The Atlantic Monthly, No. 51. (2025)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13924 ***

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOLUME IX.

M DCCC LXII.

CONTENTS

Underlined titles are in thisissue

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. IX.—JANUARY, 1862.—NO. LI.

METHODS OF STUDYIN NATURAL HISTORY.

I.

It is my intention, in this series of papers, to give thehistory of the progress in Natural History from thebeginning,—to show how men first approached Nature,—howthe facts of Natural History have been accumulated, and how thosefacts have been converted into science. In so doing, I shallpresent the methods employed in Natural History on a wider scaleand with broader generalizations than if I limited myself to thestudy as it exists to-day. The history of humanity, in its effortsto understand the Creation, resembles the development of anyindividual mind engaged in the same direction. It has its infancy,with the first recognition of surrounding objects; and, indeed, theearly observers seem to us like children in their first attempts tounderstand the world in which they live. But these efforts, thatappear childish to us now, were the first steps in that field ofknowledge which is so extensive that all our progress seems only toshow us how much is left to do.

Aristotle is the representative of the learning of antiquity inNatural Science. The great mind of Greece in his day, and a leaderin all the intellectual culture of his time, he was especially anaturalist, and his work on Natural History is a record not only ofhis own investigations, but of all preceding study in thisdepartment. It is evident that even then much had been done, and,in allusion to certain peculiarities of the human frame, which hedoes not describe in full, he refers his readers to familiar works,saying, that illustrations in point may be found in anatomicaltext-books.¹1. See Aristotle'sZoölogy, Book I., Chapter xiv.

Strange that in Aristotle’s day, two thousand years ago,such books should have been in general use, and that in our time weare still in want of elementary text-books of Natural History,having special reference to the animals of our own country, andadapted to the use of schools. One fact in Aristotle’s“History of Animals” is very striking, and makes itdifficult for us to understand much of its contents. It neveroccurs to him that a time may come when the Greeklanguage—the language of all culture and science in histime—would not be the language of all cultivated men. Hetook, therefore, little pains to characterize the animals healludes to, otherwise than by their current names; and of hisdescriptions of their habits and peculiarities, much is lost uponus from their local character and expression. There is also a totalabsence of systematic form, of any classification or framework toexpress the divisions of the animal kingdom into larger or lessergroups. His only divisions are genera and species: classes, orders,and families, as we understand them now, are quite foreign to theGreek conception of the animal kingdom. Fishes and birds, forinstance, they considered as genera, and their differentrepresentatives as species. They grouped together quadrupeds alsoin contradistinction to animals with legs and wings, and theydistinguished those that bring forth living young from those thatlay eggs. But though a system of Nature was not familiar even totheir great philosopher, and Aristotle had not arrived at the ideaof a classification on general principles, he yet stimulated asearch into the closer affinities among animals by the differenceshe pointed out. He divided the animal kingdom into two groups,which he called Enaima and Anaima, or animalswith blood and animals without blood. We must remember, however,that by the word blood he designated only the red fluidcirculating in the higher animals; whereas a fluid akin to bloodexists in all animals, variously colored in some, but colorless ina large number of others.

After Aristotle, a long period elapsed without any addition tothe information he left us. Rome and the Middle Ages gave usnothing, and even Pliny added hardly a fact to those that Aristotlerecorded. And though the great naturalists of the sixteenth centurygave a new impulse to this study, their investigations were chieflydirected towards a minute acquaintance with the animals they had anopportunity of observing, mingled with commentaries upon theancients. Systematic Zoölogy was but little advanced by theirefforts.

We must come down to the last century, to Linnæus, beforewe find the history taken up where Aristotle had left it, and someof his suggestions carried out with new vigor and vitality.Aristotle had distinguished only between genera and species;Linnæus took hold of this idea, and gave special names toother groups, of different weight and value. Besides species andgenera, he gives us orders and classes,—considering classesthe most comprehensive, then orders, then genera, then species. Hedid not, however, represent these groups as distinguished by theirnature, but only by their range; they were still to him, as generaand species had been to Aristotle, only larger or smaller groups,not founded upon and limited by different categories of structure.He divided the animal kingdom into six classes, which I give here,as we shall have occasion to compare them with otherclassifications:—Mammalia, Birds,Reptiles, Fishes, Insects,Worms.

That this classification should have expressed all that wasknown in the last century of the most general relations amonganimals only shows how difficult it is to generalize on such asubject; nor should we expect to find it an easy task, when weremember the vast number of species (about a quarter of a million)already noticed by naturalists. Linnæus succeeded, however,in finding a common character on which to unite most of hisclasses; but the Mammalia, that group to which we ourselves belong,remained very imperfect. Indeed, in the earlier editions of hisclassification, he does not apply the name of Mammalia to thisclass, but calls the higher animals Quadrupedia,characterizing them as the animals with four legs and covered withfur or hair, that bring forth living young and nurse them withmilk. In thus admitting external features as class characters, heexcluded many animals which by their mode of reproduction, as wellas by their respiration and circulation, belong to this class asmuch as the Quadrupeds,—as, for instance, all the Cetaceans,(Whales, Porpoises, and the like,) which, though they have notlegs, nor are their bodies covered with hair or fur, yet bringforth living young, nurse them with milk, are warm-blooded andair-breathing. As more was learned of these animals, there aroseserious discussion and criticism among contemporary naturalistsrespecting the classification of Linnæus, all of which led toa clearer insight into the true relations among animals.Linnæus himself, in his last edition of the “SystemaNaturæ,” shows us what important progress he had madesince he first announced his views; for he there substitutes forthe name of Quadrupedia that of Mammalia,including among them the Whales, which he characterizes asair-breathing, warm-blooded, and bringing forth living young whichthey nurse with milk. Thus the very deficiencies of hisclassification stimulated naturalists to new criticism andinvestigation into the true limits of classes, and led to therecognition of one most important principle,—that such groupsare founded, not on external appearance, but on internal structure,and that internal structure, therefore, is the thing to be studied.The group of Quadrupeds was not the only defective one in thisclassification of Linnæus; his class of Worms, also, was mostheterogeneous, for he included among them Shell-Fishes, Slugs,Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and other animals that bear no relationwhatever to the class of Worms.

But whatever its defects, the classification of Linnæuswas the first attempt at grouping animals together according tocertain common structural characters. His followers and pupilsengaged at once in a scrutiny of the differences and similaritiesamong animals, which soon led to a great increase in the number ofclasses: instead of six, there were presently nine, twelve, andmore. But till Cuvier’s time there was no great principle ofclassification. Facts were accumulated and more or lesssystematized, but they were not yet arranged according to law; theprinciple was still wanting by which to generalize them and givemeaning and vitality to the whole. It was Cuvier who found the key.He himself tells us how he first began, in his investigations uponthe internal organization of animals, to use his dissections withreference to finding the true relations between animals, and how,ever after, his knowledge of anatomy assisted him in hisclassifications, and his classifications threw new light again onhis anatomical investigations,—each science thus helping tofertilize the other. He was not one of those superficial observerswho are in haste to announce every new fact that they chance tofind, and his first paper²2. Surun nouveau rapprochement à établir entre les Classesqui composent le Règne Animal. Ann. Mus., Vol.XIX. specially devoted to classification gave to the worldthe ripe fruit of years of study. This was followed by his greatwork, “Le Règne Animal.” He said that animalswere united in their most comprehensive groups, not on specialcharacters, but on different plans ofstructure,—moulds, he called them, in which all animalshad been cast. He tells us this in such admirable language that Imust, to do justice to his thought, give it in his ownwords:—

“Si l’on considère lerègne animal d’après les principes que nousvenons de poser en se débarrassant despréjugés établis sur les divisionsanciennement admises, en n’ayant égardqu’à l’organisation et à la nature desanimaux, et non pas à leur grandeur, à leurutilité, au plus ou moins de connaissance que nous en avons,ni à toutes les autres circonstances accessoires, ontrouvera qu’il existe quatre formes principales, quatre plansgénéraux, si l’on peut s’exprimer ainsi,d’après lesquels tous les animaux semblent avoirété modelés, et dont les divisionsultérieures, de quelque titre que les naturalistes les aientdécorées, ne sont que des modifications assezlégères, fondées sur le développementou l’addition de quelques parties, qui ne changent rienà l’essence du plan.”

The value of this principle was soon tested by its applicationto facts already known, and it was found that animals whoseaffinities had been questionable before were now at once referredto their true relations with other animals by ascertaining whetherthey were built on one or another of these plans. Of such plans orstructural conceptions Cuvier found in the whole animal kingdomonly four, which he called Vertebrates, Mollusks,Articulates, and Radiates.

With this new principle as the basis of investigation, it was nolonger enough for the naturalist to know a certain amount offeatures characteristic of a certain number of animals,—hemust penetrate deep enough into their organization to find thesecret of their internal structure. Till he can do this, he is likethe traveller in a strange city, who looks on the exterior ofedifices entirely new to him, but knows nothing of the plan oftheir internal architecture. To be able to read in the finishedstructure the plan on which the whole is built is now essential toevery naturalist.

There have been many criticisms on this division ofCuvier’s, and many attempts to change it; but though someimprovements have been made in the details of his classification,all departures from its great fundamental principle are errors, anddo but lead us away from the recognition of the true affinitiesamong animals.

Each of these plans may be stated in the most general terms. Inthe Vertebrates there is a vertebral column terminating ina prominent head; this column has an arch above and an arch below,forming a double internal cavity. The parts are symmetricallyarranged on either side of the longitudinal axis of the body. Inthe Mollusks, also, the parts are arranged according to abilateral symmetry on either side of the body, but the body has butone cavity, and is a soft, concentrated mass, without a distinctindividualization of parts. In the Articulates there isbut one cavity, and the parts are here again arranged on eitherside of the longitudinal axis, but in these animals the whole bodyis divided from end to end into transverse rings or joints movableupon each other. In the Radiates we lose sight of thebilateral symmetry so prevalent in the other three, except as avery subordinate element of structure; the plan of this lowest typeis an organic sphere, in which all parts bear definite relations toa vertical axis.

It is not upon any special features, then, that these largestdivisions of the animal kingdom are based, but simply upon thegeneral structural idea. Striking as this statement was, it wascoldly received at first by contemporary naturalists: they couldhardly grasp Cuvier’s wide generalizations, and perhaps therewas also some jealousy of the grandeur of his views. Whatever thecause, his principle of classification was not fully appreciated;but it opened a new road for study, and gave us the keynote to thenatural affinities among animals. Lamarck, his contemporary, notrecognizing the truth of this principle, distributed the animalkingdom into two great divisions, which he callsVertebrates and Invertebrates. Ehrenberg also, ata later period, announced another division under twoheads,—those with a continuous solid nervous centre, andthose with merely scattered nervousswellings.³3. For more detailsupon the different systems of Zoölogy, see Agassiz's Essay onClassification in his Contributions to the Natural History ofthe United States, Vol. I.

But there was no real progress in either of these latterclassifications, so far as the primary divisions are concerned; forthey correspond to the old division of Aristotle, under the head ofanimals with or without blood, the Enaima andAnaima. This coincidence between systems based ondifferent foundations may teach us that every structuralcombination includes certain inherent necessities which will bringanimals together on whatever set of features we try to classifythem; so that the division of Aristotle, founded on the circulatingfluids, or that of Lamarck, on the absence or presence of abackbone, or that of Ehrenberg, on the differences of the nervoussystem, cover the same ground. Lamarck attempted also to use thefaculties of animals as a groundwork for division among them. Butour knowledge of the psychology of animals is still too imperfectto justify any such use of it. His divisions into Apathetic,Sensitive, and Intelligent animals are entirely theoretical. Heplaces, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles among the Intelligentanimals, as distinguished from Crustacea and Insects, which herefers to the second division. But one would be puzzled to say howthe former manifest more intelligence than the latter, or why thelatter should be placed among the Sensitive animals. Again, some ofthe animals that he calls Apathetic have been proved by laterinvestigators to show an affection and care for their young,seemingly quite inconsistent with the epithet he has applied tothem. In fact, we know so little of the faculties of animals thatany classification based upon our present information about themmust be very imperfect.

Many modifications of Cuvier’s great divisions have beenattempted. Some naturalists, for instance, have divided off a partof the Radiates and Articulates, insisting upon some specialfeatures of structure, and mistaking these for the more importantand general characteristics of their respective plans. Allsubsequent investigations of such would-be improvements show themto be retrograde movements, only proving more clearly that Cuvierdetected in his four plans all the great structural ideas on whichthe vast variety of animals is founded. This result is of greaterimportance than may at first appear. Upon it depends the question,whether all such classifications represent merely individualimpressions and opinions of men, or whether there is reallysomething in Nature that presses upon us certain divisions amonganimals, certain affinities, certain limitations, founded uponessential principles of organization. Are our systems theinventions of naturalists, or only their reading of the Book ofNature? and can that book have more than one reading? If theseclassifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attemptto classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then theyare thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed inNature,—then Nature is the work of thought, the production ofintelligence carried out according to plan, thereforepremeditated,—and in our study of natural objects we areapproaching the thoughts of the Creator, reading His conceptions,interpreting a system that is His and not ours.

All the divergence from the simplicity and grandeur of thisdivision of the animal kingdom arises from an inability todistinguish between a plan and the execution, of a plan. We allowthe details to shut out the plan itself, which exists quiteindependent of special forms. I hope we shall find a meaning in allthese plans that will prove them to be the parts of one greatconception and the work of one Mind.

II.

Proceeding upon the view that there is a close analogy betweenthe way in which every individual student penetrates into Natureand the progress of science as a whole in the history of humanity,I continue my sketch of the successive steps that have led to ourpresent state of knowledge. I began with Aristotle, and showed thatthis great philosopher, though he prepared a digest of all theknowledge belonging to his time, yet did not feel the necessity ofany system or of any scientific language differing from the commonmode of expression of his day. He presents his information as a manwith his eyes open narrates in a familiar style what he sees. Ascivilization spread and science had its representatives in othercountries besides Greece, it became indispensable to have a commonscientific language, a technical nomenclature, combining manyobjects under common names, and enabling every naturalist toexpress the results of his observations readily and simply in amanner intelligible to all other students of Natural History.

Linnæus devised such a system, and to him we owe a mostsimple and comprehensive scientific mode of designating animals andplants. It may at first seem no advantage to give up the commonnames of the vernacular and adopt the unfamiliar ones, but a wordof explanation will make the object clear. Perceiving, forinstance, the close relations between certain members of the largergroups, Linnæus gave to them names that should be common toall, and which are called generic names,—as we speak ofDucks, when we would designate in one word the Mallard, theWidgeon, the Canvas-Back, etc.; but to these generic names he addedqualifying epithets, called specific names, to indicate thedifferent kinds in each group. For example, the Lion, the Tiger,the Panther, the Domestic Cat constitute such a natural group,which Linnæus called Felis, Cat, indicating thewhole genus; but the species he designates as Felis catus,the Domestic Cat,—Felis leo, theLion,—Felis tigris, the Tiger,—Felispanthera, the Panther. So he called all the DogsCanis; but for the different kinds we have Canisfamiliaris, the Domestic Dog,—Canis lupus, theWolf,—Canis vulpes, the Fox, etc.

In some families of the vegetable kingdom we can appreciatebetter the application of this nomenclature, because we havesomething corresponding to it in the vernacular. We have, forinstance, one name for all the Oaks, but we call the differentkinds Swamp Oak, Red Oak, White Oak, Chestnut Oak, etc. SoLinnæus, in his botanical nomenclature, called all the Oaksby the generic name Quercus, (characterizing them by theirfruit, the acorn, common to all,) and qualified them as Quercusbicolor, Quercus rubra, Quercus alba,Quercus castanea, etc., etc. His nomenclature, being soeasy of application, became at once exceedingly popular and madehim the great scientific legislator of his century. He insisted onLatin names, because, if every naturalist should use his ownlanguage, it must lead to great confusion, and this Latinnomenclature of double significance was adopted by all. Anotheradvantage of this binominal Latin nomenclature consists inpreventing the confusion frequently arising from the use of thesame name to designate different animals in different parts of theworld,—as, for instance, the name of Robin, used in Americato designate a bird of the Thrush family, entirely different fromthe Robin of the Old World,—or of different names for thesame animal, as Perch or Chogset or Burgall for our Cunner. Nothingis more to be deprecated than an over-appreciation oftechnicalities, valuing the name more highly than the thing; butsome knowledge of this nomenclature is necessary to every studentof Nature.

The improvements in science thus far were chiefly verbal. Cuviernow came forward and added a principle. He showed that all animalsare built upon a certain number of definite plans. This momentousstep, the significance of which is not yet appreciated to its fullextent; for, had its importance been understood, the efforts ofnaturalists would have been directed toward a further illustrationof the distinctive characteristics of all the plans,—insteadof which, the division of the animal kingdom into larger andsmaller groups chiefly attracted their attention, and has beencarried too far by some of them. Linnæus began with sixclasses, Cuvier brought them up to nineteen, and at last the animalkingdom was subdivided by subsequent investigators intotwenty-eight classes. This multiplication of divisions, however,soon suggested an important question: How far are these divisionsnatural or inherent in the objects themselves, and not dependent onindividual views?

While Linnæus pointed out classes, orders, genera, andspecies, other naturalists had detected other divisions amonganimals, called families. Lamarck, who had been a distinguishedbotanist before he began his study of the animal kingdom, broughtto his zoölogical researches his previous methods ofinvestigation. Families in the vegetable kingdom had long beendistinguished by French botanists; and one cannot examine thegroups they call by this name, without perceiving, that, thoughthey bring them together and describe them according to othercharacters, they have been unconsciously led to unite them from thegeneral similarity of their port and bearing. Take, for instance,the families of Pines, Oaks, Beeches, Maples, etc., and you feel atonce, that, besides the common characters given in the technicaldescriptions of these trees, there is also a general resemblanceamong them that would naturally lead us to associate them together,even if we knew nothing of the other features of their structure.By an instinctive recognition of this family likeness betweenplants, botanists have been led to seek for structural characterson which to unite them, and the groups so founded generallycorrespond with the combinations suggested by their appearance.

By a like process Lamarck combined animals into families. Hismethod was adopted by French naturalists generally, and found favorespecially with Cuvier, who was particularly successful in limitingfamilies among animals, and in naming them happily, generallyselecting names expressive of the features on which the groups werefounded, or borrowing them from familiar animals. Much, indeed,depends upon the pleasant sound and the significance of a name; foran idea reaches the mind more easily when well expressed, andCuvier’s names were both simple and significant. Hisdescriptions are also remarkable for their graphicprecision,—giving all that is essential, omitting all that ismerely accessory. He has given us the key-note to his progress inhis own expressive language:—

“Je dus donc, et cette obligation me prit untemps considérable, je dus faire marcher de frontl’anatomie et la zoologie, les dissections et le classement;chercher dans mes premières remarques surl’organisation des distributions meilleures; m’enservir pour arriver à des remarques nouvelles; employerencore ces remarques à perfectionner les distributions;faire sortir enfin de cette fécondation mutuelle des deuxsciences, l’une par l’autre, un systèmezoologique propre à servir d’introducteur et de guidedans le champ de l’anatomie, et un corps de doctrineanatomique propre à servir de développement etd’explication au système zoologique.”

It is deeply to be lamented that so many naturalists haveentirely overlooked this significant advice of Cuvier’s, tocombine zoölogical and anatomical studies in order to arriveat a clearer perception of the true affinities among animals. Tosum it up in one word, he tells us that the secret of his method is“comparison,”—ever comparing and comparingthroughout the enormous range of his knowledge of the organizationof animals, and founding upon the differences as well as thesimilarities those broad generalizations under which he hasincluded all animal structures. And this method, so prolific in hishands, has also a lesson for us all. In this country there is agrowing interest in the study of Nature; but while there existhundreds of elementary works illustrating the native animals ofEurope, there are few such books here to satisfy the demand forinformation respecting the animals of our land and water. We arethus forced to turn more and more to our own investigations andless to authority; and the true method of obtaining independentknowledge is this very method ofCuvier’s,—comparison.

