--the body of Richard +Hilton, possessed by an evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than +hectic red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the +recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient, reckless devil +seemed to lurk under the set mask of his features. + +"Here I am, Asenath," he said at length, hoarsely. "I said it was +death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than death, I suppose; but what +matter? You can't be more lost to me now than you were already. This is +_thy_ doing, Friend Eli!" he continued, turning to the old man, +with a sneering emphasis on the "_thy_." "I hope thee's satisfied +with thy work!" + +Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it chilled Asenath's +blood to hear. + +The old man turned pale. "Come away, child!" said he, tugging at her +arm. But she stood firm, strengthened for the moment by a solemn +feeling of duty which trampled down her pain. + +"Richard," she said, with the music of an immeasurable sorrow in her +voice, "oh, Richard, what has thee done? Where the Lord commands +resignation, thee has been rebellious; where He chasteneth to purify, +thee turns blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard; I +thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would have helped and +uplifted thee,--not through me, as an unworthy object, but through the +hopes and the pure desires of thy own heart. I expected that thee would +so act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my affection +a reproach,--oh, Richard, not to cast over my heart the shadow of thy +sin!" + +The wretched young man supported himself against the post of an awning, +buried his face in his hands, and wept passionately. Once or twice he +essayed to speak, but his voice was choked by sobs, and, alter a look +from the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to meet, he +again covered his face. A stranger, coming down the street, paused out +of curiosity. "Come, come!" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from +the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on. + +Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief. +She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free. + +"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us +give me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee +then, but it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and +pity I feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other +feelings. I would still do anything for thee except that which thee +cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the +gulf between us so wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep +for thee and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still +precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!" + +He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears +and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up +and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father +and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was +spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question +had visited Asenath's tongue. + +She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which +give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and +transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never +blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers, +under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant +music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost, +reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face +with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened +the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence +of God. + + +V. + +Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the +Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his +marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years +Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an +unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally +determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to +manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, +and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show +of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her more +keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a +neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which +lie parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had +preceded it. + +It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with +new faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a +quiet satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which +might be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all +the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo +of the sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar +wild-flowers which _the first_ Richard Hilton had gathered. This +was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his +fall. Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those pure +and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious of their true +charm. She did not dare to express to herself, in words, that one +everlasting joy of woman's heart, through all trials and sorrows,--"I +have loved, I have been beloved." + +On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the +meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring, +and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were +dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow +dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn +leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless +violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the +miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept +in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the +remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent +sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around +her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured +forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of +the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck +it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the +spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft +radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, +evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered, +taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love. + +During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but +had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a man +whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli +Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's +gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her +protestations were of no avail. + +"Father," she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and +still remembered, "thee can take away, but thee cannot give." + +He never mentioned the subject again. + +Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting +with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career +of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as +hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After +that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading +a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed,--almost hoped; +for in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and +peace which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of +him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion, +than to know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and +blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was +simply a prolongation of the present,--an alternation of seed-time and +harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should +bid her lay down her load and follow Him. + +Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in +a community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the +large old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He +at once took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of +whom he knew already, from having met them, year after year, in +Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient +occupation; the money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough +to support him comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment +seemed now to have come to the old man. He was done with the earnest +business of life. Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and +Friend; and Asenath would be reasonably provided for at his death. As +his bodily energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind +became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a +cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer who was one of "the +world's people." Thus, at seventy-five, he was really younger, because +tenderer of heart and more considerate, than he had been at sixty. + +Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to +approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had +become thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form +around her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the +scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless +she be very old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, gave that her +perfect goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence; +but, when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so +clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends +that she possessed "a gift," which might, in time, raise her to honor +among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word +from "Aunt 'Senath" oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the +parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness; +and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little +farther into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every +morning's sun, for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission +brightened into a cheerful content with life. + +It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been +rumors of the expected presence of "Friends from a distance," and not +only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not +connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road through the woods, it +was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the +meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in +his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the +forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the branches +of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of +hickory-leaves, sweet-fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here +and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and +sunshine, grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers +to a lonely heart. That serene content which she had learned to call +happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the +waters took back their transparency under a cloudless sky. + +Passing around to the "women's side" of the meeting-house, she mingled +with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the +expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth +Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be +there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and +Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend +Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him +once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about +him, because they thought he was too much inclined to "the newness," +but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend +Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old +man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks. + +At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued +rustling which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of +silence, shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons +would feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first, +and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of +exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her +admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her +eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her +body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the +commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious +scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an +aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel. + +The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty +years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair +gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child +of "the stillness and the quietness." His voice, though not loud, was +clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which +arrested, not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor. +His delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the +Quaker preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his +words, through the contrast with those who preceded him. + +His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as +the highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine. The +paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which +appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his +fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner; +we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot +pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in +others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but +kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love +may not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet +created hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said, +is but a general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they +manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives,--in the exercise +of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian love. + +The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers. +There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to +speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath +Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and +her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and +truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her +alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain +them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and +walked to his side. + +Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. "I feel moved to-day," +he said,--"moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to +relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come +directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution, +whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the +house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and +exercise." + +Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed +and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them +from trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she +heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a +stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that +meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present! +Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's +passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his +living face before her! She gasped for breath,--his face _was_ +before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her +memory recalled, had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen +years had made, and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap +of the heart, she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have +fallen from her seat but for the support of the partition against which +she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with +the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with +their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths. + +The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to +the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to +sit still and listen further. + +"Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path," he +continued, "the young man left his home and went to a city in another +State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender +hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the +hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends, +Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds +destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and +forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it +was the principle of _life_ which grew stronger within him, the +young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of +self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the +wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed +only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy +evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the +approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his +arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a +face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him. +'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy +mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young man shook +his head. 'I will be silent, then, but I will save thee. I know the +human heart, and its trials and weaknesses, and it may be put into my +mouth to give thee strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he +had been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard the sad +story, from beginning to end; and the young man wept upon his breast, +to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest and tenderest pity +bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and the +Friend's right hand was upon his head while they prayed. + +"The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still +further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he +had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to +life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease. +The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear. He +bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was +mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness +of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends. + +"I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story," Friend Carter +concluded, "from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time, +to influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among +you, my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning? Oh, +believe that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into +the hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of +wrath in the hands of the Lord!" + +He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the +eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and +thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace +and joy descended upon her heart. + +When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized +Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he +endeavored in rain to control, approached the preacher. + +"The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips," said he; "will thee +come to one side, and hear me a minute?" + +"Eli Mitchenor!" exclaimed Friend Carter; "Eli! I knew not thee was +here! Doesn't thee know me?" + +The old man stared in astonishment. "It seems like a face I ought to +know," he said, "but I can't place thee." + +They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned +again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in his own, +exclaimed,-- + +"Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I +am--or, rather, I was--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew." + +Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy, +and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened. + +"But thee calls thyself Carter?" he finally said. + +"Soon after I was saved," was the reply, "an aunt on the mother's side +died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her +name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like +losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now." + +"Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!" said the +old man. "Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a +concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee +walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?" + +"Asenath?" + +"Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her. +I'm coming, Moses!"--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which +was approaching. + +Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard +Hilton there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not +betrayed his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did +not wish it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might +surprise him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough +for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was +redeemed,--that a holier light than the autumn sun's now rested, and +would forever rest, on the one landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone +with the pure brightness of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek +and smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step was light +and elastic as in the old time. + +Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its +string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The +breeze had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm +light of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed +penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace. + +But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep +followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called her by name. + +She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face. + +"I knew thee, Richard!" at last she said, in a trembling voice; "may +the Lord bless thee!" + +Tears were in the eyes of both. + +"He has blessed me," Richard answered, in a reverent tone; "and this +is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives +me." + +"I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard,--forgiven, but not +forgotten." + +The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by +side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the +crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their +stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low +and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and +listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky. + +At last Richard stopped. + +"Asenath," said he, "does thee remember that spot on the banks of the +creek, where the rudbeckias grew?" + +"I remember it," she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face. + +"If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be +thy answer?" + +Her words came brokenly. + +"I would say to thee, Richard,--I can trust thee,--I _do_ love +thee!'" + +"Look at me, Asenath." + +Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first +confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his +shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it +again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man. + + + + +TAXATION NO BURDEN. + + +According to returns made by the Census Bureau to the Secretary of the +Treasury, the gross value of the productions of the United States for +1860 was $3,900,000,000: namely,--the product of Manufactures, the +Mechanic Arts, Mining, and the Fisheries, $1,900,000,000; the product +of Agriculture, $2,000,000,000. + +It is a well-understood principle of political economy, that the +annual product of a country is the source from which internal taxes +are to be derived. + +The nation is to be considered a partnership, the several members +engaged in the various departments of business, and producing annually +products of the value of $3,900,000,000, which are distributed among +the partners, affording to each a certain share of profit. The firm is +out of debt, but a sudden emergency compels an investment, in a new +and not immediately profitable branch of business, of $1,500,000,000, +which sum the firm borrows. As the consequence of this liability, the +firm must afterward incur an annual additional expense as follows: +$100,000,000 for the payment of members not engaged in productive +labor, $90,000,000 for interest upon the debt incurred, and $60,000,000 +for a sinking-fund which shall pay the debt in less than twenty years. + +It is absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the business of +the firm, that this immense investment, so unexpectedly called for, +shall be made to pay. How shall this problem be solved? + +Large sums are confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of +the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an +active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the +annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion of his farm is +very badly cultivated; no intelligent laborers can be induced to remain +upon it, owing to certain causes, easily removable, but which, being +an easy-going man, well satisfied with his income as it has been, +Uncle Sam has been unwilling to take hold of with any determination. + +Suddenly and without notice, he is compelled to borrow $15,000, and +spend it upon this portion of his farm; and he then finds, while +expending the money for another object and not a profitable one, he can +remove the only obstacle which prevented his obtaining a full supply +of the best and most intelligent labor, and that he can very soon +increase his annual product to $42,500. The increase of $2,500 each +year will enable him to pay his additional clerks, to meet the interest +on his liabilities, and to accumulate a sinking-fund sufficient to pay +his debts before his children come of age. He will be able to take some +comfort and satisfaction in his agricultural laborers; he will have a +larger amount of cotton to spin and to sell than ever before, and so +much wool, that, instead of being obliged to buy one-third the amount +required by his factory, as he has heretofore done, he will have more +than he can spin; and lastly, he will be able to raise fruit, to make +wine, to produce indigo, cochineal, and a great variety of articles +never produced on his farm before. + +What sound business-man would not thus regulate his investment, when +compelled to make it, even though he had been unwilling to borrow the +money for the simple purpose of making such an improvement? + +If a farm and factory, which badly managed produce $40,000 annually, +can by good management be made to produce $42,500, and can be very +much increased in value and ease of management by the process, the +owner had better borrow $15,000 to accomplish the object, and the tax +upon him of $2,500 required to meet the interest and sink the principal +will be no burden. That is the whole problem,--no more, no less. + +We have been driven into a war to maintain the boundaries of our farm; +in so doing we shall probably spend $1,500,000,000. It behooves us not +only to meet the expenditure promptly, but to make the investment pay. + +We have but to increase the annual product of the country six and +one-half per cent, and we shall meet the tax for expenses, interest, +and sinking-fund, and be as well off as we now are, provided the tax be +equitably assessed. + +This increase can be made without any increase in the number of +laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by +the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large +portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have +heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive +soil of the North. + +Slavery is the one obstacle to be removed in order to render this war a +paying operation. + +Under the false pretence that the climate of the South is too hot for +white men to labor in the fields, the degradation involved in +field-labor in a Slave State excludes intelligent cultivators from the +cotton-fields, a very large portion of which have a climate less hot +and less unsuitable for white men than that of Philadelphia, while +there is not a river-bottom in the whole South in which the extremes of +heat during the summer are so great as in St. Louis. Slave-labor +cultivates, in a miserable, shiftless manner, less than two per cent, +of the area of the Cotton States; and upon this insignificant portion a +crop of cotton has been raised in one year worth over $200,000,000. + +There is ample and conclusive evidence to be found in the statistics of +the few well-managed and well-cultivated cotton-plantations, that +skilful, educated