Let us make the most common application of it to naturalobjects. Suppose we see together a Dog, a Cat, a Bear, a Horse, aCow, and a Deer. The first feature that strikes us as common to anytwo of them is the horn in the Cow and Deer. But how shall weassociate either of the others with these? We examine the teeth,and find those of the Dog, the Cat, and the Bear sharp and cutting,while those of the Cow, the Deer, and the Horse have flat surfaces,adapted to grinding and chewing, rather than cutting and tearing.We compare these features of their structure with the habits ofthese animals, and find that the first are carnivorous, that theyseize and tear their prey, while the others are herbivorous orgrazing animals, living only on vegetable substances, which theychew and grind. We compare farther the Horse and Cow, and find thatthe Horse has front teeth both in the upper and lower jaw, whilethe Cow has them only in the lower; and going still farther andcomparing the internal with the external features, we find thisarrangement of the teeth in direct relation to the differentstructure of the stomach in the two animals,—the Cow having astomach with four pouches, adapted to a mode of digestion by whichthe food is prepared for the second mastication, while the Horsehas a simple stomach. Comparing the Cow and the Deer, we find thatthe digestive apparatus is the same in both; but though they bothhave horns, in the Cow the horn is hollow, and remains through lifefirmly attached to the bone, while in the Deer it is solid and isshed every year. With these facts before us, we cannot hesitate toplace the Dog, the Cat, and the Bear in one division, ascarnivorous animals, and the other three in another division asherbivorous animals,—and looking a little farther, weperceive, that, in common with the Cow and the Deer, the Goat andthe Sheep have cloven feet, and that they are all ruminants, whilethe Horse has a single hoof, does not ruminate, and must thereforebe separated from them, even though, like them, he isherbivorous.

This is but the simplest illustration, taken from the mostfamiliar objects, of this comparative method; but the same processis equally applicable to the most intricate problems in animalstructures, and will give us the clue to all true affinitiesbetween animals. The education of a naturalist, now, consistschiefly in learning how to compare. If he have any power ofgeneralization, when he has collected his facts, this habit ofmental comparison will lead him up to principles, to the great lawsof combination. It must not discourage us, that the process is aslow and laborious one, and the results of one lifetime after allvery small. It might seem invidious, were I to show here how smallis the sum total of the work accomplished even by the greatexceptional men, whose names are known throughout the civilizedworld. But I may at least be permitted to speak of my own efforts,and to sum up in the fewest words the result of my life’swork. I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yeta single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shownthat there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes ingeological times and the different stages of their growth in theegg,—this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found toapply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a likenature. But, such as it is, it has been reached by this system ofcomparison, which, though I speak of it now in its application tothe study of Natural History, is equally important in every otherbranch of knowledge. By the same process the most mature results ofscientific research in Philology, in Ethnology, and in PhysicalScience are reached. And let me say that the community shouldfoster the purely intellectual efforts of scientific men ascarefully as they do their elementary schools and their practicalinstitutions, generally considered so much more useful andimportant to the public. For from what other source shall we derivethe higher results that are gradually woven into the practicalresources of our life, except from the researches of those very menwho study science not for its uses, but for its truth? It is thisthat gives it its noblest interest: it must be for truth’ssake, and not even for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, thatthe scientific man studies Nature. The application of science tothe useful arts requires other abilities, other qualities, othertools than his; and therefore I say that the man of science whofollows his studies into their practical application is false tohis calling. The practical man stands ever ready to take up thework where the scientific man leaves it, and to adapt it to thematerial wants and uses of daily life.

The publication of Cuvier’s proposition, that the animalkingdom is built on four plans, created an extraordinary excitementthroughout the scientific world. All naturalists proceeded to testit, and many soon recognized in it a great scientifictruth,—while others, who thought more of making themselvesprominent than of advancing science, proposed poor amendments, thatwere sure to be rejected on farther investigation. There were,however, some of these criticisms and additions that were trulyimprovements, and touched upon points overlooked by Cuvier.Blainville, especially, took up the element of form amonganimals,—whether divided on two sides, whether radiated,whether irregular, etc. He, however, made the mistake of givingvery elaborate names to animals already known under simpler ones.Why, for instance, call all animals with parts radiating in everydirection Actinomorpha or Actinozoaria, when theyhad received the significant name of Radiates? It seemed,to be a new system, when in fact it was only a new name. Ehrenberg,likewise, made an important distinction, when he united the animalsaccording to the difference in their nervous systems; but he alsoincumbered the nomenclature unnecessarily, when he added to thenames Anaima and Enaima of Aristotle those ofMyeloneura and Ganglioneura.

But it is not my object to give all the classifications ofdifferent authors here, and I will therefore pass over many notedones, as those of Burmeister, Milne, Edwards, Siebold and Stannius,Owen, Leuckart, Vogt, Van Beneden, and others, and proceed to givesome account of one investigator who did as much for the progressof Zoölogy as Cuvier, though he is comparatively little knownamong us. Karl Ernst von Baer proposed a classification based, likeCuvier’s, upon plan; but he recognized what Cuvier failed toperceive,—namely, the importance of distinguishing betweentype (by which he means exactly what Cuvier means by plan) andcomplication of structure,—in other words, between plan andthe execution of the plan. He recognized four types, whichcorrespond exactly to Cuvier’s four plans, though he callsthem by different names. Let us compare them.

Though perhaps less felicitous, the names of Baer express thesame ideas as those of Cuvier. By the Peripheric hesignified those in which all the parts converge from the peripheryor circumference of the animal to its centre. Cuvier only reversesthis definition in his name of Radiates, signifying theanimals in which all parts radiate from the centre to thecircumference. By Massive, Baer indicated those animals inwhich the structure is soft and concentrated, without a verydistinct individualization of parts,—exactly the animalsincluded by Cuvier under his name of Mollusks, orsoft-bodied animals. In his selection of the epithetLongitudinal, Baer was less fortunate; for all animalshave a longitudinal diameter, and this word was not, therefore,sufficiently special. Yet his Longitudinal type answersexactly to Cuvier’s Articulates,—animals inwhich all parts are arranged in a succession of articulated jointsalong a longitudinal axis. Cuvier has expressed this jointedstructure in the name Articulates; whereas Baer, in hisname of Longitudinal, referred only to the arrangement ofjoints in longitudinal succession, in a continuous string, as itwere, one after another. For the Doubly Symmetrical typehis name is the better of the two; for Cuvier’s name ofVertebrates alludes only to the backbone,—whileBaer, who is an embryologist, signifies in his their mode of growthalso. He knew what Cuvier did not know, that in its first formationthe germ of the Vertebrate divides in two folds: one turning upabove the backbone, to inclose all the sensitive Organs,—thespinal marrow, the organs of sense, all those organs by which lifeis expressed; the other turning down below the backbone, andinclosing all those organs by which life is maintained,—theorgans of digestion, of respiration, of circulation, ofreproduction, etc. So there is in this type not only an equaldivision of parts on either side, but also a division above andbelow, making thus a double symmetry in the plan, expressed by Baerin the name he gave it. Baer was perfectly original in hisconception of these four types, for his paper was published in thevery same year with that of Cuvier. But even in Germany, his nativeland, his ideas were not fully appreciated: strange that it shouldbe so,—for, had his countrymen recognized his genius, theymight have claimed him as the compeer of the great Frenchnaturalist.

Baer also founded the science of Embryology, under the guidanceof his teacher, Dollinger. His researches in this direction showedhim that animals were not only built on four plans, but that theygrew according to four modes of development. The Vertebrate arisesfrom the egg differently from the Articulate,—the Articulatedifferently from the Mollusk,—the Mollusk differently fromthe Radiate. Cuvier only showed us the four plans as they exist inthe adult; Baer went a step farther, and showed us the four plansin the process of formation. But his greatest scientificachievement is perhaps the discovery that all animals originate ineggs, and that all these eggs are at first identical in substanceand structure. The wonderful and untiring research condensed intothis simple statement, that all animals arise from eggs and thatall those eggs are identical in the beginning, may well excite ouradmiration. This egg consists of an outer envelope, the vitellinemembrane, containing a fluid more or less dense, the yolk; withinthis is a second envelope, the so-called germinative vesicle,containing a somewhat different and more transparent fluid, and inthe fluid of this second envelope float one or more so-calledgerminative specks. At this stage of their growth all eggs aremicrosopically small, yet each one has such tenacity of itsindividual principle of life that no egg was ever known to swervefrom the pattern of the parent animal that gave it birth.

III.

From the time that Linnæus showed us the necessity of ascientific system as a framework for the arrangement of scientificfacts in Natural History, the number of divisions adopted byzoölogists and botanists increased steadily. Not only werefamilies, orders, and classes added to genera and species, butthese were further multiplied by subdivisions of the differentgroups. But as the number of divisions increased, they lost inprecise meaning, and it became more and more doubtful how far theywere true to Nature. Moreover, these divisions were not taken inthe same sense by all naturalists: what were called families bysome were called orders by others, while the orders of some werethe classes of others, till it began to be doubted whether thesescientific systems had any foundation in Nature, or signifiedanything more than that it had pleased Linnæus, for instance,to call certain groups of animals by one name, while Cuvier hadchosen to call them by another.

These divisions are, first, the most comprehensive groups, theprimary divisions, called branches by some, types by others, anddivided by some naturalists into so-called sub-types, meaning onlya more limited circumscription of the same kind of group; next wehave classes, and these also have been divided into sub-classes,then orders and sub-orders, families, sub-families, and tribes;then genera, species, and varieties. With reference to thequestion, whether these groups really exist in Nature or are merelythe expression of individual theories and opinions, it is worthwhile to study the works of the early naturalists, in order totrace the natural process by which scientific classification hasbeen reached; for in this, as in other departments of learning,practice has always preceded theory. We do the thing before weunderstand why we do it: speech precedes grammar, reason precedeslogic; and so a division of animals into groups, upon aninstinctive perception of their differences, has preceded all ourscientific creeds and doctrines. Let us, therefore, proceed toexamine the meaning of these names as adopted by naturalists.

When Cuvier proposed his four primary divisions of the animalkingdom, he added his argument for theiradoption,—because, he said, they are constructed onfour different plans. All the progress in our science since histime confirms this result; and I shall attempt to show that thereare really four, and only four, such structural ideas at thefoundation of the animal kingdom, and that all animals are includedunder one or another of them. But it does not follow, that, becausewe have arrived at a sound principle, we are therefore unerring inour practice. From ignorance we may misplace animals, and includethem under the wrong division. This is a mistake, however, which abetter insight into their organization rectifies; and experienceconstantly proves, that, whenever the structure of an animal isperfectly understood, there is no hesitation as to the head underwhich it belongs. We may consequently test the merits of these fourprimary groups on the evidence furnished by investigation. It hasalready been seen that these plans may be presented in the mostabstract manner without any reference to special animals.Radiation expresses in one word the idea on which thelowest of these types is based. In Radiates we have noprominent bilateral symmetry, as in all other animals, but anall-sided symmetry, in which there is no right and left, noanterior and posterior extremity, no above and below. They arespheroidal bodies; yet, though many of them remind us of a sphere,they are by no means to be compared to a mathematical sphere, butrather to an organic sphere, so loaded with life, as it were, as toproduce an infinite variety of radiate symmetry. The wholeorganization is arranged around a centre toward which all the partsconverge, or, in a reverse sense, from which all the parts radiate.In Mollusks there is a longitudinal axis and a bilateralsymmetry; but the longitudinal axis in these soft concentratedbodies is not very prominent; and though the two ends of this axisare distinct from each other, the difference is not so marked thatwe can say at once, for all of them, which is the anterior andwhich the posterior extremity. In this type, right and left havethe preponderance over the other diameters of the body. The sidesare the prominent parts,—they are charged with the importantorgans, loaded with those peculiarities of the structure that giveit character. The Oyster is a good instance of this, with itsdouble valve, so swollen on one side, so flat on the other. Thereis an unconscious recognition of this in the arrangement of allcollections of Mollusks; for, though the collectors do not put uptheir specimens with any intention of illustrating thispeculiarity, they instinctively give them the position bestcalculated to display their distinctive characteristics, and toaccomplish this they necessarily place them in such a manner as toshow the sides. In Articulates there is also alongitudinal axis of the body and a bilateral symmetry in thearrangement of parts; the head and tail are marked, and the rightand left sides are distinct. But the prominent tendency in thistype is the development of the dorsal and ventral region; hereabove and below prevail over right and left. It is the back and thelower side that have the preponderance over any other part of thestructure in Articulates. The body is divided from end to end by asuccession of transverse constrictions, forming movable rings; butthe character of the animal, its striking features, are alwaysabove or below, and especially developed on the back. Anycollection of Insects or Crustacea is an evidence of this; beingalways instinctively arranged in such a manner as to show thepredominant features, they uniformly exhibit the back of theanimal. The profile view of an Articulate has no significance;whereas in a Mollusk, on the contrary, the profile view is the mostillustrative of the structural character. In the highest division,the Vertebrates, so characteristically called by Baer theDoubly Symmetrical type, a solid column runs through thebody with an arch above and an arch below, thus forming a doubleinternal cavity. In this type, the head is the prominent feature;it is, as it were, the loaded end of the longitudinal axis, socharged with vitality as to form an intelligent brain, and risingin man to such predominance as to command and control the wholeorganism. The structure is arranged above and below this axis, theupper cavity containing all the sensitive organs, and the lowercavity containing all those by which life is maintained.

While Cuvier and his followers traced these four distinct plans,as shown in the adult animal, Baer opened to us a new field ofinvestigation in the embryology of the four types, showing that foreach there was a special mode of growth in the egg. Looking at themfrom this point of view, we shall see that these four types, withtheir four modes of growth, seem to fill out completely the plan oroutline of the animal kingdom, and leave no reason to expect anyfurther development or any other plan of animal life within theselimits. The eggs of all animals are spheres, such as I havedescribed them; but in the Radiate the whole periphery istransformed into the germ, so that it becomes, by the liquefying ofthe yolk, a hollow sphere. In the Mollusks, the germ lies above theyolk, absorbing its whole substance through the under side, thusforming a massive close body instead of a hollow one. In theArticulate, the germ is turned in a position exactly opposite tothat of the Mollusk, and absorbs the yolk upon the back. In theVertebrate, the germ divides in two folds, one turning upward, theother turning downward, above and below the central backbone. Thesefour modes of development seem to exhaust the possibilities of theprimitive sphere, which is the foundation of all animal life, andtherefore I believe that Cuvier and Baer were right in saying thatthe whole animal kingdom is included under these four structuralideas.

Leuckart proposed to subdivide the Radiates into two groups: theCoelenterata, including Polyps and Acalephs orJelly-Fishes,—and Echinoderms, including Star-Fishes,Sea-Urchins, and Holothurians. His reason for this distinction isthe fact that in the latter the organs are inclosed within walls oftheir own, distinct from the body-wall; whereas in the former theorgans are formed by internal folds of the outer wall of the body,as in the Polyps, or are hollowed out of the substance of the body,as in Jelly-Fishes. This implies no difference in the plan, butmerely a difference in the execution of the plan. Both are equallyradiate in their structure; and when Leuckart separated them asdistinct primary types, he mistook a difference in the materialexpression of the plan for a difference in the plan itself. So somenaturalists have distinguished Worms from the other Articulates asa separate division. But the structural plan of this type is a bodydivided by transverse constrictions or joints; and whether thosejoints are uniformly arranged from one end of the body to theother, as in the Worms, or whether the front joints are solderedtogether so as to form two regions of the body, as in Crustacea, ordivided so as to form three regions of the body, as in wingedInsects, does not in the least affect the typical character of thestructure, which remains the same in all. Branches or types, then,are natural groups of the animal kingdom, founded on plans ofstructure or structural ideas.

What now are classes? Are they lesser divisions, differing onlyin extent, or are they founded on special characters? I believe thelatter view to be the true one, and that class characters have asignificance quite different from that of their mere range orextent. These divisions are founded on certain categories ofstructure; and were there but one animal of a class in the world,if it had those characters on which a class is founded, it would beas distinct from all other animals as if its kind were counted bythousands. Baer approached the idea of the classes when hediscriminated between plan of structure or type and the degree ofperfection in the structure. But while he understands thedistinction between a plan and its execution, his ideas respectingthe different features of structure are not quite so precise. Hedoes not, for instance, distinguish between the complication of agiven structure and the mode of execution of a plan, both of whichare combined in what he calls degrees of perfection. And yet,without this distinction, the difference between classes and orderscannot be understood; for classes and orders rest upon a justappreciation of these two categories, which are quite distinct fromeach other, and have by no means the same significance. Again,quite distinct from both of these is the character of form, not tobe confounded either with complication of structure, on whichorders are based, or with the execution of the plan, on whichclasses rest. An example will show that form is no guide for thedetermination of classes or orders. Take, for instance, aBeche-de-Mer, a member of the highest class of Radiates, andcompare it with a Worm. They are both long cylindrical bodies; butone has parallel divisions along the length of the body, the otherhas the body divided by transverse rings. Though in external formthey resemble each other, the one is a worm-like Radiate, the otheris a worm-like Articulate, each having the structure of its owntype; so that they do not even belong to the same great division ofthe animal kingdom, much less to the same class. We have a similarinstance in the Whales and Fishes,—the Whales having been fora long time considered as Fishes, on account of their form, whiletheir structural complication shows them to be a low order of theclass of Mammalia, to which we ourselves belong, that class beingfounded upon a particular mode of execution of the plancharacteristic of the Vertebrates, while the order to which theWhales belong depends upon their complication of structure, ascompared with other members of the same class. We may therefore saythat neither form nor complication of structure distinguishesclasses, but simply the mode of execution of a plan. InVertebrates, for instance, how do we distinguish the class ofMammalia from the other classes of the type? By the peculiardevelopment of the brain, by their breathing through lungs, bytheir double circulation, by their bringing forth living young andnursing them with milk. In this class the beasts of prey form adistinct order, superior to the Whales or the herbivorous animals,on account of the higher complication of their structure; and forthe same reason we place the Monkeys above them all. But among thebeasts of prey we distinguish the Bears, as a family, from thefamily of Dogs, Wolves, and Cats, on account of their differentform, which does not imply a difference either in the complicationof their structure or in the mode of execution of their plan.

AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PENANCE.

The course of our story requires us to return to the Capuchinconvent, and to the struggles and trials of its Superior; for inhis hands is the irresistible authority which must direct thefuture life of Agnes.

From no guilty compliances, no heedless running into temptation,had he come to love her. The temptation had met him in the directpath of duty; the poison had been breathed in with the perfume ofsweetest and most life-giving flowers: nor could he shun thattemptation, nor cease to inhale that fatal sweetness, withoutconfessing himself vanquished in a point where, in his view, toyield was to be lost. The subtle and deceitful visit of FatherJohannes to his cell had the effect of thoroughly rousing him to acomplete sense of his position, and making him feel the immediate,absolute necessity of bringing all the energy of his will, all theresources of his nature to bear on its present difficulties. For hefelt, by a fine intuition, that already he was watched andsuspected;—any faltering step now, any wavering, any changein his mode of treating his female penitents, would be maliciouslynoted. The military education of his early days had still left inhis mind a strong residuum of personal courage and honor, whichmade him regard it as dastardly to flee when he ought to conquer,and therefore he set his face as a flint for victory.

But reviewing his interior world, and taking a survey of thework before him, he felt that sense of a divided personality whichoften becomes so vivid in the history of individuals of strong willand passion. It seemed to him that there were two men within him:the one turbulent, passionate, demented; the other vainlyendeavoring by authority, reason, and conscience to bring the rebelto subjection. The discipline of conventual life, the extraordinaryausterities to which he had condemned himself, the monotonoussolitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity of thenervous system, which, in the Italian constitution, is at all timesdisproportionately developed; and when those weird harp-strings ofthe nerves are once thoroughly unstrung, the fury and tempest ofthe discord sometimes utterly bewilders the most practisedself-government.

But he felt that something must be done with himself,and done immediately; for in a few days he must again meet Agnes atthe confessional. He must meet her, not with weak tremblings andpassionate fears, but calm as Fate, inexorable as the Judgment-Day.He must hear her confession, not as man, but as God; he mustpronounce his judgments with a divine dispassionateness. He mustdive into the recesses of her secret heart, and, following withsubtile analysis all the fine courses of those fibres which werefeeling their blind way towards an earthly love, must tear themremorselessly away. Well could he warn her of the insidiousness ofearthly affections; better than any one else he could show her howa name that was blended with her prayers and borne before thesacred shrine in her most retired and solemn hours might at lastcome to fill all her heart with a presence too dangerously dear. Hemust direct her gaze up those mystical heights where an unearthlymarriage awaited her, its sealed and spiritual bride; he must hurryher footsteps onward to the irrevocable issue.

All this was before him. But ere it could be done, he mustsubdue himself,—he must become calm and pulseless, in deadlyresolve; and what prayer, what penance might avail for this? If allthat he had already tried had so miserably failed, what hope? Heresolved to quit for a season all human society, and enter upon oneof those desolate periods of retreat from earthly converse wellknown in the annals of saintship as most prolific in spiritualvictories.

Accordingly, on the day after the conversation with FatherJohannes, he startled the monks by announcing to them that he wasgoing to leave them for several days.

“My brothers,” he said, “the weight of afearful penance is laid upon me, which I must work out alone. Ileave you today, and charge you not to seek to follow my footsteps;but, as you hope to escape hell, watch and wrestle for me andyourselves during the time I am gone. Before many days I hope toreturn to you with renewed spiritual strength.”