farmers can get more than double the product to the +hand or to the acre that is usually obtained as the result of +slave-labor. + +Again, it will be admitted that $350 per annum is more than an average +return for the work of a common laborer on an average New England farm, +including his own support. + +It is capable of demonstration from, actual facts that an average +laborer, well directed, can produce a gross value of $1,000 per annum, +upon the uplands of Georgia and South Carolina, in the cultivation of +cotton and grain. Negro slaves under a negro driver, with no white man +on the premises, have produced this result in Hancock County, Georgia, +upon lands previously considered worthless, with a system of +cultivation singular and exceptional in that region, but common in all +well-cultivated sections, namely, a simple rotation of crops and a +moderate amount of manure. + +Elevate the negro from a state of slavery to the dignity of a free +laborer, and his consumption of manufactured goods increases +enormously. In proof of this may be cited the trade with Hayti, and the +immense increase in the import of manufactured goods into the British +West Indies since emancipation. Slaves are furnished with two suits of +clothes in a year, made from the coarsest and cheapest materials: it is +safe to estimate, that, if the fair proportion of their earnings were +paid them, their demand upon the North for staple articles would be +doubled, while the importations of silks, velvets, and other foreign +luxuries, upon which their earnings have been heretofore lavished by +their masters, would decrease. + +The commonly received view of the position of the cotton-planter is +that he is in a chronic state of debt. Such is the fact; not, however, +because he does not make a large amount of profit,--for cotton-planting +is the most profitable branch of agriculture in the United States,--but +because his standard of value is a negro, and not a dollar, and, in the +words of a Southern writer, "He is constantly buying more land to make +more cotton to buy more negroes to cultivate more land to raise more +cotton to buy more negroes," and for every negro he buys he gets +trusted for another. Both himself and his hands are of the least +possible value to the community. By maintaining his system he excludes +cheap labor from the cultivation of cotton,--slave-labor being the +most wasteful and the most expensive of any. He purchases for his +laborers the least possible amount of manufactured articles, and he +wastes his own expenditure in the purchase of foreign luxuries. + +Reference has been made to the increase to be expected in the product +of wool, after the removal or destruction of Slavery. + +We import annually 30,000,000 pounds of wool, and make little or no use +of the best region for growing wool in the whole country,--the western +slope of the Alleghany and Cumberland Mountains and of the Blue Ridge. +Free laborers will not go there, although few slaves are there to be +found; for they well know that there is no respect or standing for the +free laborer in any Slave State. + +Again, throughout the uplands of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Alabama, +it has been proved that sheep can be raised upon the English system +with the greatest success. Upon their light lands, (selling at less +than $1 per acre,) turnips can be raised in great abundance and fed to +sheep in the field, and by the process the fields brought to a point of +fertility, for cotton or grain, equal to the best bottom-lands of +Mississippi or Louisiana. This fact has been sufficiently proved by the +experience of the very few good farmers in Georgia. + +The climate of these sections is wonderfully healthy, and is far +better adapted to the production of wool than that of England, the +extremes of heat and cold being far greater, and yet the cold not being +sufficient to prevent the raising of turnips or feeding from the field +in winter. To produce fine fleece-wool, a warm summer and a cool +winter are requisite. + +Let any one examine Southern writings upon agriculture, and note the +experience of the few working, sensible cultivators, who, by a system +of rewards and premiums partially equivalent to the payment of wages +to their slaves, have obtained the best results of which Slavery is +capable, and he will realize the immense increase to be expected when +free and intelligent labor shall be applied to Southern agriculture. + +We hold, therefore, that by the destruction of Slavery, and by that +only, this war can be made to pay, and taxation become no burden. + +By free labor upon Southern soil we shall add to the annual product of +the country a sum more than equal to the whole tax which will be +required to pay interest and expenses, and to accumulate a sinking-fund +which will pay the debt in less than twenty years; while to the North +will come the immensely increased demand for manufactured articles +required by a thrifty and prosperous middle class, instead of the small +demand for coarse, cheap articles required by slaves, and the demand +for foreign luxuries called for by the masters. + +The addition of $250,000,000 to the product of the country would be a +gain to every branch of industry; and if the equable system of taxation +by a stamp-tax on all sales were adopted, the burden would not be +felt. The additional product being mostly from an improved system of +agriculture at the South, a much larger demand would exist for the +manufactures of the North, and a much larger body of distributors +would be required. + +Let us glance for a moment at the alternative,--the restoration of the +Union without the removal of Slavery. + +The system of slave-labor has been shaken to its foundation, and for +years to come its aggregate product will be far less than it has been, +thus throwing upon the North the whole burden of the taxes with no +compensating gain in resources. + +Only the refuse of our army could remain in the Slave States, to +become to us in the future an element of danger and not of +security,--the industrious and respectable portion would come back to +the North, to find their places filled and a return to the pursuits of +peace difficult to accomplish. + +With Slavery removed, the best part of our army will remain upon the +fertile soil and in the genial climate of the South, forming +communities, retaining their arms, keeping peace and good order with +no need of a standing army, and constituting the _nuclei_ around +which the poor-white trash of the South would gather to be educated in +the labor-system of the North, and thus, and thus only, to become loyal +citizens. + +The mass of the white population of the South are ignorant and deluded; +they need leaders, and will have them. + +We have allowed them to be led by slaveholders, and are reaping our +reward. Remove Slavery, and their present leaders are crushed out +forever. + +Give them new leaders from among the earnest and industrious portion of +our army, and we increase our resources and render taxation no burden, +and we restore the Union in fact and not simply in name. + +Leave Slavery in existence, and we decrease our resources, throw the +whole tax upon the North, reinforce the Secession element with the +refuse of our army, and bequeath to our children the shadow of a Union, +a mockery and a derision to all honest men. + + + + +THE POET TO HIS READERS. + + +Nay, blame me not; I might have spared +Your patience many a trivial verse, +Yet these my earlier welcome shared, +So let the better shield the worse. + +And some might say,--"Those ruder songs +Had freshness which the new have lost: +To spring the opening leaf belongs, +The chestnut-burrs await the frost." + +When those I wrote, my locks were brown; +When these I write--ah, well-a-day! +The autumn thistle's silvery down +Is not the purple bloom of May! + +Go, little book, whose pages hold +Those garnered years in loving trust; +How long before your blue and gold +Shall fade and whiten in the dust? + +O sexton of the alcoved tomb, +Where souls in leathern cerements lie, +Tell me each living poet's doom! +How long before his book shall die? + +It matters little, soon or late, +A day, a month, a year, an age,-- +I read oblivion in its date, +And Finis on its title-page. + +Before we sighed, our griefs were told; +Before we smiled, our joys were sung; +And all our passions shaped of old +In accents lost to mortal tongue. + +In vain a fresher mould we seek: +Can all the varied phrases tell, +That Babel's wandering children speak, +How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? + +Caged in the poet's lonely heart, +Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; +The soul that sings must dwell apart, +Its inward melodies unknown. + +Deal gently with us, ye who read! +Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- +The promise still outruns the deed,-- +The tower, but not the spire, we build. + +Our whitest pearl we never find; +Our ripest fruit we never reach; +The flowering moments of the mind +Drop half their petals in our speech. + +These are my blossoms; if they wear +One streak of morn or evening's glow, +Accept them; but to me more fair +The buds of song that never blow. + + * * * * * + + +THE CHILDREN'S CITIES. + +BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +There was a certain king who had three sons, and who, loving them all +alike, desired to leave them to reign over his kingdom as brothers, and +not one above another. + +His kingdom consisted of three beautiful cities, divided by valleys +covered with flowers and full of grass; but the cities lay so near each +other that from the walls of each you could see the walls of the other +two. The first city was called the city of Lessonland, the second the +city of Confection, and the third the city of Pastime. + +The king, feeling himself very old and feeble, sent for the lawyers to +write his will for him, that his children might know how he wished them +to behave after he was dead. So the lawyers came to the palace and went +into the king's bed-room, where he lay in his golden bed, and the will +was drawn up as he desired. + +One day, not long after the will was made, the king's fool was trying +to make a boat of a leaf to sail it upon the silver river. And the fool +thought the paper on which the will was written would make a better +boat,--for he could not read what was written; so he ran to the palace +quickly, and knowing where it was laid, he got the will and made a boat +of it and set it sailing upon the river, and away it floated out of +sight. And the worst of all was, that the king took such a fright, when +the will blew away, that he could speak no more when the lawyers came +back with the golden ink. And he never made another will, but died +without telling his sons what he wished them to do. + +However, the king's sons, though they had little bodies, because they +were princes of the Kingdom of Children, were very good little +persons,--at least, they had not yet been naughty, and had never +quarrelled,--so that the child-people loved them almost as well as +they loved each other. The child-people were quite pleased that the +princes should rule over them; but they did not know how to arrange, +because there was no king's will, and by rights the eldest ought to +have the whole kingdom. But the eldest, whose name was Gentil, called +his brothers to him and said,-- + +"I am quite sure, though there is no will, that our royal papa built +the three cities that we might each have one to reign over, and not one +reign over all. Therefore I will have you both, dear brothers, choose a +city to govern over, and I will govern over the city you do not +choose." + +And his brothers danced for joy; and the people too were pleased, for +they loved all the three princes. But there were not enough people in +the kingdom to fill more than one city quite full. Was not this very +odd? Gentil thought so; but, as he could not make out the reason, he +said to the child-people,-- + +"I will count you, and divide you into three parts, and each part shall +go to one city." + +For, before the king had built the cities, the child-people had lived +in the green valleys, and slept on beds of flowers. + +So Joujou, the second prince, chose the city of Pastime; and Bonbon, +the youngest prince, chose the city of Confection; and the city of +Lessonland was left for Prince Gentil, who took possession of it +directly. + +And first let us see how the good Gentil got on in his city. + +The city of Lessonland was built of books, all books, and only books. +The walls were books, set close like bricks, and the bridges over the +rivers (which were very blue) were built of books in arches, and there +were books to pave the roads and paths, and the doors of the houses +were books with golden letters on the outside. The palace of Prince +Gentil was built of the largest books, all bound in scarlet and green +and purple and blue and yellow. And inside the palace all the loveliest +pictures were hung upon the walls, and the handsomest maps; and in his +library were all the lesson-books and all the story-books in the world. +Directly Gentil began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these books for? They must mean that we are to learn, and +to become very clever, in order to be good. I wish to be very clever, +and to make my people so; so I must set them a good example." + +And he called all his child-people together, who would do anything for +the love of him, and he said,-- + +"If we mean to be of any use in the world, we must learn, learn, learn, +and read, read, read, and always be doing lessons." + +And they said they would, to please him; and they all gathered together +in the palace council-chamber, and Gentil set them tasks, the same as +he set himself, and they all went home to learn them, while he learned +his in the palace. + +Now let us see how Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, +Joujou,--oh, so fond of fun! as you may believe, from his choosing the +city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime! how unlike the city of dear, +dull Lessonland! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful +toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of +the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people +to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that +ran along by clock-work, and such rocking-horses! And there was not to +be found a book In the whole city, but the houses were crammed with +toys from the top to the bottom,--tops, hoops, balls, battle-doors, +bows and arrows, guns, peep-shows, drums and trumpets, marbles, +ninepins, tumblers, kites, and hundreds upon hundreds more, for there +you found every toy that ever was made in the world, besides thousands +of large wax dolls, all in different court-dresses. And directly Joujou +began to reign, he said to himself,-- + +"What are all these toys for? They must mean that we are to play +always, that we may be always happy. I wish to be very happy, and that +my people should be happy, always. Won't I set them an example?" + +And Joujou blew a penny-trumpet, and got on the back of the largest +rocking-horse and rocked with all his might, and cried,-- + +"Child-people, you are to play always, for in all the city of Pastime +you see nothing else but toys!" + +The child-people did not wait long; some jumped on rocking-horses, some +drove off in carriages, and some in gigs and music-carts. And organs +were played, and bells rang, and shuttlecocks and kites flew up the +blue sky, and there was laughter, laughter, in all the streets of +Pastime! + +And now for little Bonbon, how is he getting on? He was a dear little +fat fellow,--but, oh, so fond of sweets! as you may believe, from his +choosing the city of Confection. And there were no books in Confection, +and no toys; but the walls were built of gingerbread, and the houses +were built of gingerbread, and the bridges of barley-sugar, that +glittered in the sun. And rivers ran with wine through the streets, +sweet wine, such as child-people love; and Christmas-trees grew along +the banks of the rivers, with candy and almonds and golden nuts on the +branches; and in every house the tables were made of sweet brown +chocolate, and there were great plum-cakes on the tables, and little +cakes, and all sorts of cakes. And when Bonbon began to reign he did +not think much about it, but began to eat directly, and called out, +with his mouth full,-- + +"Child-people, eat always! for in all the city of Confection there is +nothing but cakes and sweets." + +And did not the child-people fall to, and eat directly, and eat on, and +eat always? + +Now by this time what has happened to Gentil? for we left him in the +city of Lessonland. All the first day he learned the lessons he had set +himself, and the people learned theirs too, and they all came to Gentil +in the evening to say them to the Prince. But by the time Gentil had +heard all the lessons, he was very, very tired,--so tired that he +tumbled asleep on the throne; and when the child-people saw their +prince was asleep, they thought they might as well go to sleep too. And +when Gentil awoke, the next morning, behold! there were all his people +asleep on the floor. And he looked at his watch and found it was very +late, and he woke up the people, crying, with a very loud voice,-- + +"It is very late, good people!" + +And the people jumped up, and rubbed their eyes, and cried,-- + +"We have been learning always, and we can no longer see to read,--the +letters dance before our eyes." + +And all the child-people groaned, and cried very bitterly behind their +books. Then Gentil said,-- + +"I will read to you, my people, and that will rest your eyes." + +And he read them a delightful story about animals; but when he stopped +to show them a picture of a lion, the people were all asleep. Then +Gentil grew angry, and cried in a loud voice,-- + +"Wake up, idle people, and listen!" + +But when the people woke up, they were stupid, and sat like cats and +sulked. So Gentil put the book away, and sent them home, giving them +each a long task for their rudeness. The child-people went away; but, +as they found only books out of doors, and only books at home, they +went to sleep without learning their tasks. And all the fifth day they +slept. But on the sixth day Gentil went out to see what they were +doing; and they began to throw their books about, and a book knocked +Prince Gentil on the head, and hurt him so much that he was obliged to +go to bed. And while he was in bed, the people began to fight, and to +throw the books at one another. + +Now as for Joujou and his people, they began to play, and went on +playing, and did nothing else but play. And would you believe it?--they +got tired too. The first day and the second day nobody thought he ever +could be tired, amongst the rocking-horses and whips and marbles and +kites and dolls and carriages. But the third day everybody wanted to +ride at once, and the carriages were so full that they broke down, and +the rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the +little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were +broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very +largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a +drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go +to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and +shot arrows at the Prince, which did not hurt him much, because they +were toy-arrows, but which made Joujou very much afraid, for he did not +wish his people to hate him. + +"What do you want?" he cried to the drummer. "Tell me what I can do to +please you. Shall we play at marbles, or balls, or knock down the +golden ninepins? Or shall we have Punch and Judy in the court of the +palace?" + +"Yes! yes!" cried the people, and the drummer jumped down from the +wall. "Yes! yes! Punch and Judy! We are tired of marbles, and balls, +and ninepins. But we sha'n't be tired of Punch and Judy!" + +So the people gathered together in the court of the palace, and saw +Punch and Judy over and over again, all day long on the fifth day. And +they had it so often, that, when the sixth day came, they pulled down +the stage, and broke Punch to pieces, and burned Judy, and screamed out +that they were so hungry they did not know what to do. And the drummer +called out,-- + +"Let us eat Prince Joujou!" + +But the people loved him still; so they answered,-- + +"No! but we will go out of the city and invade the city of Confection, +and fight them, if they won't give us anything to eat!" + +So out they went, with Joujou at their head; for Joujou, too, was +dreadfully hungry. And they crossed the green valley to the city of +Confection, and began to try and eat the gingerbread walls. But the +gingerbread was hard, because the walls had been built in ancient days; +and the people tried to get on the top of the walls, and when they had +eaten a few holes in the gingerbread, they climbed up by them to the +top. And there they saw a dreadful sight. All the people had eaten so +much that they were ill, or else so fat that they could not move. And +the people were lying about in the streets, and by the side of the +rivers of sweet wine, but, oh, so sick, that they could eat no more! +And Prince Bonbon, who had got into the largest Christmas-tree, had +eaten all the candy upon it, and grown so fat that he could not move, +but stuck up there among the branches. When the people of Pastime got +upon the walls, however, the people of Confection were very angry; and +one or two of those who could eat the most, and who still kept on +eating while they were sick, threw apples and cakes at the people of +Pastime, and shot Joujou with sugar-plums, which he picked up and ate, +while his people were eating down the plum-cakes, and drinking the wine +till they were tipsy. + +As soon as Gentil heard what a dreadful noise his people were making, +he got up, though he still felt poorly, and went out into the streets. +The people were fighting, alas! worse than ever; and they were trying +to pull down the strong book-walls, that they might get out of the +city. A good many of them were wounded in the head, as well as Prince +Gentil, by the heavy books falling upon them; and Gentil was very +sorry for the people. + +"If you want to go out, good people," he said, "I will open the gates +and go with you; but do not pull down the book-walls." + +And they obeyed Gentil, because they loved him, and Gentil led them out +of the city. When they had crossed the first green valley, they found +the city of Pastime empty, not a creature in it! and broken toys in the +streets. At sight of the toys, the poor book-people cried for joy, and +wanted to stop and play. So Gentil left them in the city, and went on +alone across the next green valley. But the city of Confection was +crammed so full with sick child-people belonging to Bonbon, and with +Joujou's hungry ones, that Gentil could not get in at the gate. So he +wandered about in the green valleys, very unhappy, until he came to his +old father's palace. There he found the fool, sitting on the banks of +the river. + +"O fool," said Gentil, "I wish I knew what my father meant us to do!" + +And the fool tried to comfort Gentil; and they walked together by the +river where the fool had made the boat of the will, without knowing +what it was. They walked a long way, Gentil crying, and the fool trying +to comfort him, when suddenly the fool saw the boat he had made, lying +among some green rushes. And the fool ran to fetch it, and brought it +to show Gentil. And Gentil saw some writing on the boat, and knew it +was his father's writing. Then Gentil was glad indeed; he unfolded +the paper, and thereon he read these words,--for a good king's words +are not washed away by water:-- + +"My will and pleasure is, that my dearly beloved sons, Prince Gentil, +Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, should all reign together over the +three cities which I have built. But there are only enough child-people +to fill one city; for I know that the child-people cannot live always +in one city. Therefore let the three princes, with Gentil, the eldest, +wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of Lessonland +in the morning, that the bright sun may shine upon their lessons and +make them pleasant; and Gentil to set the tasks. And in the afternoon +let the three princes, with Joujou wearing the crown, lead all the +child-people to the city of Pastime, to play until the evening; and +Joujou to lead the games. And in the evening let the three princes, +with Bonbon wearing the crown, lead all the child-people to the city of +Confection, to drink sweet wine and pluck fruit off the Christmas-trees +until time for bed; and little Bonbon to cut the cake. And at time for +bed, let the child-people go forth into the green valleys and sleep +upon the beds of flowers: for in Child Country it is always spring." + +This was the king's will, found at last; and Gentil, whose great long +lessons had made him wise, (though they had tired him too,) thought the +will the cleverest that was ever made. And he hastened to the city of +Confection, and knocked at the gate till they opened it; and he found +all the people sick by this time, and very pleased to see him, for they +thought him very wise. And Gentil read the will in a loud voice, and +the people clapped their hands and began to get better directly, and +Bonbon called to them to lift him down out of the tree where he had +stuck, and Joujou danced for joy. + +So the king's will was obeyed. And in the morning the people learned +their lessons, and afterwards they played, and afterwards they enjoyed +their feasts. And at bed-time they slept upon the beds of flowers, in +the green valleys: for in Child Country it is always spring. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +1. VICTOR HUGO. _Les Misérables. Fantine_. New York: P. W. +Christern. 8vo. + +2. _The Same_. Translated from the Original French, by CHARLES E. +WILBOUR. New York: G. W. Carleton. 8vo. + + +"FANTINE," the first of five novels under the general title of "Les +Misérables," has produced an impression all over Europe, and we already +hear of nine translations, It has evidently been "engineered" with +immense energy by the French publisher. Translations have appeared in +numerous languages almost simultaneously with its publication in Paris. +Every resource of bookselling ingenuity has been exhausted in order to +make every human being who can read think that the salvation of his +body and soul depends on his reading "Les Misérables." The glory and +the obloquy of the author have both been forced into aids to a system +of puffing at which Barnum himself would stare amazed, and confess +that he had never conceived of "a dodge" in which literary genius and +philanthropy could be allied with the grossest bookselling humbug. But +we trust, that, after our American showman has recovered from his +first shock of surprise, he will vindicate the claim of America to be +considered the "first nation on the face of the earth," by immediately +offering Dickens a hundred thousand dollars to superintend his +exhibition of dogs, and Florence Nightingale a half a million to appear +at his exhibition of babies. + +The French bookseller also piqued the curiosity of the universal public +by a story that Victor Hugo wrote "Les Misérables" twenty-five years +ago, but, being bound to give a certain French publisher all his works +after his first celebrated novel, he would not delight the world with +this product of his genius until he had forced the said publisher into +a compliance with his terms. The publisher shrank aghast from the sum +which the author demanded, and this sum was yearly increased in amount, +as years rolled away and as Victor Hugo's reputation grew more +splendid. At last the publisher died, probably from vexation, and +Victor Hugo was free. Then he condescended to allow the present +publisher to issue "Les Misérables" on the payment of eighty thousand +dollars. It is not surprising, that, to get his money back, this +publisher has been compelled to resort to tricks which exceed +everything known in the whole history of literature. + +"Fantine," therefore, comes before us, externally, as the most +desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from +drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of +having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most +reckless _charlatanerie_ to save himself from utter ruin and +complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before +us as an attempt both to include and to supersede the Christian +religion. Wilkinson, in a preface to one of his books, stated that he +thought that "Christendom was not the error of which _Chapmandom_ +was the correction,"--Chapman being then the