That evening, while Agnes and her uncle were sitting together intheir orange-garden, mingling their parting prayers and hymns,scenes of a very different description surrounded the FatherFrancesco.

One who looks on the flowery fields and blue seas of thisenchanting region thinks that the Isles of the Blest could scarcelyfind on earth a more fitting image; nor can he realize, tillexperience proves it to him, that he is in the immediate vicinityof a weird and dreary region which might represent no less thegoblin horrors of the damned.

Around the foot of Vesuvius lie fair villages and villasgarlanded with roses and flushing with grapes whose juice gainswarmth from the breathing of its subterraneous fires, while justabove them rises a region more awful than can be created by theaction of any common causes of sterility. There, immense tractssloping gradually upward show a desolation so peculiar, so utterlyunlike every common solitude of Nature, that one enters upon itwith the shudder we give at that which is wholly unnatural. On allsides are gigantic serpent convolutions of black lava, theirimmense folds rolled into every conceivable contortion, as if, intheir fiery agonies, they had struggled and wreathed and knottedtogether, and then grown cold and black with the imperishable signsof those terrific convulsions upon them. Not a blade of grass, nota flower, not even the hardiest lichen, springs up to relieve theutter deathliness of the scene. The eye wanders from one black,shapeless mass to another, and there is ever the same suggestion ofhideous monster life,—of goblin convulsions and strangefiend-like agonies in some age gone by. One’s very footstepshave an unnatural, metallic clink, and one’s garmentsbrushing over the rough surface are torn and fretted by its sharp,remorseless touch,—as if its very nature were so pitiless andacrid that the slightest contact revealed it.

The sun was just setting over the beautiful Bay ofNaples,—with its enchanted islands, its jewelled city, itsflowery villages, all bedecked and bedropped with strange shiftingsand flushes of prismatic light and shade, as if they belonged tosome fairy-land of perpetual festivity and singing,—whenFather Francesco stopped in his toilsome ascent up the mountain,and, seating himself on ropy ridges of black lava, looked down onthe peaceful landscape.

Above his head, behind him, rose the black cone of the mountain,over whose top the lazy clouds of thin white smoke were floating,tinged with the evening light; around him the desolate convulsedwaste,—so arid, so supernaturally dreary; and below, like asoft enchanted dream, the beautiful bay, the gleaming white villasand towers, the picturesque islands, the gliding sails, flecked andstreaked and dyed with the violet and pink and purple of theevening sky. The thin new moon and one glittering star trembledthrough the rosy air.

The monk wiped from his brow the sweat that had been caused bythe toil of his hurried journey, and listened to the bells of theAve Maria pealing from the different churches of Naples, fillingthe atmosphere with a soft tremble of solemn dropping sound, as ifspirits in the air took up and repeated over and over the angelicsalutation which a thousand earthly lips were just then uttering.Mechanically he joined in the invocation which at that momentunited the hearts of all Christians, and as the words passed hislips, he thought, with a sad, desolate longing, of the hour ofdeath of which they spake.

“It must come at last,” he said. “Life is buta moment. Why am I so cowardly? why so unwilling to suffer and tostruggle? Am I a warrior of the Lord, and do I shrink from thetoils of the camp, and long for the ease of the court before I haveearned it? Why do we clamor for happiness? Why should we sinners behappy? And yet, O God, why is the world made so lovely as it liesthere, why so rejoicing, and so girt with splendor and beauty, ifwe are never to enjoy it? If penance and toil were all we were senthere for, why not make a world grim and desolate as this aroundme?—then there would be nothing to seduce us. But our path isa constant fight; Nature is made only to be resisted; we must walkthe sharp blade of the sword over the fiery chasm to Paradise.Come, then!—no shrinking!—let me turn my back oneverything dear and beautiful, as now on this landscape!”

He rose and commenced the perpendicular ascent of the cone,stumbling and climbing over the huge sliding blocks of broken lava,which grated and crunched beneath his feet with a harsh metallicring. Sometimes a broken fragment or two would go tinkling down therough path behind him, and sometimes it seemed as if the wholeloose black mass from above were about to slide, like an avalanche,down upon his head;—he almost hoped it would. Sometimes hewould stop, overcome by the toil of the ascent, and seat himselffor a moment on a black fragment, and then his eye would wanderover the wide and peaceful panorama below. He seemed to himselflike a fly perched upon some little roughness of a perpendicularwall, and felt a strange airy sense of pleasure in being thusbetween earth and heaven. A sense of relief, of beauty, andpeacefulness would steal over him, as if he were indeed somethingdisfranchised and disembodied, a part of the harmonious andbeautiful world that lay stretched out beneath him; in a momentmore he would waken himself with a start, and resume his toilsomejourney with a sullen and dogged perseverance.

At last he gained the top of the mountain,—that weird,strange region where the loose, hot soil, crumbling beneath hisfeet, was no honest foodful mother earth, but an acrid mass ofashes and corrosive minerals. Arsenic, sulphur, and many a sharpand bitter salt were in all he touched, every rift in the groundhissed with stifling steam, while rolling clouds of dun sullensmoke, and a deep hollow booming, like the roar of an immensefurnace, told his nearness to the great crater. He penetrated thesombre tabernacle, and stood on the very brink of a huge basin,formed by a wall of rocks around a sunken plain, the midst of whichrose the black cone of the subterraneous furnace, which crackledand roared and from time to time spit up burning stones and cindersor oozed out slow ropy streams of liquid fire.

The sulphurous cliffs were dyed in many a brilliant shade ofbrown and orange by the admixture of various ores, but theirbrightness seemed strange and unnatural, and the dizzying whirls ofvapor, now enveloping the whole scene in gloom, now lifting in thisspot and now in that, seemed to magnify the dismal pit to anindefinite size. Now and then there would come up from the veryentrails of the mountain a sort of convulsed sob of hollow sound,and the earth would quiver beneath his feet, and fragments from thesurrounding rocks would scale off and fall with crashingreverberations into the depth beneath; at such moments it wouldseem as if the very mountain were about to crush in and bear himdown in its ruins.

Father Francesco, though blinded by the smoke and choked by thevapor, could not be content without descending into the abyss andexploring the very penetralia of its mysteries. Steadyinghis way by means of a cord which he fastened to a firm projectingrock, he began slowly and painfully clambering downward. The windwas sweeping across the chasm from behind, bearing the noxiousvapors away from him, or he must inevitably have been stifled. Ittook him some little time, however, to effect his descent; but atlength he found himself fairly landed on the dark floor of thegloomy inclosure.

The ropy, pitch-black undulations of lava yawned here and therein red-hot cracks and seams, making it appear to be only a crustover some fathomless depth of molten fire, whose moanings andboilings could be heard below. These dark congealed billows creakedand bent as the monk stepped upon them, and burned his feet throughhis coarse sandals; yet he stumbled on. Now and then his foot wouldcrush in, where the lava had hardened in a thinner crust, and hewould draw it suddenly back from the lurid red-hot metal beneath.The staff on which he rested was constantly kindling into a lightblaze as it slipped into some heated hollow, and he was fain tobeat out the fire upon the cooler surface. Still he went onhalf-stifled by the hot and pungent vapor, but drawn by thatpainful, unnatural curiosity which possesses one in a nightmaredream. The great cone in the centre was the point to which hewished to attain,—the nearest point which man can gain tothis eternal mystery of fire. It was trembling with a perpetualvibration, a hollow, pulsating undertone of sound like the surgingof the sea before a storm, and the lava that boiled over its sidesrolled slowly down with a strange creaking; it seemed thecondensed, intensified essence and expression of eternal fire,rising and still rising from some inexhaustible fountain ofburning.

Father Francesco drew as near as he could for the stifling heatand vapor, and, resting on his staff, stood gazing intently. Thelurid light of the fire fell with an unearthly glare on his pale,sunken features, his wild, haggard eyes, and his torn anddisarranged garments. In the awful solitude and silence of thenight he felt his heart stand still, as if indeed he had touchedwith his very hand the gates of eternal woe, and felt its fierybreath upon his cheek. He half-imagined that the seams and cleftswhich glowed in lurid lines between the dark billows would gape yetwider and show the blasting secrets of some world of fiery despairbelow. He fancied that he heard behind and around the mocking laughof fiends, and that confused clamor of mingled shrieks andlamentations which Dante describes as filling the dusky approachesto that forlorn realm where hope never enters.

“Ah, God,” he exclaimed, “for this vain lifeof man! They eat, they drink, they dance, they sing, they marry andare given in marriage, they have castles and gardens and villas,and the very beauty of Paradise seems over it all,—and yethow close by burns and roars the eternal fire! Fools that we are,to clamor for indulgence and happiness in this life, when thequestion is, to escape everlasting burnings! If I tremble at thisouter court of God’s wrath and justice, what must be thefires of hell? These are but earthly fires; they can but burn thebody: those are made to burn the soul; they are undying as the soulis. What would it be to be dragged down, down, down, into an abyssof soul-fire hotter than this for ages on ages? This might bringmerciful death in time: that will have no end.”

The monk fell on his knees and breathed out piercingsupplications. Every nerve and fibre within him seemed tense withhis agony of prayer. It was not the outcry for purity and peace,not a tender longing for forgiveness, not a filial remorse for sin,but the nervous anguish of him who shrieks in the immediateapprehension of an unendurable torture. It was the cry of a manupon the rack, the despairing scream of him who feels himselfsinking in a burning dwelling. Such anguish has found an utterancein Stradella’s celebrated “Pietà,Signore,” which still tells to our ears, in its wild moansand piteous shrieks, the religious conceptions of his day; forthere is no phase of the Italian mind that has not found expressionin its music.

When the oppression of the heat and sulphurous vapor became toodreadful to be borne, the monk retraced his way and climbed withdifficulty up the steep sides of the crater, till he gained thesummit above, where a comparatively free air revived him. All nighthe wandered up and down in that dreary vicinity, now listening tothe mournful roar and crackle of the fire, and now raising hisvoice in penitential psalms or the notes of that terrific“Dies Iræ” which sums up all the intense fear andhorror with which the religion of the Middle Ages clothed the ideaof the final catastrophe of humanity. Sometimes prostrating himselfwith his face towards the stifling soil, he prayed with agonizedintensity till Nature would sink in a temporary collapse, andsleep, in spite of himself, would steal over him.

So waned the gloomy hours of the night away, till the morningbroke in the east, turning all the blue wavering floor of the seato crimson brightness, and bringing up, with the rising breeze, thebarking of dogs, the lowing of kine, the songs of laborers andboatmen, all fresh and breezy from the repose of the pastnight.

Father Francesco heard the sound of approaching footstepsclimbing the lava path, and started with a nervous trepidation.Soon he recognized a poor peasant of the vicinity, whose child hehad tended during a dangerous illness. He bore with him a littlebasket of eggs, with a melon and a fresh green salad.

“Good morning, holy father,” he said, bowing humbly.“I saw you coming this way last night, and I could hardlysleep for thinking of you; and my good woman, Teresina, would haveit that I should come out to look after you. I have taken theliberty to bring a little offering;—it was the best wehad.”

“Thank you, my son,” said the monk, lookingwistfully at the fresh, honest face of the peasant. “You havetaken too much trouble for such a sinner. I must not allow myselfsuch indulgences.”

“But your Reverence must live. Look you,” said thepeasant, “at least your Reverence will take an egg. See here,how handily I can cook one,” he added, striking his stickinto a little cavity of a rock, from which, as from anescape-valve, hissed a jet of hot steam,—“see here, Inestle the egg in this little cleft, and it will be done in atwinkling. Our good God gives us our fire for nothinghere.”

There was something wholesomely kindly and cheerful in theaction and expression of the man, which broke upon the overstrainedand disturbed musings of the monk like daylight on a ghastly dream.The honest, loving heart sees love in everything; even the fire isits fatherly helper, and not its avenging enemy.

Father Francesco took the egg, when it was done, with a silentgesture of thanks.

“If I might make bold to say,” said the peasant,encouraged, “your Reverence should have some care foryourself. If a man will not feed himself, the good God will notfeed him; and we poor people have too few friends already to letsuch as you die. Your hands are trembling, and you look worn out.Surely you should take something more, for the very love of thepoor.”

“My son, I am bound to do a heavy penance, and to work outa great conflict. I thank you for your undeserved kindness. Leaveme now to myself, and come no more to disturb my prayers. Go, andGod bless you!”

“Well,” said the peasant, putting down the basketand melon, “I shall leave these things here, any way, and Ibeg your Reverence to have a care of yourself. Teresina fretted allnight for fear something might come to you. The bambino that youcured is grown a stout little fellow, and eats enough fortwo,—and it is all of you; so she cannot forget it. She is abusy little woman, is Teresina; and when she gets a thought in herhead, it buzzes, buzzes, like a fly in a bottle, and she will haveit your Reverence is killing yourself by inches, and says she,‘What will all the poor do when he is gone?’ So yourReverence must pardon us. We mean it all for the best.”

So saying, the man turned and began sliding and slipping downthe steep ashy sides of the mountain cone with a dexterity whichcarried him to the bottom in a few moments; and on he went, sendingback after him a cheerful little air, the refrain of which is stillto be heard in our days in that neighborhood. A word or two of thegay song fluttered back on the ear of the monk,—

So gay and airy it was in its ringing cadence that it seemed amusical laugh springing from sunny skies, and came fluttering intothe dismal smoke and gloom of the mountain-top like a verybutterfly of sound. It struck on the sad, leaden ear of the monkmuch as we might fancy the carol of a robin over a grave mightseem, could the cold sleeper below wake one moment to itsperception. If it woke one regretful sigh and drew one wanderinglook downward to the elysian paradise that lay smiling at the footof the mountain, he instantly suppressed the feeling, and set hisface in its old deathly stillness.

CHAPTER XIX.

CLOUDS DEEPENING.

After the departure of her uncle to Florence, the life of Agneswas troubled and harassed from a variety of causes.

First, her grandmother was sulky and moody, and though sayingnothing directly on the topic nearest her heart, yet intimating byevery look and action that she considered Agnes as a mostungrateful and contumacious child. Then there was a constantinternal perplexity,—a constant wearying course ofself-interrogation and self-distrust, the pain of a sensitivespirit which doubts at every moment whether it may not be fallinginto sin. The absence of her kind uncle at this time took from herthe strongest support on which she had leaned in her perplexities.Cheerful, airy, and elastic in his temperament, always full offresh-springing and beautiful thoughts, as an Italian dell is offlowers, the charming old man seemed, while he stayed with Agnes,to be the door of a new and fairer world, where she could walk inair and sunshine, and find utterance for a thousand thoughts andfeelings which at all other times lay in cold repression in herheart. His counsels were always so wholesome, his sympathies soquick, his devotion so fervent and cheerful, that while with himAgnes felt the burden of her life insensibly lifted and carried forher as by some angel guide.

Now they had all come back upon her, heavier a thousand-foldthan ever they had been before. Never did she so much need counseland guidance,—never had she so much within herself to besolved and made plain to her own comprehension; yet she thoughtwith a strange shiver of her next visit to her confessor. Thataustere man, so chilling, so awful, so far above all conception ofhuman weaknesses, how should she dare to lay before him all thesecrets of her breast, especially when she must confess to havingdisobeyed his most stringent commands? She had had anotherinterview with this forbidden son of perdition, but how it was sheknew not. How could such things have happened? Instead of shuttingher eyes and turning her head and saying prayers, she had listenedto a passionate declaration of love, and his last word had calledher his wife. Her heart thrilled every time she thought of it; andsomehow she could not feel sure that it was exactly a thrill ofpenitence. It was all like a strange dream to her; and sometimesshe looked at her little brown hands and wondered if he really hadkissed them,—he, the splendid strange vision of a man, theprince from fairyland! Agnes had never read romances, it is true,but she had been brought up on the legends of the saints, and therenever was a marvel possible to human conception that had not beentold there. Princes had come from China and Barbary and Abyssiniaand every other strange out-of-the-way place, to kneel at the feetof fair, obdurate saints who would not even turn the head to lookat them; but she had acted, she was conscious, after a much moremortal fashion, and so made herself work for confession andpenance. Yet certainly she had not meant to do so; the interviewcame on her so suddenly, so unexpectedly; and somehow hewould speak, and he would not go when she asked him to;and she remembered how he looked when he stood right before her inthe doorway and told her she should hear him,—howthe color flushed up in his cheeks, what a fire there was in hisgreat dark eyes; he looked as if he were going to do somethingdesperate then; it made her hold her breath even now to think ofit.

“These princes and nobles,” she thought, “areso used to command, it is no wonder they make us feel as if theymust have their will. I have heard grandmother call them wolves andvultures, that are ready to tear us poor folk to pieces; but I amsure he seems gentle. I’m sure it isn’t wicked or cruelfor him to want to make me his wife; and he couldn’t know, ofcourse, why it wasn’t right he should; and it really isbeautiful of him to love me so. Oh, if I were only a princess, andhe loved me that way, how glad I should be to give up everythingand go to him alone! And then we would pray together; and I reallythink that would be much better than praying all alone. He said menhad so much more to tempt them. Ah, that is true! How can littlemoles that grub in the ground know of the dangers of eagles thatfly to the very sun? Holy Mother, look mercifully upon him and savehis soul!”

Such were the thoughts of Agnes the day when she was preparingfor her confession; and all the way to church she found themfloating and dissolving and reappearing in new forms in her mind,like the silvery smoke-clouds which were constantly veering andsailing over Vesuvius.

Only one thing was firm and never changing, and that was thepurpose to reveal everything to her spiritual director. When shekneeled at the confessional with closed eyes, and began herwhispered acknowledgments, she tried to feel as if she werespeaking in the ear of God alone,—that God whose spirit shewas taught to believe, for the time being, was present in Hisminister before whom her inmost heart was to be unveiled.

He who sat within had just returned from his lonely retreat withhis mind and nerves in a state of unnatural tension,—a sortof ecstatic clearness and calmness, which he mistook for victoryand peace. During those lonely days when he had wandered afar fromhuman converse, and was surrounded only by objects of desolationand gloom, he had passed through as many phases of strange,unnatural experience as there were flitting smoke-wreaths eddyingabout him.

There are depths in man’s nature and his possibilitieswhich no plummet has ever sounded,—the wild, lonely joys offanatical excitement, the perfectly ravenous appetite forself-torture, which seems able, in time, to reverse the whole humansystem, and make a heaven of hell. How else can we understand thefacts related both in Hindoo and in Christian story, of those menand women who have found such strange raptures in slow tortures,prolonged from year to year, till pain became a habit of body andmind? It is said, that, after the tortures of the rack, thereaction of the overstrained nerves produces a sense of the mostexquisite relief and repose; and so when mind and body areharrowed, harassed to the very outer verge of endurance, come wildthrobbings and transports, and strange celestial clairvoyance,which the mystic hails as the descent of the New Jerusalem into hissoul.

It had seemed to Father Francesco, when he came down from themountain, that he had left his body behind him,—that he hadleft earth and earthly things; his very feet touching the groundseemed to tread not on rough, resisting soil, but upon elasticcloud. He saw a strange excess of beauty in every flower, in everyleaf, in the wavering blue of the sea, in the red grottoed rocksthat overhung the shore, with their purple, green, orange, andyellow hangings of flower-and-leaf-tapestry. The songs of thefishermen on the beach, the peasant-girls cutting flowery fodderfor the cattle, all seemed to him to have an unnatural charm. Asone looking through a prism sees a fine bordering of rainbow onevery object, so he beheld a glorified world. His former selfseemed to him something forever past and gone. He looked at himselfas at another person, who had sinned and suffered, and was nowresting in beatified repose; and he fondly thought all this wasfirm reality, and believed that he was now proof against allearthly impressions, able to hear and to judge with thedispassionate calmness of a disembodied spirit. He did not knowthat this high-strung calmness, this fine clearness, were only themost intense form of nervous sensibility, and as vividlysusceptible to every mortal impression as is the vitalized chemicalplate to the least action of the sun’s rays.

When Agnes began her confession, her voice seemed to him to passthrough every nerve; it seemed as if he could feel her presencethrilling through the very wood of the confessional. He wasastonished and dismayed at his own emotion. But when she began tospeak of the interview with the cavalier, he trembled from head tofoot with uncontrollable passion. Nature long repressed came backin a tempestuous reaction. He crossed himself again and again, hetried to pray, and blessed those protecting shadows which concealedhis emotion from the unconscious one by his side. But he set histeeth in deadly resolve, and his voice, as he questioned her, cameforth cutting and cold as ice crystals.

“Why did you listen to a word?”

“My father, it was so sudden. He wakened me from sleep. Ianswered him before I thought.”

“You should not have been sleeping. It was a sinfulindolence.”

“Yes, my father.”

“See now to what it led. The enemy of your soul, everwatching, seized this moment to tempt you.”

“Yes, my father.”

“Examine your soul well,” said Father Francesco, ina tone of austere severity that made Agnes tremble. “Did younot find a secret pleasure in his words?”

“My father, I fear I did,” said she, with atrembling voice.

“I knew it! I knew it!” the priest muttered tohimself, while the great drops started on his forehead, in theintensity of the conflict he repressed. Agnes thought the solemnpause that followed was caused by the horror that had been inspiredby her own sinfulness.

“You did not, then, heartily and truly wish him to go fromyou?” pursued the cold, severe voice.

“Yes, my father, I did. I wished him to go with all mysoul.”

“Yet you say you found pleasure in his being nearyou,” said Father Francesco, conscious how every string ofhis own being, even in this awful hour, was vibrating with a sortof desperate, miserable joy in being once more near to her.

“Ah,” sighed Agnes, “that is true, myfather,—woe is me! Please tell me how I could have helped it.I was pleased before I knew it.”

“And you have been thinking of what he said to you withpleasure since?” pursued the confessor, with an intenseseverity of manner, deepening as he spoke.

“I have thought of it,” faltered Agnes.

“Beware how you trifle with the holy sacrament! Answerfrankly. You have thought of it with pleasure. Confessit.”

“I do not understand myself exactly,” said Agnes.“I have thought of it partly with pleasure and partly withpain.”

“Would you like to go with him and be his wife, as hesaid?”

“If it were right, father,—not otherwise.”

“Oh, foolish child! oh, blinded soul! to think of right inconnection with an infidel and heretic! Do you not see that allthis is an artifice of Satan? He can transform himself into anangel of light. Do you suppose this heretic would be brought backto the Church by a foolish girl? Do you suppose it is your prayershe wants? Why does, he not seek the prayers of the Church,—ofholy men who have power with God? He would bait his hook with thispretence that he may catch your soul. Do you believe me?”

“I am bound to believe you, my father.”

“But you do not. Your heart is going after this wickedman.”

“Oh, my father, I do not wish it should. I never wish orexpect to see him more. I only pray for him that his soul may notbe lost.”

“He has gone, then?”

“Yes, my father. And he went with my uncle, a most holymonk, who has undertaken the work of his salvation. He listens tomy uncle, who has hopes of restoring him to the Church.”

“That is well. And now, my daughter, listen to me. Youmust root out of your thought every trace and remembrance of thesewords of sinful earthly love which he hath spoken. Such love wouldburn your soul to all eternity with fire that never could bequenched. If you can tear away all roots and traces of this fromyour heart, if by fasting and prayer and penance you can becomeworthy to be a bride of your divine Lord, then your prayers willgain power, and you may prevail to secure his eternal salvation.But listen to me, daughter,—listen and tremble! If ever youshould yield to his love and turn back from this heavenly marriageto follow him, you will accomplish his damnation and your own; toall eternity he will curse you, while the fire rages and consumeshim,—he will curse the hour that he first saw you.”

These words were spoken with an intense vehemence which seemedalmost supernatural. Agnes shivered and trembled; a vague feelingof guilt overwhelmed and disheartened her; she seemed to herselfthe most lost and abandoned of human beings.

“My father, I shall think no penance too severe that mayrestore my soul from this sin. I have already made a vow to theblessed Mother that I will walk on foot to the Holy City, prayingin every shrine and holy place; and I humbly ask yourapproval.”

This announcement brought to the mind of the monk a sense ofrelief and deliverance. He felt already, in the terrible storm ofagitation which this confession had aroused within him, that naturewas not dead, and that he was infinitely farther from the victoryof passionless calm than he had supposed. He was still aman,—torn with human passions, with a love which he mustnever express, and a jealousy which burned and writhed at everyword which he had wrung from its unconscious object. Conscience hadbegun to whisper in his ear that there would be no safety to him incontinuing this spiritual dictatorship to one whose every wordunmanned him,—that it was laying himself open to a ceaselesstemptation, which in some blinded, dreary hour of evil might hurryhim into acts of horrible sacrilege; and he was once more feelingthat wild, stormy revolt of his inner nature that so distressed himbefore he left the convent.

This proposition of Agnes’ struck him as a compromise. Itwould take her from him only for a season, she would go under hiscare and direction, and he would gradually recover his calmness andself-possession in her absence. Her pilgrimage to the holy placeswould be a most proper and fit preparation for the solemnmarriage-rite which should forever sunder her from all human tiesand make her inaccessible to all solicitations of human love.Therefore, after an interval of silence, he answered,—

“Daughter, your plan is approved. Such pilgrimages haveever been held meritorious works in the Church, and there is aspecial blessing upon them.”

“My father,” said Agnes, “it has always beenin my heart from my childhood to be the bride of the Lord; but mygrandmother, who brought me up, and to whom I owe the obedience ofa daughter, utterly forbids me: she will not hear a word of it. Nolonger ago than last Monday she told me I might as well put a knifeinto her heart as speak of this.”

“And you, daughter, do you put the feelings of any earthlyfriend before the love of your Lord and Creator who laid down Hislife for you? Hear what He saith:—‘He that lovethfather or mother more than me is not worthy ofme.’”

“But my poor old grandmother has no one but me in theworld, and she has never slept a night without me; she is gettingold, and she has worked for me all her good days;—it would bevery hard for her to lose me.”

“Ah, false, deceitful heart! Has, then, thy Lord notlabored for thee? Has He not borne thee through all the years ofthy life? And wilt thou put the love of any mortal beforeHis?”

“Yes,” replied Agnes, with a sort of hardysweetness,—“but my Lord does not need me as grandmotherdoes; He is in glory, and will never be old or feeble; I cannotwork for Him and tend Him as I shall her. I cannot see my way clearat present; but when she is gone, or if the saints move her toconsent, I shall then belong to God alone.”

“Daughter, there is some truth in your words; and if yourLord accepts you, He will dispose her heart. Will she go with youon this pilgrimage?”

“I have prayed that she might, father,—that her soulmay be quickened; for I fear me, dear old grandmamma has found herlove for me a snare,—she has thought too much of my interestsand too little of her own soul, poor grandmamma!”

“Well, child, I shall enjoin this pilgrimage on her as apenance.”

“I have grievously offended her lately,” said Agnes,“in rejecting an offer of marriage with a man on whom she hadset her heart, and therefore she does not listen to me as she iswont to do.”

“You have done right in refusing, my daughter. I willspeak to her of this, and show her how great is the sin of opposinga holy vocation in a soul whom the Lord calls to Himself, andenjoin her to make reparation by uniting with you in this holywork.”

Agnes departed from the confessional without even looking uponthe face of her director, who sat within listening to the rustle ofher dress as she rose,—listening to the soft fall of herdeparting footsteps, and praying that grace might be given him notto look after her: and he did not, though he felt as if his lifewere going with her.

Agnes tripped round the aisle to a little side-chapel where alight was always kept burning by her before a picture of SaintAgnes, and, kneeling there, waited till her grandmother should bethrough with her confession.

“Ah, sweet Saint Agnes,” she said, “pity me! Iam a poor ignorant young girl, and have been led into grievous sin;but I did not mean to do wrong,—I have been trying to doright; pray for me, that I may overcome as you did. Pray our dearLord to send you with us on this pilgrimage, and save us from allwicked and brutal men who would do us harm. As the Lord deliveredyou in sorest straits, keeping soul and body pure as a lily, ah,pray Him to keep me! I love you dearly,—watch over me andguide me.”

In those days of the Church, such addresses to the glorifiedsaints had become common among all Christians. They were notregarded as worship, any more than a similar outpouring ofconfidence to a beloved and revered friend yet in the body. Amongthe hymns of Savonarola is one addressed to Saint Mary Magdalen,whom he regarded with an especial veneration. The great truth, thatGod is not the God of the dead, but of the living, thatall live to Him, was in those ages with the trulyreligious a part of spiritual consciousness. The saints of theChurch Triumphant, having become one with Christ as he is one withthe Father, were regarded as invested with a portion of hisdivinity, and as the ministering agency through which hismediatorial government on earth was conducted; and it was thoughtto be in the power of the sympathetic heart to attract them by theoutflow of its affections, so that their presence oftenovershadowed the walks of daily life with a cloud of healing andprotecting sweetness.

If the enthusiasm of devotion in regard to these invisiblefriends became extravagant and took the language due to God alone,it was no more than the fervid Italian nature was always doing withregard to visible objects of affection. Love with an Italian alwaystends to become worship, and some of the language of the poetsaddressed to earthly loves rises into intensities of expression dueonly to the One, Sovereign, Eternal Beauty. One sees even in thewritings of Cicero that this passionate adoring kind of love is notconfined to modern times. When he loses the daughter in whom hisheart is garnered up, he finds no comfort except in building atemple to her memory,—a blind outreaching towards thesaint-worship of modern times.

Agnes rose from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, herlips still repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which wasin a dim shadowy corner, where a painted window cast a gold andviolet twilight. Suddenly there was a rustle of garments in thedimness, and a jewelled hand essayed to pass holy water to her onthe tip of its finger. This mark of Christian fraternity, common inthose times, Agnes almost mechanically accepted, touching herslender finger to the one extended, and making the sign of thecross, while she raised her eyes to see who stood there. Graduallythe haze cleared from her mind, and she awoke to the consciousnessthat it was the cavalier! He moved to come towards her, with abright smile on his face; but suddenly she became pale as one whohas seen a spectre, and, pushing from her with both hands, she saidfaintly, “Go, go!” and turned and sped up the aislesilently as a sunbeam, joining her grandmother, who was coming fromthe confessional with a gloomy and sullen brow.

Old Elsie had been enjoined to unite with her grandchild in thisscheme of a pilgrimage, and received the direction with as muchinternal contumacy as would a thriving church-member of Wall Streeta proposition to attend a protracted meeting in the height of thebusiness season. Not but that pilgrimages were holy and graciousworks,—she was too good a Christian not to admitthat,—but why must holy and gracious works be thrust on herin particular? There were saints enough who liked such things; andpeople could get to heaven without,—if not with avery abundant entrance, still in a modest way,—andElsie’s ambition for position and treasure in the spiritualworld was of a very moderate cast.

“Well, now, I hope you are satisfied,” she said toAgnes, as she pulled her along with no very gentle hand;“you’ve got me sent off on a pilgrimage,—and myold bones must be rattling up and down all the hills between hereand Rome,—and who’s to see to theoranges?—they’ll all be stolen, every one.”

“Grandmother,” began Agnes in a pleadingvoice—

“Oh, you hush up! I know what you’re going to say:‘The good Lord will take care of them.’ I wish He may!He has His hands full, with all the people that go cawing andpsalm-singing like so many crows, and leave all their affairs toHim!”

Agnes walked along disconsolate, with her eyes full of tears,which coursed one another down her pale cheeks.

“There’s Antonio,” pursued Elsie, “wouldperhaps look after things a little. He is a good fellow, and onlyyesterday was asking if he couldn’t do something for us.It’s you he does it for,—but little you care who lovesyou, or what they do for you!”

At this moment they met old Jocunda, whom we have beforeintroduced to the reader as portress of the Convent. She had on herarm a large square basket, which she was storing for its practicaluses.

“Well, well, Saint Agnes be praised, I have found you atlast,” she said. “I was wanting to speak about some ofyour blood-oranges for conserving. An order has come down from ourdear gracious lady, the Queen, to prepare a lot for her own blessedeating, and you may be sure I would get none of anybody butyou.—But what’s this, my little heart, my littlelamb?—crying?—tears in those sweet eyes? What’sthe matter now?”

“Matter enough for me!” said Elsie.“It’s a weary world we live in. A body can’t turnany way and not meet with trouble. If a body brings up a girl oneway, why, every fellow is after her, and one has no peace; and if abody brings her up another way, she gets her head in the clouds,and there’s no good of her in this world. Now look at thatgirl,—doesn’t everybody say it’s time she weremarried?—but no marrying for her! Nothing will do but we mustoff to Rome on a pilgrimage,—and what’s the good ofthat, I want to know? If it’s praying that’s to bedone, the dear saints know she’s at it from morning tillnight,—and lately she’s up and down three or four timesa night with some prayer or other.”

“Well, well,” said Jocunda, “who started thisidea?”

“Oh, Father Francesco and she got it up betweenthem,—and nothing will do but I must go, too.”

“Well, now, after all, my dear,” said Jocunda,“do you know, I made a pilgrimage once, and it isn’t sobad. One gets a good deal by it, first and last. Everybody dropssomething into your hand as you go, and one gets treated as if onewere somebody a little above the common; and then in Rome one has aprincess or a duchess or some noble lady who washes one’sfeet, and gives one a good supper, and perhaps a new suit ofclothes, and all that,—and ten to one there comes a prettylittle sum of money to boot, if one plays one’s cards well. Apilgrimage isn’t bad, after all;—one sees a world offine things, and something new every day.”

“But who is to look after our garden and dress ourtrees?”

“Ah, now, there’s Antonio, and old Meta hismother,” said Jocunda, with a knowing wink at Agnes. “Ifancy there are friends there that would lend a hand to keep thingstogether against the little one comes borne. If one is going to bemarried, a pilgrimage brings good luck in the family. All thesaints take it kindly that one comes so far to see them, and aremore ready to do a good turn for one when one needs it. The blessedsaints are like other folks,—they like to be treated withproper attention.”

This view of pilgrimages from the material stand-point had moreeffect on the mind of Elsie than the most elaborate appeals ofFather Francesco. She began to acquiesce, though with a reluctantair.

Jocunda, seeing her words had made some impression, pursued heradvantage on the spiritual ground.

“To be sure,” she added, “I don’t knowhow it is with you; but I know that I have, one way andanother, rolled up quite an account of sins in my life. When I wastramping up and down with my old man through the country,—nowin this castle and then in that camp, and now and then in at thesacking of a city or village, or something of the kind,—thesaints forgive us!—it does seem as if one got into thingsthat were not of the best sort, in such times. It’s true,it’s been wiped out over and over by the priest; but then apilgrimage is a good thing to make all sure, in case one’sgood works should fall short of one’s sins at last. I cantell you, a pilgrimage is a good round weight to throw into thescale; and when it comes to heaven and hell, you know, my dear,why, one cannot be too careful.”

“Well, that may be true enough,” saidElsie,—“though, as to my sins, I have tried to keepthem regularly squared up and balanced as I went along. I havealways been regular at confession, and never failed a jot or tittlein what the holy father told me. But there may be something in whatyou say; one can’t be too sure; and so I’ll e’enschool my old bones into taking this tramp.”

That evening, as Agnes was sitting in the garden at sunset, hergrandmother bustling in and out, talking, groaning, and, hurryingin her preparations for the anticipated undertaking, suddenly therewas a rustling in the branches overhead, and a bouquet of rose-budsfell at her feet. Agnes picked it up, and saw a scrip of papercoiled among the flowers. In a moment remembering the apparition ofthe cavalier in the church in the morning, she doubted not fromwhom it came. So dreadful had been the effect of the scene at theconfessional, that the thought of the near presence of her loverbrought only terror. She turned pale; her hands shook. She shut hereyes, and prayed that she might not be left to read the paper; andthen, summoning all her resolution, she threw the bouquet withforce over the wall. It dropped down, down, down the gloomy,shadowy abyss, and was lost in the damp caverns below.

The cavalier stood without the wall, waiting for some responsivesignal in reply to his missive. It had never occurred to him thatAgnes would not even read it, and he stood confounded when he sawit thrown back with such apparent rudeness. He remembered her pale,terrified look on seeing him in the morning. It was notindifference or dislike, but mortal fear, that had been shown inthat pale face.

“These wretches are practising on her,” he said, inwrath,—“filling her head with frightful images, andtorturing her sensitive conscience till she sees sin in the mostnatural and innocent feelings.”

He had learned from Father Antonio the intention of Agnes to goon a pilgrimage, and he longed to see and talk with her, that hemight offer her his protection against dangers which he understoodfar better than she. It had never even occurred to him that thedoor for all possible communication would be thus suddenly barredin his face.

“Very well,” he said to himself, with a darkeningbrow,—“let them have it their own way here. She mustpass through my dominions before she can reach Rome, and I willfind a place where I can be heard, without priest orgrandmother to let or hinder. She is mine, and I will care forher.”

But poor Agnes had the woman’s share of the misery tobear, in the fear and self-reproach and distress which everymovement of this kind cost her. The involuntary thrill at seeingher lover, at hearing from him, the conscious struggle which itcost her to throw back his gift, were all noted by her accusingconscience as so many sins. The next day she sought again herconfessor, and began an entrance on those darker and more chillypaths of penance, by which, according to the opinion of her times,the peculiarly elect of the Lord were supposed to be best trained.Hitherto her religion had been the cheerful and natural expressionof her tender and devout nature according to the more beautiful andengaging devotional forms of her Church. During the year when herconfessor had been, unconsciously to himself, led by her instead ofleading, her spiritual food had been its beautiful old hymns andprayers, which she found no weariness in often repeating. But nowan unnatural conflict was begun in her mind, directed by aspiritual guide in whom every natural and normal movement of thesoul had given way before a succession of morbid and unhealthfulexperiences. From that day Agnes wore upon her heart one of thosesharp instruments of torture which in those times were supposed tobe a means of inward grace,—a cross with seven steel pointsfor the seven sorrows of Mary. She fasted with a severity whichalarmed her grandmother, who in her inmost heart cursed the daythat ever she had placed her in the way of saintship.

“All this will just end in spoiling herbeauty,—making her as thin as a shadow,”—saidElsie; “and she was good enough before.”

But it did not spoil her beauty,-it only changed its character.The roundness and bloom melted away,—but there came in theirstead that solemn, transparent clearness of countenance, thatspiritual light and radiance, which the old Florentine paintersgave to their Madonnas.

It is singular how all religious exercises and appliances takethe character of the nature that uses them. The pain and penance,which so many in her day bore as a cowardly expedient for avertingdivine wrath, seemed, as she viewed them, a humble way of becomingassociated in the sufferings of her Redeemer. “Jesudulcis memoria,” was the thought that carried aredeeming sweetness with every pain. Could she thus, by sufferingwith her Lord, gain power like Him to save,—a power whichshould save that soul so dear and so endangered! “Ah,”she thought, “I would give my life-blood, drop by drop, ifonly it might avail for his salvation!”

THE TRUE HEROINE.

JEFFERSON ANDSLAVERY.

Any one who feels deeply the truths in which our great men ofold founded this Democracy, and who sees clearly the great lines ofpolitical architecture by which alone it shall stand firm or risehigh, finds in the direct plan and work the agency mainly of sixmen.

These may be set in three groups.

First, three men, who, through a series of earnestthoughts, taking shape sometimes in apt words, sometimes in boldacts, did most to found the Republic: and these three areWashington, Adams, and Jefferson.

Secondly, two men, who, as statesmen, by a healthfuldivision between the two great natural policies, and, aspoliticians, by a healthful antagonism between the two greatnatural parties, did most to build the Republic: and thesetwo are Jefferson and Hamilton.

Thirdly, three men, who, having a clear theory in theirheads, and a deep conviction in their hearts, working on the nationby sermons, epistles, programmes, hints, quips, innuendoes, byevery form of winged word, have done most to get this people intosimple trains of humanitarian thought, and have therefore done mostto brace the Republic: and these three men are Franklin,Jefferson, and Channing.

So, rising above the dust raised in our old quarrels, and takinga broad view over this Democracy, we see Jefferson firmly placed ineach of these groups.

If we search in Jefferson’s writings and in thecontemporary records to ascertain what that power was which won himthese positions, we find that it was no personal skill in cajolingfriends or scaring enemies. No sound-hearted man ever rose fromtalk with him with a tithe of the veneration felt by those who satat the feet of Washington or Hamilton or Channing. Neither was hisposition due to oratory: he could deal neither in sweet words norin lofty words. Yet, in spite of these wants, he wrought on thenation with immense power.

The real secret of this power was, first of all, that Jeffersonsaw infinitely deeper into the principles of the rising Democracy,and infinitely farther into its future working, than any other manof his time. Those who earnestly read him will often halt astoundedat proofs of a foresight in him almost miraculous. Even in massesof what men have called his puerility there are often germs ofimmense worth,—taking years, perhaps, to show life, but sureto be alive at last.

Take, as the latest examples of this, three germ-truths whichhave recently come to full life, after having been trodden underfoot for fifty years.

Early in our national life Jefferson declared against theusurpations of the national judiciary. Straightway his supporterswere divided, mainly between those who sorrowed and those who stoodsilent; while his opponents were divided only between those wholaughed and those who cursed. But who laughs now? Jefferson foresawbut too well. The usurpations of the national judiciary have comein shapes most hideous,—in the obiter dicta of theDred Scott decision, and in the use of quibbles to entangle ourdefenders and set loose our traitors.