English publisher of a +number of skeptical books. In the same way we may venture to affirm +that Christendom is not the beginning of which _Hugoism_ is the +complement and end. We think that the revelation made by the publisher +of "Les Misérables" sadly interferes with the revelation made by +Victor Hugo. Saint Paul may be inferior to Saint Hugo, but everybody +will admit that Saint Paul would not have hesitated a second in +deciding, in the publication of _his_ epistles, between the good +of mankind and his own remuneration. Saint Hugo confessedly waited +twenty-five years before he published his new gospel. The salvation of +Humanity had to be deferred until the French saviour received his +eighty thousand dollars. At last a bookselling Barnum appears, pays +the price, and a morality which utterly eclipses that of Saint Paul is +given to an expectant world. + +This morality, sold for eighty thousand dollars, is represented by +Bishop Myriel. The character is drawn with great force, and is full +both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary +churchmen. The portion of the work in which it figures contains many +striking sayings. Thus, we are told, that, when the Bishop "had money, +his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich." +"Ask not," he said, "the name of him who asks you for a bed; it is +especially he whose name is a burden to him who has need of an +asylum." This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness +so far as to receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses +reject, and, when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the +latter by telling the officers who had apprehended the thief that he +had given him the silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, +that, like Peter Bell, he "becomes a good and pious man," starts a +manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent +purposes. Fantine, the heroine, after having been seduced by a +Parisian student, comes to work in his factory. She has a child that +she supports by her labor. This fact is discovered by some female +gossip, and she is dismissed from the factory as an immoral woman, and +descends to the lowest depths of prostitution,--still for the purpose +of supporting her child. Jean Valjean, the reformed criminal, +discovers her, is made aware that her debasement is the result of the +act of his foreman, and takes her, half dead with misery and sickness, +to his own house. Meanwhile he learns that an innocent person, by +being confounded with himself, is in danger of being punished for his +former deeds. He flies from the bedside of Fantine, appears before the +court, announces himself as the criminal, is arrested, but in the end +escapes from the officers who have him in charge. Fantine dies. Her +child is to be the heroine of Novel Number Two of "Les Misérables," and +will doubtless have as miserable an end as her mother. From this bare +abstract, the story does not seem to promise much pleasure to +novel-readers, yet it is all alive with the fiery genius of Victor +Hugo, and the whole representation is so intense and vivid that it is +impossible to escape from the fascination it exerts over the mind. Few +who take the book up will leave it until they have read it through. It +is morbid to a degree that no eminent English author, not even Lord +Byron, ever approached; but its morbid elements are so combined with +sentiments abstractly Christian that it is calculated to wield a more +pernicious influence than Byron ever exerted. Its tendency is to +weaken that abhorrence of crime which is the great shield of most of +the virtue which society possesses, and it does this by attempting to +prove that society itself is responsible for crimes it cannot +prevent, but can only punish. To legislators, to Magdalen societies, +to prison-reformers, it may suggest many useful hints; but, considered +as a passionate romance, appealing to the sympathies of the ordinary +readers of novels, it will do infinitely more harm than good. The +bigotries of virtue are better than the charities of vice. On the +whole, therefore, we think that Victor Hugo, when he stood out +twenty-five years for his price, did a service to the human race. The +great value of his new gospel consisted in its not being published. We +wish that another quarter of a century had elapsed before it found a +bookseller capable of venturing on so reckless a speculation. + + * * * * * + +_Christ the Spirit_: being an Attempt to state the Primitive View +of Christianity. By the Author of "Remarks on Alchemy and the +Alchemists," and "Swedenborg a Hermetic Philosopher." 2 vols. New York: +James Miller. + +Tins remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the +United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign +and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the +grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, +and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the +creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, +may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and +moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach +theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the +divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to +reestablish Christianity upon, its true basis. In opposition to +existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as +opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, "It is the spirit that +quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,"--or again, with the Spirit of +Truth itself, he declares, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true +worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the +Father seeketh such to worship Him." General Hitchcock believes that +the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret +society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea +with the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was written for the instruction of +the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath +by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of +this theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly +interesting and instructive. + +The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essenes +thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and +a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man; as +spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held +that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; +and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote--the Four +Gospels--they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified +the law of Moses,--Christ representing in his double character both the +spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the +spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the +"wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the +Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in +all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the +Spirit of Nature,--the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in +whom it abides. + +From this brief statement it will be seen that General Hitchcock takes +a view of Christianity widely different from that of theologians. Jesus +of Nazareth, as a person, he regards simply as a great teacher of this +sect of philosophers; and in the Christ of the New Testament, a being +endowed with supernatural powers, he sees a personification of the +Spirit of Truth. The literal history of a series of supernatural +events occurring in Judea two thousand years ago he transforms into +sublime teachings of the great truths inherent in human nature, and +which, wherever man is, are there forever reënacting the same +drama,--in the assumed history of Jesus, divinely portrayed,--not, if +rightly understood, as an actual history of any one man, but as a +symbolic narration, representing the spiritual life of all men. + +Many grave reflections are forced upon us in contemplating a view so +original of a subject upon which apparently nothing more remained to be +said. It becomes not only the question, How will this work be received +by the religious world? but, How, in a true spirit of inquiry, +_ought_ it to be received? The theory of the author is peculiarly +simple, but in its simplicity lies an exceeding beauty. The idea that +the Scriptures are symbolical has always found adherents, but never +such an advocate. Swedenborg affirmed this truth, and invented a +formal mode of interpretation, upon which he wrote his multitudinous +octavos, themselves mystical volumes, and whose effect has been to +involve a subject already obscure in still deeper darkness, and to +transfer the adoration of a small portion of the Christian world from +the letter of the Scriptures to the letter of Swedenborg,--a +questionable benefit to his followers, in spite of the many important +truths which this great man advocated. The radical difference between +such a system and that which we are now considering is evident. Not +Swedenborg alone, but many others, through artificial systems of their +own, have sought to interpret the mysteries of the Bible; but it has +remained for the author of "Christ the Spirit" to attempt a discovery +of the key unlocking the symbolism of the New Testament, as it was +understood by the gospel writers themselves. + +_The Pearl of Orr's Island._ A Story of the Coast of Maine. By +MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The +Minister's Wooing," etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. + +Mrs. Stowe is never more in her element than in depicting +unsophisticated New-England life, especially in those localities where +there is a practical social equality among the different classes of +the population. "The Pearl of Orr's Island," the scene of which is +laid in one of those localities, is every way worthy of her genius. +Without deriving much interest from its plot, it fastens the pleased +attention of the reader by the freshness, clearness, and truth of its +representations, both of Nature and persons. The author transports us +at once to the place she has chosen as the scene of her story, makes us +as familiarly acquainted with all its surroundings as if we had been +born and bred there, introduces us to all the principal inhabitants in +a thoroughly "neighborly" way, and contrives to impress us with a +sense of the substantial reality of what she makes us mentally see, +even when an occasional improbability in the story almost wakes us up +to a perception that the whole is a delightful illusion. + +This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee +recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables +the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine +of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In +the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with +Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed +to this magazine: the difference is in time and circumstance, and not +in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture +and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of +Spenser's exquisite individualizations of abstract feminine +excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted +spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her +nature, and her soul moves in a sphere of religious experience compared +with which "fairy-land" is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel +as well as a woman; yet the height of her meditations does not +interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human +duties; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to +her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid +delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we +cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe's best claims to be considered a woman +of true imaginative genius. + +In the rest of the population of Orr's Island the reader cannot fail to +take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the +hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. +But "Cap'n" Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and +Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for +a long dissertation on New England and human character. Miss Roxy, +especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee-land, and is so +thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her +eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been +allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in +actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in +education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital +self-sacrifice and tenderness of heart. + +We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than +Mrs. Stowe's other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they +love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, +is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with +Moses. The latter is "made happy" in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. +Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the +last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or +knowing it. + +In style, "The Pearl of Orr's Island" ranks with the best narratives in +American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and +Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only +facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It +is the exact mirror of the author's mind and character. It is fresh, +simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention +from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which +are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. +The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so +excellent,--that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the +matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the +singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest +reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of +description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara +and Moses on the open sea, the night-visit which Mara makes to the +rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede +Mara's death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and +fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated +to common words when they are the "nimble servitors" of genius and +passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of +accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual +perception,--in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and +sentiment,--and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward +sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,--"The Pearl of +Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has +heretofore contributed to American literature. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Life and Letters of Washington Irving. By his Nephew, Pierre M. +Irving. Vol. I. New York. G. P. Putnam. 13mo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +History of the United States Naval Academy, with Biographical Sketches, +and the Names of all the Superintendents, Professors, and Graduates. To +which is added a Record of some of the Earliest Votes by Congress, of +Thanks, Medals, and Swords, to Naval Officers. By Edward Chauncey +Marshall, A.M., formerly Instructor in Captain Kinsley's Military +School at West Point, Assistant Professor in the New York University, +etc. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 156. $1.00. + +Instruction for Naval Light Artillery, Afloat and Ashore. Prepared and +arranged for the United States Naval Academy. By William H. Parker, +Lieutenant U.S.N. Second Edition. Revised by Lieutenant S.B. Luce, +U.S.N., Assistant Instructor of Gunnery at the United States Naval +Academy. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 120. $1.50. + +Manual of Target-Practice for the United States Army. By Major G.L. +Willard, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lippincott & Co. 18mo. pp. 80. 50 cts. + +A Course of Instruction in Ordnance and Gunnery; compiled for the Use +of the Cadets of the United States Military Academy. By Captain J.G. +Benton, Ordnance Department, late Instructor of Ordnance and Science of +Gunnery, Military Academy, West Point; Principal Assistant to the Chief +of Ordnance, U.S.A. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. New York. D. +Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 550. $4.00. + +Seventh Annual Report of the Insurance Commissioners of the State of +Massachusetts. January 1, 1862. Part I., Marine and Fire Insurance: +Part II., Life Insurance. Boston. William White, Printer to the State. +8vo. pp. xxxvi., 262; xl., 33; 15. + +Ballads of the War. By George Whitfield Hewes. New York. G.W. Garleton. +16mo. pp. 147. 50 cts. + +The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry. By Isaac Taylor. With a Sketch of the +Life of the Author and a Catalogue of his Writings. New York. William +Gowans. 12mo. pp. 311. $1.00. + +The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood, +Author of "East Lynne," etc. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. +8vo. paper, pp. 302. 50 cts. + +The Bay Path. A Tale of New England Colonial Life. By J.G. Holland, +Author of "Letters to the Young," "Lessons in Life," etc. New York. C. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 418. $1.25. + +The Church in the Army; or, The Four Centurions. By Rev. William A. +Scott, D.D., of San Francisco. New York. G.W. Carleton. 12mo. pp. 443. +$1.25. + +Prison-Life in the Tobacco-Warehouse at Richmond. By a Ball's-Bluff +Prisoner, Lieutenant William C. Harris, of Colonel Baker's California +Regiment. Philadelphia. G.W. Childs. 16mo. pp. 175. 75 cts. + +Mount Vernon, and other Poems. By Harvey Rice. Columbus. Follett, +Foster, & Co. 16mo. pp. 221. $1.00. + +Last Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With a Memorial by Theodore +Tilton. New York. James Miller. 32mo. pp. 242. 75 cts. + +Manual for Engineer Troops. Consisting of, I., Ponton Drill; II., Rules +for Conducting a Siege; III., School of the Sap; IV., Military Mining; +V., Construction of Batteries. By Captain J.C. Duane, Corps of +Engineers, U.S. Army. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 12mo. pp. 275. $2.00. + +Our Flag. A Poem in Four Cantos. By F.H. Underwood. New York. G. W. +Carleton. 16mo. paper, pp. 41. 25 cts. + +A Treatise on Military Law and the Practice of Courts-Martial. By +Captain S.V. Benét, Ordnance Department, U.S. Army: late Assistant +Professor of Ethics, Law, etc. Military Academy, West Point. New York. +D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 377. $3.00. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, +July, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 10, NO. 57 *** + +This file should be named 8100110.txt or 8100110.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8100111.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8100110a.txt + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/810a110.zip b/old/810a110.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a95d0d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/810a110.zip |