Take an example of another kind. In his early career Jeffersongave forth a scheme of harbor-defence by gun-boats and floatingbatteries. This was partially carried out, and only partially; soit failed. On these gun-boats and batteries his enemies never tiredof trying their wit, and certainly seemed to make a brilliant pointagainst his foresight and economy. But, in these latter years, manyAmericans besides ourself, visiting Cronstadt during the blockadeby the Allied fleet, saw not only how the Allies failed of aconquest, the first summer, for want of gun-boats, but how theRussians protected themselves greatly, during the second summer, bymeans of them. We were shown, too, that not only could good work bedone by those driven by steam, but that the greater number drivenby oarsmen were of much service, not only in vexing the enemy, butin protecting the whole exposed coast. Here was Jefferson’sscheme to the letter. Here was a despised thought of the pastbecome a proud fact of the present. Here had the Autocrat reared amonument to our great Democrat,—gaining praise for Jeffersonlong after his enemies and their factious laughter had died outforever.

But take what the main body of cultured Americans have thoughtJefferson’s chronic whimsey,—his belief that the heartof England must be ever set against all our liberty and prosperity.As we now breast the terrific storm which English reasonings andtaunts had encouraged us to brave, and hear, swelling above thefaint English God-speed, misstatements, gibes, reproofs, malignantprophecies, who of us shall say that the English character andpolicy of 1861 were not better foreknown by Jefferson in 1820 thanby ourselves In 1860?

So much for Jefferson’s insight and foresight. But therewas yet a greater quality which gave him a place in each of thesethree great groups,—his faith in Democracy.

At a time when the French Revolution had scared even Burke, andwhen the British Constitution was thought by many to have seducedeven Washington, Jefferson held fast to his great faith in therights and capacities of the people. The only effect on him of theshocks and failures of that period was to make his anxietysometimes morbid, and his action sometimes spasmodic. Hence muchthat to many men has seemed unjust suspicion of Adams, andpersecution of Hamilton, and disrespect for Washington. Yet allthis was but the jarring of that strong mind in the struggle andcrash of his times,—mere spasms of bigotry which prove thevigor of his faith in Democracy.

Jefferson, then, known of all men not fettered by provincialtraditions as invested with this foresight and this faith, isbecome to a vast party an idol, and from his writings issueoracles. But the priests at his shrines, having waxed fat inhonors, have at last so befogged his sentiments and wrested hisarguments, that thousands of true men regard him sorrowfully as thepromoter of that Slavery-Despotism which to-day blooms in treason.It is worth our while, therefore, to seek to know whether Jeffersonthe god of the Oligarchs is Jefferson the Democrat. Let us, by thesimplest and fairest process possible, try to come at his realopinions on Slavery,—just as they grew when he did so much tofound the Republic,—just as they flourished when he did somuch to build the Republic,—just as they were re-wrought andpolished when he did so much to brace the Republic.

The whole culture of Jefferson’s youth was, of all thingsin the world, least likely to make him support slavery or apologizefor it. The man who did most to work into his mind ideas of moraland political science was Dr. William Small, a liberal Scotchman;the man who did most to direct his studies in law, and hisgrappling with social problems, was George Wythe. To both of theseJefferson confessed the deepest debt for their efforts tostrengthen his mind and make his footing firm. Now, of all men inthis country at that time, these two were least likely to supportpro-slavery theories or tolerate pro-slavery cant. For while toSmall’s soundness there is abundance of general testimony,there is to Wythe’s soundness testimony the most pointed. Wehave but to take the first volume of Jefferson’s Works,published by order of Congress, and we find Jefferson’santi-slavery letter to Dr. Price, written in 1785, urging theDoctor to work against pro-slavery ideas in the young men, and toexhort the young men of Virginia to the “redress of theenormity.” Incidentally he speaks of Mr. Wythe as alreadydoing great good in this direction among these same young men, anddeclares him “one of the most virtuous of characters, andwhose sentiments on the subject of slavery areunequivocal.”

So much for the direct influences on Jefferson’searly culture.

Studying, next, the indirect influences on his earlyculture, we see that the reform literature of that time was comingalmost entirely from France. Active, earnest men everywhere weregrasping the theories and phrases of Voltaire and Rousseau andMontesquieu, to wield them against every tyranny. Terrible weaponsthese,—often searing and scarring frightfully those whobrandished them,—yet there was not one chance in a thousandthat any man who had once made any considerable number of theseideas his own could ever support slavery. Whoever, at that time,studied the “Contrat Social,” or the defence of JeanCalas, whatever other sins he might commit, was no more likely toadvocate systematic oppression than are they who now read withreverence Dr. Arnold and Charles Kingsley; and whoever, at thattime, read earnestly “The Spirit of the Laws” was assure to fight slavery as any man who to-day reveres Channing orTheodore Parker. Those French thinkers threw such heat and lightinto Jefferson’s young mind, that every filthy weed oftyrannic quibble or pro-slavery paradox must have beenshrivelled.

And the young statesman grew under this influence as we shouldexpect. In his twenty-seventh year he sat in the Virginia House ofBurgesses, and his first effort in legislation was, in his ownwords, “an effort for the permission of the emancipation ofslaves, which was rejected, and, indeed, during the regalgovernment nothing liberal could expect success.” His wholecareer in those years, whether as public man or private man, showsthat his hatred of slavery was bitter. But there was such a pressof other work during this founding period, that this hatred tookshape not so much in a steady siege as in a series of pitchedbattles. The work to be done was immense, and Jefferson bore thebulk of it. He took upon himself one-third of the revising andcodifying of the Virginia laws, and did even more than this. Heundertook, in his own words, “a distinct series of laborswhich formed a system by which every fibre would be eradicatedof ancient or future aristocracy.” He effected therepeal of the laws of entail, and this prevented an aristocraticabsorption of the soil; he effected the abolition of primogeniture,and this destroyed all chance of rebuilding feudal families; heeffected a restoration of the rights of conscience, and thisoverthrew all hope of an Established Church; he forced on the billfor general education,—for thus, he said, would the people be“qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, andto exercise with intelligence their parts inself-government.” In all this work his keen common sensealways cut his way through questions at which other men stopped orstumbled. Thus, in the discussion on primogeniture, when IsaacPendleton proposed, as a compromise, that they should adopt theHebrew principle and give a double portion to the eldest son,Jefferson cut at once into the heart of the question. As he himselfrelates,—“I observed, that, if the eldest son could eattwice as much, or do double work, it might be a natural evidence ofhis right to a double portion; but being on a par in his powers andwants with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also inthe partition of the patrimony. And such was the decision of theother members.”

But such fierceness against the bulwarks of aristocracy, andsuch keenness in cutting through its heavy arguments, carried himfarther. Logic forced him to pass from the attack on aristocracy tothe attack on slavery, just as logic forces the Confederateoligarchs of to-day to pass from the defence of slavery to thedefence of aristocracy. He was sure to fight this vilest oftyrannies, and he gave quick thrusts and heavy blows. In 1778 hebrought in a bill to prevent the further importation of slaves intoVirginia. “This,” he says, “passed withoutopposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation,leaving to future efforts its final eradication.” Yearsafterward he wrote as follows:—“I have sometimes askedmyself whether my country is better for my having lived at all: Ido not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing thefollowing things.” Of these things there were just ten. Justten great worthy deeds in a life like Jefferson’s!—andone of these he declares “the act prohibiting the importationof slaves.”

Close upon this followed a fiercer grapple,—his thirdgreat legislative attack on slavery. In his revision of theVirginia laws he reported “a bill to emancipate all slavesborn after the passing of the act.” Attached to this was aplan for the instruction of the young negroes thus set free.

To follow Jefferson and understand him, we must bear in mindthat the Virginia which educated him was not behind a dozen smallerStates in fertility, enterprise, and republican feeling. Its bestmen were haters of slavery. The efforts of its leaders weredirected to other things than plans for taxing oysters or filchingthe gains of free negroes. Forth from the Virginia of that timewere hurled against negro slavery the thrilling invectives ofPatrick Henry, the startling prophecies of Madison, and thedeclaration of Washington, “For the abolition of slavery bylaw my vote shall not be wanting.”

For a mirror of that Virginia statesmanship, in its dealingswith human rights, take the “Dissertation on Slavery with aProposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia,written by St. George Tucker, Professor of Law in the University ofWilliam and Mary, and one of the Judges of the General Court inVirginia,” published in 1791. It proves, that, between thepassage of the act of 1782 allowing manumission and the year 1791,more than ten thousand slaves had been set free. One is tempted tobelieve that the new Massachusetts school caught its fire from thisold Virginia school; for this friend of Jefferson speaks of“the inconsistency of invoking God for liberty in ourRevolution and imposing on our fellow-men who differ from us incomplexion a slavery ten thousand times more cruel than thegrievances and oppressions of which we complained.” Such wasthe utterance of the Virginia school of statesmanship in whichJefferson was trained.

And his views progressed, as we should expect. On the occasionof a call for instructions to the first Virginia delegates toCongress respecting an address to the King, Jefferson drew up apaper, which, though greatly admired, was thought too bold. In onepassage he goes beyond his masters, and says,—“For themost trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reasons atall, his Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency.The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desirein these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in theirinfant state. But, previous to the enfranchisement of theslaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importationsfrom Africa. Yet our repeated efforts to effect this, byprohibiting and by imposing duties which might amount toprohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his Majesty’snegative,—thus preferring the advantages of a few Britishcorsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and tothe rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamouspractice.”

These words are hot and bright, but they are mere sparklescompared to the full-flaming orb of freedom which our statesmangave afterward. For, take the Declaration of Independence, as itissued from Carpenter’s Hall, after slavery-loving plantersof the South and money-loving ship-owners of the North had, as theythought, made it neutral, and we all, North and South, recognize init the boldest anti-slavery document extant. Why else do Northerndemagogues ridicule it, and Southern demagogues revile it? YetJefferson made it far stronger and sharper against negro slaverythan it is now. Look closely at the well-knownfac-simile:—

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sac--red rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never of-fended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemis--sphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither, thispiratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of theChristian king of Great Britain determined to keep open a marketandwhere MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negativefor suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain thisdetermining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold:execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no factof distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in armsamong us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them,by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus payingoff former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimeswhich he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

There stands to this day that precious original,—hotfirst-thoughts and cold second-thoughts, all in Jefferson’sown hand. Look for a moment at the rich current of internalevidence running through that rough draught, and through all itserasures, changes, and emphatic markings,—evidence of thedeepest hatred not only of all tyranny, but of all slavery. Thus,after he had written the passage, “determined to keep open amarket where MEN should be bought & sold,” the ideacontinues hot in his mind; for, after smouldering a few moments, itflames forth again, is written again in the same phrasing, with thesame show of emphasis, before he bethinks himself to erase it.Then, too, the words Christian and MEN are the only wordsemphasized by careful pen-printing in large letters;—and thislabored movement of his pen marks the injury which he deemed thegreater; for the largest letters and deepest emphasis are reservedfor MEN. Evidently, that word points out the wrong which, asJefferson thought, “a candid world” would foreverregard as the supreme wrong.

We have now noted Jefferson’s battle against slavery inthe founding of the Republic: let us go on to his work in thebuilding of the Republic.

In 1782 he gave forth the “Notes on Virginia.” Hisopposition to slavery is as fierce here as of old, but it takesvarious phases,—sometimes sweeping against the hated systemwith a torrent of facts,—sometimes battering it with a hard,cold logic,—sometimes piercing it with deadly queries andsuggestions,—and sometimes, with his blazing hate of alloppression, biting and burning through every pro-slaverytheory.

But in taking up the “Notes,” we must understand therelation of Jefferson’s way of thinking to his way ofworking. In his thinking, the slave system was evidently aviolation of the whole body of good principles, for he calls it an“evil”;—a violation of morality, for hecalls it an “enormity”;—a violation ofjustice, for he calls it a “wrong”;—aviolation of republican pretensions, for he calls it a“hideous blot”;—a violation of thehealthy action of our institutions, for he calls it a“disease”;—a violation of our wholepublic happiness, for he calls it a “curse.”But his way of working was more calm and cool,—oftendispleasing those whose plans of action are formed far from anydirect entanglement in the slave system.

This union of fervent thought and cool action has, of course,brought upon Jefferson the invectives of two great classes. Oneclass have looked merely at his thinking, and have distrusted himas a dreamer. To these he is a dealer in oracles, at second-hand,from Voltaire and Diderot. The other class have studied his plansof practical philanthropy, with all his shrewd researches andhomely discussions in agriculture, finance, mechanics, andarchitecture, and have ridiculed him as a tinker. To such Jeffersonseems a grandmotherly sort of person,—riding about in a gigarranged to register the length of his rides,—walking aboutin boots arranged to register the length of hiswalks,—weatherwise, and profound in dealing with smokychimneys and sheep-breeding.

But whether men have cavilled at him for a dreamer or laughed athim for a tinker, they have been mainly foolish, for they havecavilled and laughed at the very combination which made himpowerful. In no other American have been so happily blended highestskill in theory and highest strength in practice.

The remarks, in the “Notes on Virginia,” on thecolored race are clear and fair. He studied carefully and statedfully all that could be learned in his time. On the whole, hisexamination greatly encourages those who hope good things for thatrace. But one distinction must be made. As to those profound viewsof the character and destiny of the race which come only byobservation of a long historic development, in a wide range ofclimate, in great variety of social position, Jefferson could, ashe confesses, know almost nothing,—for the same reason thatthe keenest observer of William the Conqueror’s Normanrobbers and Saxon swineherds would have failed to foretell thegreat dominant race which has come from them by free growth andgood culture. But, on the other hand, of all that comes byobservation of the daily life of the black race, as it then was, heknew almost everything.

He declares that the black race is inferior to the white inmind, but not in heart. The poems of black Phillis Wheatley seem tohim to prove not much; but the letters of black Ignatius Sancho hepraises for depth of feeling, happy turn of thought, and ease ofstyle, though he finds no depth of reasoning. He does not praisethe mental capacity of the race, but, at last, as if conscious,that, if developed under a free system, it might be far better, hequotes the Homeric lines,—

And shortly after, he declares it “a suspiciononly that the blacks are inferior in the endowments of body ormind,”—that “in memory they are equal to thewhites,”—that “in music they are more generallygifted than the whites with accurate ears for time andtune.”

But there is one statement which we especially commend to thosein search of an effective military policy in the present crisis.Jefferson declares of the negroes, that they are “at least asbrave as the whites, and more adventuresome.” May not thistruth account for the fact that one of the most daring deeds in thepresent war was done by a black man?

Still later, Jefferson says,—“Whether furtherobservation will or will not verify the conjecture that Nature hasbeen less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, Ibelieve that in those of the heart she will be found to have donethem justice. That disposition to theft with which they have beenbranded must be ascribed to their situation, and not to anydepravity of the moral sense. The man in whose favor no laws ofproperty exist probably feels himself less bound to respect thosemade in favor of others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it downas fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give reciprocation ofright,—that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules ofconduct, founded in force, and not in conscience; and it is aproblem which I give to the master to solve, whether the religiousprecepts against the violation of property were not framed for himas well as his slave,—and whether the slave may not asjustifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him as hemay slay one who would slay him. That a change in the relations inwhich a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right andwrong is neither new, nor peculiar to the color of theblacks.”

Here Jefferson puts forth that very idea for which Gerrit Smith,a few years ago, was threatened with the penalties of treason.

But to quote further from the same source:—

“Notwithstanding these considerations, whichmust weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find amongthem numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many asamong their instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, andunshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in thefaculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with greatdiffidence.”

The old hot thought blazes forth again in the chapter on“Particular Manners and Customs.” Can men speak againstthe proclamations of Abolition Conventions after such fiery wordsfrom Jefferson?

“The whole commerce between master and slaveis a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the mostunremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission onthe other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for manis an imitative animal. If a parent could find no motive either inhis philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperanceof passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient onethat his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. Theparent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath,puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives aloose rein to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, anddaily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by its odiouspeculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his mannersand morals undepraved by such circumstances.” (Here firebegins to flicker up around the words.) “And with whatexecration should a statesman be loaded, who, permitting one halfthe citizens” (note the word) “to trample onthe rights” (note the word) “of the other,transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys themorals of the one and the amor patriae of the other! Andcan the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we haveremoved their only firm basis,—a conviction in the minds ofthe people that their liberties are the gifts of God, that they arenot to be violated but with His wrath?” (Now bursts forthprophecy. The whole page flames in a moment.) “Indeed, Itremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that Hisjustice cannot sleep forever; that, considering numbers, nature,and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of Fortune, anexchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may becomeprobable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has noattribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”

Well may Jefferson say, immediately after this, that “itis impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject throughthe various considerations of policy, of morals, of history naturaland civil.” For no Abolitionist ever branded the slave-systemwith words more fiery.

In 1784 Jefferson drew up the ordinance for the government ofthe Western Territory. One famous clause runs thus:—

“After the year 1800 of the Christian erathere shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any ofthe said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof theparty shall have been convicted to be personally guilty.”

In Randall’s “Life of Jefferson,” a work inmany respects admirable, this clause is glossed with thedeclaration that Jefferson intended merely to prevent an immensenew importation of slaves from Africa to fill the Territory; butMr. Randall would have shown far greater insight, had he added tothis half-truth, that the idea of legally grasping and stranglingthis curse flows from the ideas of the “Notes” as hotmetal flows from fiery furnace,—that the Ordinance of 1784was but a minting of that true metal drawn from those old glowingthoughts and words.

But Jefferson’s hatred of slavery is not less fierce inhis letters.

Dr. Price writes a pamphlet in England against slavery, andstraightway Jefferson seizes his pen to urge him to write more, andmore clearly for America, and more directly at American young men,saying, in encouragement,—“Northward of the Chesapeakeyou may find, here and there, an opponent to your doctrine, as youmay find, here and there, a murderer.” He speaks hopefully ofthe disposition in Virginia to “redress thisenormity,”—calls the fight against slavery “theinteresting spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice andoppression,”—speaks of the side hostile to slavery as“the sacred side.” The date is 1785.

This welcome to Dr. Price’s onslaught will serve asantidote to Mr. Randall’s poisonous declaration, thatJefferson was opposed to interference with slave institutions bythose living outside of Slave States.

In 1786 Jefferson wrote to correct M. de Meusnier’sstatement of the efforts already made for emancipation; and,referring to the holding of slaves by a people who had clamoredloudly and fought bravely for freedom, he says,—

“What a stupendous, what an incomprehensiblemachine is man,—who can endure toil, famine, stripes,imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty,and, in the next moment, be deaf to all those motives whose powersupported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-mena bondage one hour of which is fraught with more misery thanages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose!”

Here, in Jefferson himself, then, is the source of that venomwith which earnest men, throughout the land, are stinging to deaththe organization which stole his name to destroy his ideas.

In 1788, Jefferson, being Minister at Paris, receives a notefrom M. de Warville tendering him membership in the Society for theAbolition of the Slave-Trade. Jefferson is forced by his peculiarposition to decline, but he takes pains to say,—“Youknow that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not onlyof the trade, but of the condition of slavery.”

Here is no non-committalism, no wistful casting about forloop-holes, no sly putting out of hooks to catch backers, not thefeeblest germ of quibble or lie. The man answers more than he isasked. Is there not, in the present dearth, something refreshing inthis old candor?

But some have thought Jefferson’s later expressionsagainst slavery wanting in heartiness. Let us examine.

The whole world knows, that, when a wrong stings a man, makinghim fierce and loud, his direct expressions have oftensmall value; but that his parenthetical expressions oftenhave great value. This is one of the simplest principles in homelyevery-day criticism, serving truth-seekers, wherever wordy warrages, whether among statesmen or hackmen.

Now, in Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Gordon,—written in1788,—he is greatly stirred by his own recital of theshameful ravages on his property by the British army. Just at themoment when his indignation was at the hottest, there shot out ofhis heart, and off his pen, one of these side-thoughts, one ofthese fragments of the man’s ground-idea, which, at suchmoments, truth-seekers always watch for. Jefferson says ofCornwallis,—

“He destroyed all my growing crops of cornand tobacco; he burned all my barns containing the same articles ofthe last year, having first taken what corn he wanted; he used, aswas to be expected, all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, forthe sustenance of his army, and carried off all the horses capableof service,—of those too young for service he cut thethroats; and he burned all the fences in the plantation, so as tomake it an absolute waste. He carried off also about thirtyslaves. Had this been to give them their freedom, he would havedone right.”

But we turn to a seeming discrepancy between these thousandearnest declarations of Jefferson the private citizen, and thecold, formal tone of Jefferson the Secretary of State. In this highoffice he reclaims slaves from the Spanish power in Florida, anddemands compensation for slaves carried off by the British at theevacuation of New York. For a moment that transition from personalwarmth to diplomatic coolness is as the Russian plunge fromsteam-bath to snow-heap.

Yet, if truth-seekers do not stop to moan, they may easily finda complete explanation. As private citizen, in a State, dealingwith his home Government, Jefferson had the right to move heavenand earth against slavery, and bravely he did it; but, as publicservant of the nation, dealing with foreign Governments, his rightsand duties were different, and his tone must be different. As aprivate person, writing for man as man, Jefferson forgot readilyenough all differences of nation. He wrote as readily and fully ofthe hideousness of slavery to Meusnier and Warville in France, orto Price and Priestley in England, as to any of his neighbors; but,as public servant of the nation, writing to Hammond or Viar,representatives of foreign powers, he made no apology for ourmiseries. England might be ready enough to act the part of Dives,but Jefferson was not the statesman to put America in the attitudeof Lazarus,—begging, and showing sores.

But we have to note yet another change in Jefferson’smodes of work and warfare.

As he wrought and fought in this second period, which, for easyreference, we call the building period, he was forced into newmethods. In the former period we saw him thinking and speaking andworking against every effort to found pro-slavery theories orpractices. Eagerness was then the best quality for work, andquickness the best quality for fight. But now the case wasdifferent. An institution which Jefferson hated had, in spite ofhis struggles, been firmly founded. The land was full of the towersof the slave aristocracy. He saw that his mode of warfare must bechanged. His old way did well in the earlier days, fortower-builders may be driven from their work by a sweeping chargeor sudden volley; but towers, when built, must be treated withsteady battering and skilful mining.

In 1797, Jefferson, writing to St. George Tucker, speaks of theonly possible emancipation as “a compromise between thepassions, prejudices, and real difficulties, which will each havetheir weight in the operation.” Afterwards, in his letters toMonroe and Rufus King, he advocates a scheme of colonization tosome point not too distant. But let no man, on this account, claimJefferson as a supporter of the do-nothing school of Northerndemagogues, or of the mad school of Southern fanatics who proclaimthis ulcerous mass a beauty, and who howl at all who refuse itsinfection. For, note, in that same letter to St. George Tucker, thefervor of the Jeffersonian theory: bitter as Tucker’spamphlet against slavery was, he says,—“You know mysubscription to its doctrines.” Note also the vigor of theJeffersonian practice: speaking of emancipation, hesays,—“The sooner we put some plan under way, thegreater hope there is that it may be permitted to proceed peaceablyto its ultimate effect.” And now bursts forth prophecy again.“But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall bethe murderers of our own children.” “If we hadbegun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthieroperation to clear ourselves; but every day’s delay lessensthe time we may take for emancipation.”

Here is no trace of the theory inflicting a present certain evilon a great white population in order to do a future doubtful goodto a smaller black population. And this has been nowhere betterunderstood than among the slave oligarchs of his own time. Note onemarked example.

In 1801, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency on thethirty-sixth ballot. Thirty-five times Delaware, Maryland, andSouth Carolina voted against him. The following year Mr. Rutledgeof South Carolina, feeling an itching to specify to Congress hisinterests in Buncombe and his relations to the universe, palaveredin the usual style, but let out one truth, for which, astruth-searchers, we thank him. He said,—

“Permit me to state, that, beside theobjections common to my friend from Delaware and myself, there wasa strong one which I felt with peculiar force. It resulted from afirm belief that the gentleman in question [Jefferson] heldopinions respecting a certain description of property in my Statewhich, should they obtain generally, would endangerit.”⁴4. Benton’sAbridgment, Vol. II. p. 636.

We come now to Jefferson’s Presidency. In this there wasno great chance to deal an effective blow at slavery; but some havegrown bitter over a story that he favored the schemes to break theslavery-limitation in Ohio. Such writers have not stopped toconsider that it is more probable that a few Southern members,eager to drum in recruits, falsely claimed the favor of thePresident, than that Jefferson broke the slavery-limitation whichhe himself planned. Then, too, came the petitions of the abolitionsocieties against slavery in Louisiana; and Hildreth blamesJefferson for his slowness to assist; but ought we not here to takesome account of the difficulties of the situation? Ought not someweight to be given to Jefferson’s declaration to Kerchival,that in his administration his “efforts in relation to peace,slavery, and religious freedom were all in accordance withQuakerism”?

We pass now to the third great period, in which, as thinker andwriter, he did so much to brace the Republic.

First of all, in this period we see him revising the translationand arranging the publication of De Tracy’s“Commentaire sur l’Esprit des Lois.” He takesendless pains to make its hold firm on America; engages his oldcompanion in abolitionism, St. George Tucker, to circulate it;makes it a text-book in the University of Virginia; tells hisfriend Cabell to read it, for it is “the best book ongovernment in the world.” Now this “best book ongovernment” is killing to every form of tyranny or slavery;its arguments pierce all their fallacies and crush all theirsophistries. That famous plea which makes Alison love Austria andPalmer love Louisiana—the plea that a people can be besteducated for freedom and religion by dwarfing their minds and tyingtheir hands—is, in this book, shivered by argument and burntby invective.

As we approach the last years of Jefferson’s life we findseveral letters of his on slavery. Some have thought them mereheaps of ashes,—poor remains of the flaming thoughts andwords of earlier years. This mistake is great. Touch the seemingheap of ashes, and those thoughts and words dart forth, fiery as ofold.

In 1814, Edward Coles attacks slavery vigorously, and calls onthe great Democrat to destroy it. Jefferson’s approving replyis the complete summary of his matured views on slavery. Take a fewdeclarations as specimens.⁵5.Randall, Vol. III., Appendix.

“The sentiments breathed through the wholedo honor both to the head and heart of the writer. Mine, on thesubject of the slavery of negroes, have long since been inpossession of the public, and time has only served to give themstronger proof. The love of justice and the love of country pleadequally the cause of these people, and it is a mortal reproach tous that they should have pleaded so long in vain.”

“The hour of emancipation is advancing inthe march of time. It will come; and whether brought on by thegenerous energy of our own minds or by the bloody process of St.Domingo … is a leaf of our history not yet turnedover.”

“As to the method by which this difficultwork is to be effected, if permitted to be done by ourselves, Ihave seen no proposition so expedient, on the whole, as that ofemancipation of those born after a given day.”

“This enterprise is for the young,—forthose who can follow it up and bear it through to its consummation.It shall have all my prayers.”

No wonder that this letter of Jefferson to Coles seems to havebeen carefully suppressed by Southern editors of the Jeffersonianwritings.

Take also the letters to Mr. Barrows and to Dr. Humphreys of1815-17. Disappointment is expressed at the want of a more generalanti-slavery feeling among the young men; hope is expressed that“time will soften down the master and educate theslave”; faith is expressed that slavery will yield,“because we are not in a world ungoverned by the laws andpower of a Supreme Agent.”

Entering now the stormy period of the Missouri Debate, we haveone declaration from Jefferson which, at first, surprises and painsus,—the opinion given in a letter to Lafayette, thatspreading slavery will “dilute the evil everywhere, andfacilitate the means of getting rid of it.” The mistake isgross indeed. To all of us, with the political knowledge forcedupon us by events since Jefferson’s death, it seemsatrocious. But unpardonable as such a theory is now, wasit so then?

Jefferson had not before him the experience of these last fortyyears of weakness and poverty and barbarism in our new SlaveStates,—and of that tenacity of life which slavery shareswith so many other noxious growths. Hastily, then, he broached thisopinion. Let it stand; and let the remark on “geographicallines,” and the two or three severe criticisms of Northernmen, wrested from him in the excitement of the Missouri struggle,be tied to it and given to the Oligarchs. These expressions weredrawn from him in his old age,—in his vexation at unfairattacks,—in his depression at the approach ofpoverty,—in his suffering under the encroachments of disease.Any one of those bold declarations in the vigor of his manhood willforever efface all memory of them.

The opinion expressed by Jefferson, at the same period, that“the General Government cannot interfere with slavery in theStates,” all our parties now accept—as a peacepolicy; but if we are forced into an opposite war policy,let our generals remember Jefferson’s declaration as to thetaking of his slaves by Cornwallis: “Had this been togive them their freedom, he would have done right.”

But there is one letter which all Northern statesmen shouldponder. It warns them solemnly, for it was written a very shorttime before Jefferson’s death;—it warns them sharply,for it struck one whom the North has especially honored. This sonof the North had made a well-known unfortunate speech in Congress,and had sent it to Jefferson. In his answer the old statesmandeclares,—

“On the question of the lawfulness ofslavery, that is, of the right of one man to appropriate tohimself the faculties of another without his consent, I certainlyretain my early opinions. On that, however, of third personsto interfere between the parties, and the effect of Constitutionalmodifications of that pretension, we are probably nearertogether.”

There was a blow well dealt,—though at one now greatlyhonored. We may refuse the subordinate idea in the letter, but wewill glory in that main confession of political faith, in the lastyear of Jefferson’s life; and we will not forget that thelast of his letters on slavery chastised the worst sin of Northernstatesmanship.

Jefferson, then, in dealing with slavery, was a real politicalseer and giver of oracles,—always sure to saysomething; whereas the “leading men” who inthese latter days have usurped his name are neither political seersnor givers of oracles, but mere political fakirs,—striving,their lives long, to enter political blessedness by solemnly doingand seeing and saying—nothing.

Jefferson was a true political warrior, and his battle for humanrights compares with the Oligarchist battle against them as thewarfare of Cortés compares with Aztec warfare. He is the manfull of strong thought backed by civilization: they, the men tryingto keep up their faith in idols, trying to scare with war-paint,trying to startle with war-whoop, trying to vex with showers ofpoor Aztec arrows.

Jefferson was an orator,—not in that he fed pettyassemblages with narcotic words to stupefy conscience, or corrosivewords to kill conscience, but in that he gave to the world thosedecisive, true words which shall yet pierce all tyranny andslavery.

Jefferson was the founder of a democratic system, strong andfull-orbed: “leading men” have fastened his name to anaristocratic system with mobocratic cries.

This great tree of Liberty which we are all trying to plantwill, of course, not grow as we will, but as God andNature will. Some branches will be exuberant through too greatwealth of sunshine,—others gnarled and awry through too greatfury of storms. We need find no fault with any growth, but we mayadmire some branches and prize some fruits more than others. Somegrafts set by noblest hands have often blossomed in bad temper andborne fruit bitter and sour. Some fruitage has been of that poorDead-Sea sort,—splendid in coating, but inwardlyashes,—wretched “protective” schemes and thelike. The world may yet see that the limbs of toughest fibre andfruit of richest flavor have come from grafts set by just suchstrong men in theory and in practice as Thomas Jefferson.

A STORY OF TO-DAY.

PART IV.

An hour after, the evening came on sultry, the air murky,opaque, with yellow trails of color dragging in the west: a sullenstillness in the woods and farms; only, in fact, that dark,inexplicable hush that precedes a storm. But Lois, coming down thehill-road, singing to herself, and keeping time with her whip-endon the wooden measure, stopped when she grew conscious of it. Itseemed to her blurred fancy more than a deadening sky: a somethingsolemn and unknown, hinting of evil to come. The dwarf-pines on theroad-side scowled weakly at her through the gray; the very silverminnows in the pools she passed flashed frightened away, anddarkened into the muddy niches. There was a vague dread in thesudden silence. She called to the old donkey, and went faster downthe hill, as if escaping from some overhanging peril, unseen. Shesaw Margaret coming up the road. There was a phaëton behindher, and some horsemen: she jolted the cart off into the stones tolet them pass, seeing Mr. Holmes’s face in the carriage asshe did so. He did not look at her; had his head turned towards thegray distance. Lois’s vivid eye caught the full meaning ofthe woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polstoncalled it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the colorseemed jeering and mocking to the girl’s sensitive instinct,keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the colorof shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams. Asthe phaëton went slowly down, Margaret came nearer, meeting iton the road-side, the dust from the wheels stifling the air. Loissaw her look up, and then suddenly stand still, holding to thefence, as they met her. Holmes’s cold, wandering eye turnedon the little dusty figure standing there, poor and despised.Polston called his eyes hungry: it was a savage hunger that spranginto them now; a gray shadow creeping over his set face, as helooked at her, in that flashing moment. The phaëton was gonein an instant, leaving her alone in the muddy road. One of the menlooked back, and then whispered something to the lady with a laugh.She turned to Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light,confusing eyes on his face, and softening her voice.

“Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love.Were you, then, so chivalric? Was it to have been a second romauntof ‘King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid’?”

He met her look, and saw the fierce demand through the softnessand persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindledinto the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,—aman far off from Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she calledhim,—frank, winning, generous. She thought she knew him well;held him a slave to her fluttering hand. Being proud of her slave,she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some flowers it helduntil it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into rose.The nerveless, spongy hand,—what a death-grip it had on hislife! He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure onthe road. What was that Polston had said about starving to deathfor a kind word? Love? He was sick of the sicklytalk,—crushed it out of his heart with a savage scorn. Heremembered his father, the night he died, had said in his weakravings that God was love. Was He? No wonder, then, He was the Godof women, and children, and unsuccessful men. For him, he was donewith it. He was here with stronger purpose than to yield toweaknesses of the flesh. He had made his choice,—a straight,hard path upwards; he was deaf now and forever to any word ofkindness or pity. As for this woman beside him, he would be just toher, in justice to himself: she never should know the loathing inhis heart: just to her as to all living creatures. Some little,mean doubt kept up a sullen whisper of bought andsold,—sold,—but he laughed it down. He sat there withhis head steadily turned towards her: a kingly face, she called it,and she was right,—it was a kingly face: with the sameshallow, fixed smile on his mouth,—no weary cry went up toGod that day so terrible in its pathos, I think: with the same dullconsciousness that this was the trial night of his life,—thatwith the homely figure on the road-side he had turned his back onlove and kindly happiness and warmth, on all that was weak anduseless in the world. He had made his choice; he would abide byit,—he would abide by it. He said that over and over again,dulling down the death-gnawing of his outraged heart.

Miss Herne was quite contented, sitting by him, with herself,and the admiring world. She had no notion of trial nights in life.Not many temptations pierced through her callous, flabbytemperament to sting her to defeat or triumph. There was for her nounder-current of conflict, in these people whom she passed, betweenself and the unseen power that Holmes sneered at, whose name waslove; they were nothing but movables, pleasant or ugly to look at,well- or ill-dressed. There were no dark iron bars across her lifefor her soul to clutch and shake madly,—nothing “in theworld amiss, to be unriddled by-and-by.” Little Margaret,sitting by the muddy road, digging her fingers dully into theclover-roots, while she looked at the spot where the wheels hadpassed, looked at life differently, it may be;—or old JoeYare by the furnace-fire, his black face and gray hair bent over atorn old spelling-book Lois had given him. The night perhaps wasgoing to be more to them than so many rainy hours forsleeping,—the time to be looked back on through coming livesas the hour when good and ill came to them, and they made theirchoice, and, as Holmes said, did abide by it.

It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaëton beforethey entered town, and turned back. He was going to see thisMargaret Howth, tell her what he was going to do. Because he wasgoing to leave a clean record. No one should accuse him of want ofhonor. This girl alone of all living beings had a right to see himas he stood, justified to himself. Why she had this right, I do notthink he answered to himself. Besides, he must see her, if only onbusiness. She must keep her place at the mill: he would not beginhis new life by an act of injustice, taking the bread out ofMargaret’s mouth. Little Margaret! He stoppedsuddenly, looking down into a deep pool of water by the road-side.What madness of weariness crossed his brain just then I do notknow. He shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth more to him thanto other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowlythrough the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale,frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare tolook, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on theroad. She was sitting there just where he had left her: be knew shewould be. When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him;but he saw her clasp her hands behind her, the fingers pluckingweakly at each other. It was an old, childish fashion of hers, whenshe was frightened or hurt. It would only need a word, and he couldbe quiet and firm,—she was such a child compared to him: healways had thought of her so. He went on up to her slowly, andstopped; when she looked at him, he untied the linen bonnet thathid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little facehad grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, andstooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God! what did shedo that for? Did not she know that he could put his head beneathher foot then, he was so mad with pity for the woman he hadwronged? Not love, he thought, controlling himself,—it wasonly justice to be kind to her.

“You have been ill, Margaret, these two years, while I wasgone?”

He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with awhite, pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought,—verykind and firm: and he must be quick,—he could not bear thislong. But he held the little worn fingers, stroking them with anunutterable tenderness.

“You must let these fingers work for me, Margaret,”he said, at last, “when I am master in the mill.”

“It is true, then, Stephen?”

“It is true,—yes.”

She lifted her hand to her head, uncertainly: he held ittightly, and then let it go. What right had he to touch the dustupon her shoes,—he, bought and sold? She did not speak for atime; when she did, it was a weak and sick voice.

“I am glad. I saw her, you know. She is verybeautiful.”

The fingers were plucking at each other again; and a strange,vacant smile on her face, trying to look glad.

“You love her, Stephen?”

He was quiet and firm enough now.

“I do not. Her money will help me to become what I oughtto be. She does not care for love. You want me to succeed,Margaret? No one ever understood me as you did, child though youwere.”

Her whole face glowed.

“I know! I know! I did understand you!”

She said, lower, after a little while,—

“I knew you did not love her.”

“There is no such thing as love in real life,” hesaid, in his steeled voice. “You will know that, when yougrow older. I used to believe in it once, myself.”

She did not speak, only watched the slow motion of his lips, notlooking into his eyes,—as she used to do in the old time.Whatever secret account lay between the souls of this man and womancame out now, and stood bare on their faces.

“I used to think that I, too, loved,” he went on, inhis low, hard tone. “But it kept me back, Margaret,and”—

He was silent.

“I know, Stephen. It kept you back”—

“And I put it away. I put it away to-night,forever.”

She did not speak; stood quite quiet, her head bent on herbreast. His conscience was quite clear now. But he almost wished hehad not said it, she was such a weak, sickly thing. She sat down atlast, burying her face in her hands, with a shivering sob. He darednot trust himself to speak again.

“I am not proud,—as a woman ought to be,” shesaid, wearily, when he wiped her clammy forehead.

“You loved me, then?” he whispered.

Her face flashed at the unmanly triumph; her puny frame startedup, away from him.

“I did love you, Stephen. I love you now,—as youmight be, not as you are,—not with those cold, inhuman eyes.I do understand you,—I do. I know you for a better man thanyou know yourself this night.”

She turned to go. He put his hand on her arm; something we havenever seen on his face struggled up,—the better soul that sheknew.

“Come back,” he said, hoarsely; “don’tleave me with myself. Come back, Margaret.”

She did not come; stood leaning, her sudden strength gone,against the broken wall. There was a heavy silence. The nightthrobbed slow about them. Some late bird rose from the sedges ofthe pool, and with a frightened cry flapped its tired wings, anddrifted into the dark. His eyes, through the gathering shadow,devoured the weak, trembling body, met the soul that looked at him,strong as his own. Was it because it knew and trusted him that allthat was pure and strongest in his crushed nature struggled madlyto be free? He thrust it down; the self-learned lesson of years wasnot to be conquered in a moment.

“There have been times,” he said, in a smothered,restless voice, “when I thought you belonged to me. Not here,but before this life. My soul and body thirst and hunger for you,then, Margaret.”

She did not answer; her hands worked feebly together.

He came nearer, and held up his arras to where shestood,—the heavy, masterful face pale and wet.

“I need you, Margaret. I shall be nothing without you,now. Come, Margaret, little Margaret!”

She came to him, and put her hands in his.

“No, Stephen,” she said.

If there were any pain in her tone, she kept it down, for hissake.

“Never, I could never help you,—as you are. It mighthave been, once. Good-bye, Stephen.”

Her childish way put him in mind of the old days when this girlwas dearer to him than his own soul. She was so yet. He held her,looking down into her eyes. She moved uneasily; she dared not trusther resolution.

“You will come?” he said. “It might havebeen,—it shall be again.”

“It may be,” she said, humbly. “God is good.And I believe in you, Stephen. I will be yours some time: we cannothelp it, if we would: but not as you are.”

“You do not love me?” he said, flinging off herhand.

She said nothing, gathered her damp shawl around her, and turnedto go. Just a moment they stood, looking at each other. If the darksquare figure standing there had been an iron fate trampling heryoung life down into hopeless wretchedness, she forgot it now.Women like Margaret are apt to forget. His eye never abated in itsfierce question.

“I will wait for you yonder, if I die first,” shewhispered.

He came closer, waiting for an answer.

“And—I love you, Stephen.”

He gathered her in his arms, and put his cold lips to hers,without a word; then turned and left her slowly.

She made no sign, shed no tear, as she stood watching him go. Itwas all over: she had willed it, herself, and yet—he couldnot go! God would not suffer it! Oh, he could not leaveher,—he could not!—He went down the hill, slowly. If itwere a trial of life and death for her, did he know orcare?—He did not look back. What if he did not? his heart wastrue; he suffered in going; even now he walked wearily. God forgiveher, if she had wronged him!—What did it matter, if he werehard in this life, and it hurt her a little? It would comeright,—beyond, some time. But life was long.—She wouldnot sit down, sick as she was: he might turn, and it would vex himto see her suffer.—He walked slowly; once he stopped to pickup something. She saw the deep-cut face and half-shut eyes. Howoften those eyes had looked into her soul, and it had answered!They never would look so any more.—There was a tree by theplace where the road turned into town. If he came back, he would besure to turn there.—How tired he walked, and slow!—Ifhe was sick, that beautiful woman could be near him,—helphim.—She never would touch his hand again,—never again,never,—unless he came back now.—He was near the tree:she closed her eyes, turning away. When she looked again, only thebare road lay there, yellow and wet. It was over, now.

How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twiceto go to the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she gaveit up and sat quiet, unconscious except of the damp stones her headleaned on and the stretch of muddy road. Some time, she knew notwhen, there was a heavy step beside her, and a rough hand shookhers where she stooped feebly tracing out the lines of mortarbetween the stones. It was Knowles. She looked up, bewildered.

“Hunting catarrhs, eh?” he growled, eying herkeenly. “Got your father on the Bourbons, so took the chanceto come and find you. He’ll not miss me for an hour.That man has a natural hankering after treason against the people.Lord, Margaret! what a stiff old head he’d have carried tothe guillotine! How he’d have looked at thecanaille!”

He helped her up gently enough.

“Your bonnet’s like a wet rag,”—with afurtive glance at the worn-out face. A hungry face always, with herlife unfed by its stingy few crumbs of good; but to-night it wasvacant with utter loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him downthe road.

“You saw that painted Jezebel to-night,and”—stopping abruptly.

She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with anoccasional snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at theobstinate mud. She stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking ather, he chafed her limp hands,—his huge, uncouth face growingpale. When she was better, he said, gravely,—

“I want you, Margaret. Not at home, child. I want to showyou something.”

He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path,helping her along, watching her stealthily, but going on with hisdisjointed, bearish growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexingher, he did not care.

“I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You’rein a fit state: it’ll do you good. I’m minister there.The clergy can’t attend to it just now: they’re toobusy measuring God’s truth by the States’-Rightsdoctrine or the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields tomajorities. Are you able? It’s only a step.”

She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark.Black, wet gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog,striking her face with a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurryingher, watching her anxiously. They came at last to therailway-track, with long trains of empty freight-cars.

“We are nearly there,” he whispered.“It’s time you knew your work, and forgot yourweakness. The curse of pampered generations. ‘High Normanblood,’—pah!”

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it intoa muddy yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in thesuburbs of large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was asmoky frame standing on piles over an open space where hogs wererooting. Half a dozen drunken Irishmen were playing poker with apack of greasy cards in an out-house. He led her up the ricketyladder to the one room, where a flaring tallow-dip threw a saffronglare into the darkness. A putrid odor met them at the door. Shedrew back, trembling.

“Come here!” he said, fiercely, clutching her hand.“Women as fair and pure as you have come into dens likethis,—and never gone away. Does it make your delicate breathfaint? And you a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus! Look here!and here!”

The room was swarming with human life. Women, idle trampers,whiskey-bloated, filthy, lay half-asleep or smoking on the floor,and set up a chorus of whining begging when they entered.Half-naked children crawled about in rags. On the damp, mildewedwalls there was hung a picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by PioNono, crook in hand, with the usual inscription, “Feed mysheep.” The Doctor looked at it.

”’Tu es Petrus, et superhanc‘—Good God! what is truth?” he muttered,bitterly.

He dragged her closer to the women, through the darkness andfoul smell.

“Look in their faces,” he whispered. “There isnot one of them that is not a living lie. Can they help it? Thinkof the centuries of serfdom and superstition through which theirblood has crawled. Come closer,—here.”

In the corner slept a heap of half-clothed blacks. Going on theunderground railroad to Canada. Stolid, sensual wretches, with hereand there a broad, melancholy brow and desperate jaws. One littlepickaninny rubbed its sleepy eyes and laughed at them.

“So much flesh and blood out of the market,unweighed!”

Margaret took up the child, kissing its brown face. Knowleslooked at her.

“Would you touch her? I forgot you were born down South.Put it down, and come on.”

They went out of the door. Margaret stopped, looking back.

“Did I call it a bit of hell? It’s only a glimpse ofthe under-life of America,—God help us!—where all menare born free and equal.”

The air in the passage grew fouler. She leaned back faint andshuddering. He did not heed her. The passion of the man, theterrible pity for these people, came out of his soul now, whiteninghis face and dulling his eyes.

“And you,” he said, savagely, “you sit by theroad-side, with help in your hands, and Christ in your heart, andcall your life lost, quarrel with your God, because that mass ofselfishness has left you,—because you are balked in your punyhope! Look at these women. What is their loss, do you think? Goback, will you, and drone out your life whimpering over your lostdream, and go to Shakspeare for tragedy when you want it? Tragedy!Come here,—let me hear what you call this.”

He led her through the passage, up a narrow flight of stairs. Anold woman in a flaring cap sat at the top, nodding,—wakeningnow and then, to rock herself to and fro, and give the shrill Irishkeen.

“You know that stoker who was killed in the mill a monthago? Of course not,—what are such people to you? There was agirl who loved him,-you know what that is? She’s dead now,here. She drank herself to death,—a most unpicturesquesuicide. I want you to look at her. You need not blush for her lifeof shame, now; she’s dead.—Is Hetty here?”

The woman got up.

“She is, Zur. She is, Mem. She’s lookin’ foinein her Sunday suit. Shrouds is gone out, Mem, they say.”

She went tipping over the floor to something white that lay on aboard, a candle at the head, and drew off the sheet. A girl offifteen, almost a child, lay underneath, dead,—her lithe,delicate figure decked out in a barred plaid skirt, and stained,faded velvet bodice,—her neck and arms bare. The small facewas purely cut, haggard, patient in its sleep,—the soft, fairhair gathered off the tired forehead. Margaret leaned over hershuddering, pinning her handkerchief about the child’s deadneck.

“How young she is!” muttered Knowles.“Merciful God, how young she is!—What is that yousay?” sharply, seeing Margaret’s lips move.

“‘He that is without sin among you, let him firstcast a stone at her.’”

“Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your handhere, on her dead face. Is your loss like hers?” he saidlower, looking into the dull pain in her eyes. Selfish pain hecalled it.

“Let me go,” she said. “I am tired.”

He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderlyenough,—for the girl suffered, he saw.

“What will you do?” he asked her then. “It isnot too late,—will you help me save these people?”

She wrung her hands helplessly.

“What do you want with me?” she cried, weakly.“I have enough to bear.”

The burly black figure before her seemed to tower andstrengthen; the man’s face in the wan light showed a terriblelife-purpose coming out bare.

“I want you to do your work. It is hard; it will wear outyour strength and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people.God calls you to it. There is none to help them. Give up love, andthe petty hopes of women. Help me. God calls you to thework.”

She went on blindly: he followed her. For years he had set apartthis girl to help him in his scheme: he would not be balked now. Hehad great hopes from his plan: he meant to give all he had: it wasthe noblest of aims. He thought some day it would work like leaventhrough the festering mass under the country he loved so well, andraise it to a new life. If it failed,—if it failed, and savedone life, his work was not lost. But it could not fail.

“Home!” he said, stopping her as she reached thestile,—“oh, Margaret, what is home? There is a crygoing up night and day from homes like that den yonder, forhelp,—and no man listens.”

She was weak; her brain faltered.

“Does God call me to this work? Does He call me?”she moaned.

He watched her eagerly.

“He calls you. He waits for your answer. Swear to me thatyou will help His people. Give up father and mother and love, andgo down as Christ did. Help me to give liberty and truth andJesus’ love to these wretches on the brink of hell. Live withthem, raise them with you.”

She looked up, white; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for hernatural food of love.

“Is it my work?”

“It is your work. Listen to me, Margaret,” softly.“Who cares for you? You stand alone to-night. There is not asingle human heart that calls you nearest and best. Shiver, if youwill,—it is true. The man you wasted your soul on left you inthe night and cold to go to his bride,—is sitting by her now,holding her hand in his.”

He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she shouldunderstand.

“Do you think you deserved this of God? I know that yonderon the muddy road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just;that you had done right, and this was your reward. I know that forthese two years you have trusted in the Christ you worship to makeit right, to give you your heart’s desire. Did He do it? DidHe hear your prayer? Does He care for your weak love, when thenations of the earth are going down? What is your poor hope to Him,when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will be troddensome day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God? OChrist!—if there be a Christ,—help me to saveit!”

He looked up,—his face white with pain. After a time hesaid to her,—

“Help me, Margaret! Your prayer was selfish; it was notheard. Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear tome, this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to thiswork.”

The storm had been dark and windy: it cleared now slowly, thewarm summer rain falling softly, the fresh blue stealing broadlyfrom behind the gray. It seemed to Margaret like a blessing; forher brain rose up stronger, more healthful.

“I will not swear,” she said, weakly. “I thinkHe heard my prayer. I think He will answer it. He was a man, andloved as we do. My love is not selfish; it is the best gift God hasgiven me.”

Knowles went slowly with her to the house. He was not baffled.He knew that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she wasalone, her faith in the far-off Christ would falter; that she wouldgrasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, iffor no other reason,—to stifle by a sense of duty herunutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman’sheart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she passed throughthe dark passage to her own room.

Putting her damp shawl off, she sat down on the floor, leaningher head on a low chair,—one her father had given her for aChristmas gift when she was little. How fond Holmes and her fatherused to be of each other! Every Christmas he spent with them. Sheremembered them all now. “He was sitting by her now, holdingher hand in his.” She said that over to herself, though itwas not hard to understand.

After a long time, her mother came with a candle to thedoor.

“Good-night, Margaret. Why, your hair is wet,child!”

For Margaret, kissing her good-night, had laid her head down aminute on her breast. She stroked the hair a moment, and thenturned away.

“Mother, could you stay with me to-night?”

“Why, no, Maggie,—your father wants me to read tohim.”

“Oh, I know. Did he miss meto-night,—father?”

“Not much; we were talking old times over,—inVirginia, you know.”

“I know; good-night.”

She went back to the chair. Tige was there,—for he used tospend half of his time on the farm. She put her arm about his head.God knows how lonely the poor child was when she drew the dog sowarmly to her heart: not for his master’s sake alone; but itwas all she had. He grew tired at last, and whined, trying to getout.

“Will you go, Tige?” she said, and opened thewindow.

He jumped out, and she watched him going towards town. Such alittle thing, it was! But not even a dog “called her nearestand best.”

Let us be silent; the story of the night is not for us to read.Do you think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds the worlds inHis hand, knew or cared how alone the child was? What if she wrungher thin hands, grew sick with the slow, mad, solitarytears?—was not the world to save, as Knowles said?

He, too, had been alone; He had come unto His own, and His ownreceived him not: so, while the struggling world rested,unconscious, in infinite calm of right, He came close to her withhuman eyes that had loved, and not been loved, and had sufferedwith that pain. And, trusting Him, she only said, “Show me mywork! Thou that takest away the pain of the world, have mercy uponme!”

For that night, at least, Holmes swept his soul clean of doubtand indecision; one of his natures was conquered,—finally, hethought. Polston, if he had seen his face as he paced the streetslowly home to the mill, would have remembered his mother’sthe day she died. How the stern old woman met death half-way! whyshould she fear? she was as strong as he. Wherein had she failed ofduty? her hands were clean: she was going to meet her justreward.

It was different with Holmes, of course, with his self-existentsoul. It was life he accepted to-night, he thought,—a life ofgrowth, labor, achievement,—eternal.

“Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast,”—favoritewords with him. He liked to study the nature of the man who spokethem; because, I think, it was like his own,—a Titan strengthof endurance, an infinite capability of love and hate andsuffering, and over all (the peculiar identity of the man) a cold,speculative eye of reason, that looked down into the passion anddepths of his growing self, and calmly noted them, a lesson for alltime.

“Ohne Hast.” Going slowly through thenight, he strengthened himself by marking how all things in Natureaccomplish a perfected life through slow, narrow fixedness ofpurpose,—each life complete in itself: why not his own, then?The windless gray, the stars, the stone under his feet, stood alonein the universe, each working out its own soul into deed. If therewere any all-embracing harmony, one soul through all, he did notsee it. Knowles—that old skeptic—believed in it, andcalled it Love. Even Goethe himself, what was it he said?“Der Allumfasser, der Allerhalter, fasst und erhälter nicht dich, mich, sich selbst?”

There was a curious power in the words, as he lingered overthem, like half-comprehended music,—as simple and tender asif they had come from the depths of a woman’s heart: ittouched him deeper than his power of control. Pah! it was a dreamof Faust’s; he, too, had his Margaret; he fell, through thatlove.

He went on slowly to the mill. If the name or the words woke asubtile remorse or longing, he buried them under restful composure.Whether they should ever rise like angry ghosts of what might havebeen, to taunt the man, only the future could tell.

Going through the gas-lit streets, Holmes met some cordialgreeting at every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was! peoplesaid: one of those men improved by success: just to the defraudingof himself: saw the true worth of everybody, the very lowest:hadn’t one spark of self-esteem: despised all humbug andshow, one could see, though he never said it: when he was a boy, hewas moody, with passionate likes and dislikes; but success hadimproved him, vastly. So Holmes was popular, though the beggarsshunned him, and the lazy Italian organ-grinders never held theirtambourines up to him.

The mill street was dark; the building threw its great shadowover the square. It was empty, he supposed; only one hand generallyremained to keep in the furnace-fires. Going through one of thelower passages, he heard voices, and turned aside to examine. Themanagement was not strict, and in case of a fire the mill was notinsured: like Knowles’s carelessness.

It was Lois and her father,—Joe Yare being feeder thatnight. They were in one of the great furnace-rooms in thecellar,—a very comfortable place that stormy night. Two orthree doors of the wide brick ovens were open, and the fire threw aruddy glow over the stone floor, and shimmered into the darkrecesses of the shadows, very home-like after the rain and mudwithout. Lois seemed to think so, at any rate, for she had made atable of a store-box, put a white cloth on it, and was busy gettingup a regular supper for her father,—down on her knees beforethe red coals, turning something on an iron plate, while someslices of ham sent up a cloud of juicy, hungry smell.

The old stoker had just finished slaking the out-fires, and wasputting some blue plates on the table, gravely straightening them.He had grown old, as Polston said,—Holmes saw, stooped much,with a low, hacking cough; his coarse clothes were curiously clean:that was to please Lois, of course. She put the ham on the table,and some bubbling coffee, and then, from a hickory board in frontof the fire, took off, with a jerk, brown, flaky slices of Virginiajohnny-cake.

“Ther’ yoh are, father, hot ‘n’hot,” with her face onfire,—“ther’—yoh—are,—coaxin’to be eatin’.—Why, Mr. Holmes! Father! Now, ef yohjes’ hedn’t hed yer supper?”

She came up, coaxingly. What brooding brown eyes the poorcripple had! Not many years ago he would have sat down with the twopoor souls and made a hearty meal of it: he had no heart for suchfollies now.

Old Yare stood in the background, his hat in his hand, stoopingin his submissive negro fashion, with a frightened watch onHolmes.

“Do you stay here, Lois?” he asked, kindly, turninghis back on the old man.

“On’y to bring his supper. I couldn’t bide allnight ’n th’ mill,”—the old shadow comingon her face,—“I couldn’t, yoh know. Hedoesn’t mind it.”

She glanced quickly from one to the other in the silence, seeingthe fear on her father’s face.

“Yoh know father, Mr. Holmes? He’s back now. This ishim.”

The old man came forward, humbly.

“It’s me, Master Stephen.”

The sullen, stealthy face disgusted Holmes. He nodded,shortly.

“Yoh’ve been kind to my little girl while I wasgone,” he said, catching his breath. “I thank yoh,master.”

“You need not. It was for Lois.”

“’Twas fur her I comed back hyur. ’Twas aresk,”—with a dumb look of entreaty atHolmes,—“but fur her I thort I’d try it. I know’twas a resk; but I thort them as cared fur Lo wud bemerciful. She’s a good girl, Lo. She’s all Ihev.”

Lois brought a box over, lugging it heavily.

“We hevn’t chairs; but yoh’ll sit down, Mr.Holmes?” laughing as she covered it with a cloth.“It’s a warrm place, here. Father studies ‘n hiswatch, ‘n’ I’m teacher,”—showing thetorn old spelling-book.

The old man came eagerly forward, seeing the smile flicker onHolmes’s face.

“It’s slow work, master,—slow. But Lo’sa good teacher, ’n’ I’mtryin’,—I’m tryin’ hard.”

“It’s not slow, Sir, seein’ fatherhedn’t ’dvantages, like me. He was a”—

She stopped, lowering her voice, a hot flush of shame on herface.

“I know.”

“Ben’t that ’n ’xcuse, master,seein’ I knowed noght at the beginnin’? Thenk o’that, master. I’m tryin’ to be a different man. Fur Lo.I am tryin’.”

Holmes did not notice him.

“Good-night, Lois,” he said, kindly, as she lightedhis lamp.

He put some money on the table.

“You must take it,” as she looked uneasy. “ForTiger’s board, say. I never see him now. A bright new frock,remember.”

She thanked him, her eyes brightening, looking at herfather’s patched coat.

The old man followed Holmes out.

“Master Holmes”—

“Have done with this,” said Holmes, sternly.“Whoever breaks law abides by it. It is no affair ofmine.”

The old man clutched his hands together fiercely, struggling tobe quiet.

“Ther’s none knows it but yoh,” he said, in asmothered voice. “Fur God’s sake be merciful!It’ll kill my girl,—it’ll kill her. Gev me achance, master.”

“You trouble me. I must do what is just.”

“It’s not just,” he said, savagely.“What good’ll it do me to go back ther’? I wasgoin’ down, down, an’ bringin’ th’ otherswith me. What good’ll it do you or the rest to hev mether’? To make me afraid? It’s poor learnin’ frumfear. Who taught me what was right? Who cared? No man cared fur mysoul, till I thieved ’n’ robbed; ‘n’ thenjudge ’n’ jury ’n’ jailers was glad topounce on me. Will yoh gev me a chance? will yoh?”

It was a desperate face before him; but Holmes never knewfear.

“Stand aside,” he said, quietly. “To-morrow Iwill see you. You need not try to escape.”

He passed him, and went slowly up through the vacant mill to hischamber.

The man sat down on the lower step a few moments, quite quiet,crushing his hat up in a slow, steady way, looking up at the mouldycobwebs on the wall. He got up at last, and went in to Lois. Hadshe heard? The old scarred face of the girl looked years older, hethought,—but it might be fancy. She did not say anything fora while, moving slowly, with a new gentleness, about him; her veryvoice was changed, older. He tried to be cheerful, eating hissupper: she need not know until to-morrow. He would get out of thetown to-night, or—There were different ways to escape. Whenhe had done, he told her to go; but she would not.

“Let me stay th’ night,” she said. “Iben’t afraid o’ th’ mill.”

“Why, Lo,” he said, laughing, “yoh used to sayyer death was hid here, somewheres.”

“I know. But ther’s worse nor death. But it’llcome right,” she said, persistently, muttering to herself, asshe leaned her face on her knees,watching,—“it’ll come right.”

The glimmering shadows changed and faded for an hour. The mansat quiet. There was not much in the years gone to soften histhought, as it grew desperate and cruel: there was oppression andvice heaped on him, and flung back out of his bitter heart. Normuch in the future: a blank stretch of punishment to the end. Hewas an old man: was it easy to bear? What if he were black? what ifhe were born a thief? what if all the sullen revenge of his naturehad made him an outcast from the poorest poor? Was there no latentgood in this soul for which Christ died, that a kind hand might nothave brought to life? None? Something, I think, struggled up in thetouch of his hand, catching the skirt of his child’s dress,when it came near him, with the timid tenderness of a mothertouching her dead baby’s hair,—as something holy, faroff, yet very near: something in his old crime-marked face,—alook like this dog’s, putting his head on my knee,—adumb, unhelpful love in his eyes, and the slow memory of a wrongdone to his soul in a day long past. A wrong to both, you say,perhaps; but if so, irreparable, and never to be recompensed.Never?

“Yoh must go, my little girl,” he said at last.

Whatever he did must be done quickly. She came up, combing thethin gray hairs through her fingers.

“Father, I dunnot understan’ what it is, rightly.But stay with me,—stay, father!”

“Yoh’ve a many frien’s, Lo,” he said,with a keen flash of jealousy. “Ther’s none likeyoh,—none.”

She put her misshapen head and scarred face down on his hand,where he could see them. If it had ever hurt her to be as she was,if she had ever compared herself bitterly with fair, beloved women,she was glad now and thankful for every fault and deformity thatbrought her nearer to him, and made her dearer.

“They’re kind, but ther’s not many loves mewith true love, like yoh. Stay, father! Bear it out, whatever itbe. Th’ good time’ll come, father.”

He kissed her, saying nothing, and went with her down thestreet. When he left her, she waited, and, creeping back, hid nearthe mill. God knows what vague dread was in her brain; but she cameback to watch and help.

Old Yare wandered through the great loom-rooms of the mill withbut one fact clear in his cloudy, faltering perception,—thatabove him the man lay quietly sleeping who would bring worse thandeath on him to-morrow. Up and down, aimlessly, with hisstoker’s torch in his hand, going over the years gone and theyears to come, with the dead hatred through all of the pitiless manabove him,—with now and then, perhaps, a pleasanter thoughtof things that had been warm and cheerful in his life,—of thecorn-huskings long ago, when he was a boy, down in “th’Alabam’,”—of the scow his young master gave himonce, the first thing he really owned: he was almost as proud of itas he was of Lois when she was born. Most of all remembering thegood times in his life, he went back to Lois. It was all good,there, to go back to. What a little chub she used to be!Remembering, with bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant totry and do better, on her account, but had kept putting off andputting off until now. And now—Did nothing lie before him butto go back and rot yonder? Was that the end, because he never hadlearned better, and was a “dam’ nigger”?

“I’ll not leave my girl!” hemuttered, going up and down,—“I’ll notleave my girl!”

If Holmes did sleep above him, the trial of the day, of which wehave seen nothing, came back sharper in sleep. While the strongself in the man lay torpid, whatever holier power was in him cameout, undaunted by defeat, and unwearied, and took the form ofdreams, those slighted messengers of God, to soothe and charm andwin him out into fuller, kindlier life. Let us hope that they didso win him; let us hope that even in that unreal world the betternature of the man triumphed at last, and claimed its reward beforethe terrible reality broke upon him.

Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiledup in one of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. Sheremembered how she used to play in them, before she went into themill. The mill,—even now, with the vague dread of someuncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all fear in its old hatedshadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in it, came from it,she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It loomed upnow, with the square patch of ashen sky above, black, heavy withyears of remembered agony and loss. In Lois’s hopeful, warmlife this was the one uncomprehended monster. Her crushed brain,her unwakened powers, resented their wrong dimly to the mass ofiron and work and impure smells, unconscious of any remorselesspower that wielded it. It was a monster, she thought, through thesleepy, dreading night,—a monster that kept her wakeful witha dull, mysterious terror.

When the night grew sultry and deepest, she started from herhalf-doze to see her father come stealthily out and go down thestreet. She must have slept, she thought, rubbing her eyes, andwatching him out of sight,—and then, creeping out, turned toglance at the mill. She cried out, shrill with horror. It was alive monster now,—in one swift instant, alive withfire,—quick, greedy fire, leaping like serpents’tongues out of its hundred jaws, hungry sheets of flame maddeningand writhing towards her, and under all a dull and hollow roar thatshook the night. Did it call her to her death? She turned to fly,and then—He was alone, dying! He had been so kind to her! Shewrung her hands, standing there a moment. It was a brave hope thatwas in her heart, and a prayer on her lips never left unanswered,as she hobbled, in her lame, slow way, up to the open black door,and, with one backward look, went in.

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.

The publication, now brought to a close, of a new edition of thenovels of Cooper⁶6. We refer tothe new edition of the novels of Cooper by Messrs. W.A. Townsend& Co., with illustrations by Darley. gives us a fairoccasion for discharging a duty which Maga has too long neglected,and saying something upon the genius of this great writer, and,incidentally, upon the character of a man who would have been anoticeable, not to say remarkable person, had he never written aline. These novels stand before us in thirty-two goodly duodecimovolumes, well printed, gracefully illustrated, and, in all externalaspects, worthy of generous commendation. With strong propriety,the publishers dedicate this edition of the “first Americannovelist” to “the American People.” No one of ourgreat writers is more thoroughly American than Cooper; no one hascaught and reproduced more broadly and accurately the spirit of ourinstitutions, the character of our people, and even the aspects ofNature in this our Western world. He was a patriot to the very coreof his heart; he loved his country with a fervid, but not anundiscerning love: it was an intelligent, vigilant, discriminatingaffection that bound his heart to his native land; and thus, whileno man defended his country more vigorously when it was in theright, no one reproved its faults more courageously, or gavewarning and advice more unreservedly, where he felt that they wereneeded.

This may be one reason why Cooper has more admirers, or at leastfewer disparagers, abroad than at home. On the Continent of Europehis novels are everywhere read, with an eager, unquestioningdelight. His popularity is at least equal to that of Scott; and wethink a considerable amount of testimony could be collected toprove that it is even greater. But the fact we have above stated isnot the only explanation of this. He was the first writer who madeforeign nations acquainted with the characters and incidents ofAmerican frontier and woodland life; and his delineations of Indianmanners and traits were greatly superior in freshness and power, ifnot in truth, to any which had preceded them. His novels opened anew and unwrought vein of interest, and were a revelation ofhumanity under aspects and influences hitherto unobserved by theripe civilization of Europe. The taste which had become cloyed withendless imitations of the feudal and mediaeval pictures of Scottturned with fresh delight to such original figures—so full ofsylvan power and wildwood grace—as Natty Bumppo and Uncas.European readers, too, received these sketches with an unqualified,because an ignorant admiration. We, who had better knowledge, weremore critical, and could see that the drawing was sometimes faulty,and the colors more brilliant than those of life.

The acute observer can detect a parallel between the relation ofCooper to America and that of Scott to Scotland. Scott was ashearty a Scotchman as Cooper an American: but Scott was a Tory inpolitics and an Episcopalian in religion; and the majority ofScotchmen are Whigs in politics and Presbyterians in religion. InScott, as in Cooper, the elements of passion and sympathy were sostrong that he could not be neutral or silent on the greatquestions of his time and place. Thus, while the Scotch are proudof Scott, as they well may be,—while he has among his ownpeople most intense and enthusiastic admirers,—the proportionof those who yield to his genius a cold and reluctant homage isprobably greater in Scotland than in any other country inChristendom. “The rest of mankind recognize the essentialtruth of his delineations, and his loyalty to all the primalinstincts and sympathies of humanity”; but the Scotch cannotforget that he opposed the Reform Bill, painted the Covenanterswith an Episcopalian pencil, and made a graceful and heroic imageof the detested Claverhouse.

The novels of Cooper, in the dates of their publication, cover aperiod of thirty years: beginning with “Precaution,” in1820, and ending with “The Ways of the Hour,” in 1850.The production of thirty-two volumes in thirty years is honorableto his creative energy, as well as to the systematic industry ofhis habits. But even these do not constitute the whole of hisliterary labors during these twenty-nine years. We must add fivevolumes of naval history and biography, ten volumes of travels andsketches in Europe, and a large amount of occasional andcontroversial writings, most of which is now hidden away in thathuge wallet wherein Time puts his alms for Oblivion. His literaryproductions other than his novels would alone be enough to save himfrom the reproach of idleness. In estimating a writer’sclaims to honor and remembrance, the quantity as well as thequality of his work should surely be taken into account; and insumming up the case of our great novelist to the jury of posterity,this point should be strongly put.

Cooper’s first novel, “Precaution,” waspublished when he was in his thirty-first year. It owed itsexistence to an accident, and was but an ordinary production, asinferior to the best of his subsequent works as Byron’s“Hours of Idleness” to “Childe Harold.” Itwas a languid and colorless copy of exotic forms: a mere scalepicked from the surface of the writer’s mind, with neitherbeauty nor vital warmth to commend it. We speak from the vagueimpressions which many long years have been busy in effacing; andwe confess that it would require the combined forces of a longvoyage and a scanty library to constrain us to the task of readingit anew.

And yet, such as it was, it made a certain impression at thetime of its appearance. The standard by which it was tried was veryunlike that which would now be applied to it: there was all thedifference between the two that there is between strawberries inDecember and strawberries in June. American literature was thenjust beginning to “glint forth” like Burns’smountain daisy, and rear its tender form above the parent earth.The time had, indeed, gone by—which a friend of ours, not yetvenerable, affirms he can well remember—when school-boys andcollegians, zealous for the honor of indigenous literature, wereobliged to cite, by way of illustration, such works asMorse’s Geography and Hannah Adams’s “History ofthe Jews”; but it was only a faint, crepuscular light, thatstreaked the east, and gave promise of the coming day. Irving hadjust completed his “Sketch-Book,” which was basking inthe full sunshine of unqualified popularity. Dana, in thethoughtful and meditative beauty of “The Idle Man,” wasaddressing a more limited public. Percival had just beforepublished a small volume of poems; Halleck’s“Fanny” had recently appeared; and so had a smallduodecimo volume by Bryant, containing “The Ages,” andhalf a dozen smaller poems. Miss Sedgwick’s “NewEngland Tale” was published about the same time. But a largeproportion of those who are now regarded as our ablest writers wereas yet unknown, or just beginning to give sign of what they were.Dr. Channing was already distinguished as an eloquent and powerfulpreacher, but the general public had not yet recognized in him thatremarkable combination of loftiness of thought with magic charm ofstyle, which was soon to be revealed in his essays on Milton andNapoleon Bonaparte. Ticknor and Everett were professors in HarvardCollege, giving a new impulse to the minds of the students by theiradmirable lectures; and the latter was also conducting the“North American Review.” Neither had as yet attained toanything more than a local reputation. Prescott, a gay andlight-hearted young man,—gay and light-hearted, in spite ofpartial blindness,—the darling of society and the idol of hishome, was silently and resolutely preparing himself for his chosenfunction by a wide and thorough course of patient study. Bancroftwas in Germany, and working like a German. Emerson was a Junior inCollege. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and Poe wereschool-boys; Mrs. Stowe was a school-girl; Whipple and Lowell werein the nursery, and Motley and the younger Dana had not long beenout of it.

“Precaution,” though an indifferent novel, was yet anovel; of the orthodox length, with plot, characters, andincidents; and here and there a touch of genuine power, as in theforty-first chapter, where the scene is on board a man-of-warbringing her prizes into port. It found many readers, and excited agood deal of curiosity as to who the author might be.

“Precaution” was published on the 25th of August,1820, and “The Spy” on the 17th of September, 1821. Thesecond novel was a great improvement upon the first, and fairlytook the public by storm. We are old enough to remember its firstappearance; the eager curiosity and keen discussion which itawakened; the criticism which it called forth; and, above all, theanimated delight with which it was received by all who were youngor not critical. Distinctly, too, can we recall the breathlessrapture with which we hung over its pages, in those happy days whenthe mind’s appetite for books was as ravenous as thebody’s for bread-and-butter, and a novel, with plenty offighting in it, was all we asked at a writer’s hands. Inorder to qualify ourselves for the task which we have undertaken inthis article, we have read “The Spy” a second time; andmelancholy indeed was the contrast between the recollections of theboy and the impressions of the man. It was the difference betweenthe theatre by gas-light and the theatre by day-light: the gold waspinchbeck, the gems were glass, the flowers were cambric andcolored paper, the goblets were gilded pasteboard. Painfully didthe ideal light fade away, and the well-remembered scene standrevealed in disenchanting day. With incredulous surprise, with aconstant struggle between past images and present revelations, werewe forced to acknowledge the improbability of the story, theclumsiness of the style, the awkwardness of the dialogue, the wantof Nature in many of the characters, the absurdity of many of theincidents, and the painfulness of some of the scenes. But with allthis, a candid, though critical judgment could not but admit thatthese grave defects were attended by striking merits, which pleadedin mitigation of literary sentence. It was stamped with a truth,earnestness, and vital power, of which its predecessor gave nopromise. Though the story was improbable, it seized upon theattention with a powerful grasp from the very start, and the holdwas not relaxed till the end. Whatever criticism it mightchallenge, no one could call it dull: the only offence in a bookwhich neither gods nor men nor counters can pardon. If thenarrative flowed languidly at times, there were moments in whichthe incidents flashed along with such vivid rapidity that thesusceptible reader held his breath over the page. The character ofWashington was an elaborate failure, and the author, in his lateryears, regretted that he had introduced this august form into awork of fiction; but Harvey Birch was an original sketch, happilyconceived, and, in the main, well sustained. His mysterious figurewas recognized as a new accession to the repertory of the novelist,and not a mere modification of a preëxisting type. And, aboveall, “The Spy” had the charm of reality; it tasted ofthe soil; it was the first successful attempt to throw animaginative light over American history, and to do for our countrywhat the author of “Waverley” had done for Scotland.Many of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War werestill living, receiving the reward of their early perils andprivations in the grateful reverence which was paid to them by thecontemporaries of their children and grandchildren. Innumerabletraditionary anecdotes of those dark days of suffering andstruggle, unrecorded in print, yet lingered in the memories of thepeople, and were told in the nights of winter around the farm-housefire; and of no part of the country was this more true than of theregion in which the scene of the novel is laid. The enthusiasm withwhich it was there read was the best tribute to the substantialfidelity of its delineations. All over the country, it enlisted inits behalf the powerful sentiment of patriotism; and whatever thecritics might say, the author had the satisfaction of feeling thatthe heart of the people was with him.

Abroad, “The Spy” was received with equal favor. Itwas soon translated into most of the languages of Europe; and eventhe “gorgeous East” opened for it its rarely movingportals. In 1847, a Persian version was published in Ispahan; andby this time it may have crossed the Chinese wall, and bedelighting the pig-tailed critics and narrow-eyed beauties ofPekin.

The success of “The Spy” unquestionably determinedCooper’s vocation, and made him a man of letters. But he hadnot yet found where his true strength lay. His training andeducation had not been such as would seem to be a good preparationfor a literary career. His reading had been desultory, and notextensive; and the habit of composition had not been formed inearly life. Indeed, in mere style, in the handling of the tools ofhis craft, Cooper never attained a master’s ease and power.In his first two novels the want of technical skill and literaryaccomplishment was obvious; and the scenery, subjects, andcharacters of these novels did not furnish him with the opportunityof turning to account the peculiar advantages which had come to himfrom the events of his childhood and youth. In his infancy he wastaken to Cooperstown, a spot which his father had just begun toreclaim from the dominion of the wilderness. Here his firstimpressions of the external world, as well as of life and manners,were received. At the age of sixteen he became a midshipman in theUnited States navy, and remained in the service for six years. Afather who, in training up his son for the profession of letters,should send him into the wilderness in his infancy and to sea atsixteen, would seem to be shooting very wide of the mark; but inthis, as in so many things, there is a divinity that shapes ourrough-hewn ends. Had Cooper enjoyed the best scholastic advantageswhich the schools and colleges of Europe could have furnished, theycould not have fitted him for the work he was destined to do sowell as the apparently untoward elements we have above adverted to;for Natty Bumppo was the fruit of his woodland experience, and LongTom Coffin of his sea-faring life.

“The Pioneers” and “The Pilot” were bothpublished in 1823; “Lionel Lincoln” in 1825; and“The Last of the Mohicans” in 1826. We may put“Lionel Lincoln” aside, as one of his least successfulproductions; but the three others were never surpassed, and rarelyequalled, by any of his numerous subsequent works. All thepowerful, and nearly all the attractive, qualities of his geniuswere displayed in these three novels, in their highest degree andmost ample measure. Had he never written any more,—though weshould have missed many interesting narratives, admirable pictures,and vigorously drawn characters,—we are not sure that hisfame would not have been as great as it is now. From these, and“The Spy,” full materials may be drawn for forming acorrect estimate of his merits and his defects. In these, hisstrength and weakness, his gifts and deficiencies, are amply shown.Here, then, we may pause, and, without pursuing his literarybiography any farther, proceed to set down our estimate of hisclaims as a writer. Any critic who dips his pen in ink and not ingall would rather praise than blame; therefore we will dispose ofthe least gracious part of our task first, and begin with hisblemishes and defects.

A skilful construction of the story is a merit which the publictaste no longer demands, and it is consequently fast becoming oneof the lost arts. The practice of publishing novels in successivenumbers, so that one portion is printed before another is written,is undoubtedly one cause of this. But English and American readershave not been accustomed to this excellence in the works of theirbest writers of fiction; and therefore they are not sensitive tothe want of it. This is certainly not one of Scott’s strongpoints. Fielding’s “Tom Jones” is, in thisrespect, superior to any of the “Waverley Novels,” andwithout an equal, so far as we know, in English literature. But, insitting in judgment upon a writer of novels, we cannot waive aninquiry into his merits on this point. Are his stories, simply asstories, well told? Are his plots symmetrically constructed andharmoniously evolved? Are his incidents probable? and do they allhelp on the catastrophe? Does he reject all episodical matter whichwould clog the current of the narrative? Do his novels have unityof action? or are they merely a series of sketches, strung togetherwithout any relation of cause and effect? Cooper, tried by theserules, can certainly command no praise. His plots are not carefullyor skilfully constructed. His incidents are not probable inthemselves, nor do they succeed each other in a natural anddependent progression. His characters get into scrapes from whichthe reasonable exercise of common faculties should have saved them;and they are rescued by incredible means and impossibleinstruments. The needed man appears as unaccountably andmysteriously as if he had dropped from the clouds, or emerged fromthe sea, or crept up through a fissure in the earth. The winding upof his stories is often effected by devices nearly as improbable asa violation of the laws of Nature. His personages act withoutadequate motives; they rush into needless dangers; they trust theirfate, with unsuspecting simplicity, to treacherous hands.

In works of fiction the skill of the writer is mostconspicuously shown when the progress of the story is secured bynatural and probable occurrences. Many events take place in historyand in common life which good taste rejects as inadmissible in awork of imagination. Sudden death by disease or casualty is no veryuncommon occurrence in real life; but it cannot be used in a novelto clear up a tangled web of circumstance, without betrayingsomething of a poverty of invention in the writer. He is the bestartist who makes least use of incidents which lie out of the beatenpath of observation and experience. In constructive skillCooper’s rank is not high; for all his novels are more orless open to the criticism that too frequent use is made in them ofevents very unlikely to have happened. He leads his characters intosuch formidable perils that the chances are a million to oneagainst their being rescued. Such a run is made upon our credulitythat the fund is soon exhausted, and the bank stops payment.

For illustration of the above strictures we will refer to asingle novel, “The Last of the Mohicans,” whicheverybody will admit to be one of the most interesting of hisworks,—full of rapid movement, brilliant descriptions,hair-breadth escapes, thrilling adventures,—which youngpersons probably read with more rapt attention than any other ofhis narratives. In the opening chapter we find at Fort Edward, onthe head-waters of the Hudson, the two daughters of Colonel Munro,the commander of Fort William Henry, on the shores of Lake George;though why they were at the former post, under the protection of astranger, and not with their father, does not appear. Informationis brought of the approach of Montcalm, with a hostile army ofIndians and Frenchmen, from the North; and the young ladies arestraightway hurried off to the more advanced, and consequently moredangerous post, when prudence and affection would have dictatedjust the opposite course. Nor is this all. General Webb, thecommander of Fort Edward, at the urgent request of Colonel Munro,sends him a reinforcement of fifteen hundred men, who march offthrough the woods, by the military road, with drums beating andcolors flying; and yet, strange to say, the young ladies do notaccompany the troops, but set off, on the very same day, by aby-path, attended by no other escort than Major Heyward, and guidedby an Indian whose fidelity is supposed to be assured by his havingbeen flogged for drunkenness by the orders of Colonel Munro. Thereason assigned for conduct so absurd that in real life it wouldhave gone far to prove the parties having a hand in it not to bepossessed of that sound and disposing mind and memory which the lawrequires as a condition precedent to making a will is, that hostileIndians, in search of chance scalps, would be hovering about thecolumn of troops, and so leave the by-path unmolested. But theservants of the party follow the route of the column: a measure, weare told, dictated by the sagacity of the Indian guide, in order todiminish the marks of their trail, if, haply, the Canadian savagesshould be prowling about so far in advance of their army!Certainly, all the sagacity of the fort would seem to have beenconcentrated in the person of the Indian. How much of thisimprobability might have been avoided, if the action had beenreversed, and the young ladies, in view of the gathering cloud ofwar, had been sent from the more exposed and less strongly guardedpoint of Fort William Henry to the safe fortress of Fort Edward!Then the smallness of the escort and the risks of the journey wouldhave been explained and excused by the necessity of the case; andthe subsequent events of the novel might have been easilyaccommodated to the change we have indicated.

One of the best of Cooper’s novels—as a work of artperhaps the very best—is “The Bravo.” But thecharacter of Jacopo Frontoni is a sort of moral impossibility, andthe clearing up of the mystery which hangs over his life andconduct, which is skilfully reserved to the last moment, isconsequently unsatisfactory. He is represented as a young man ofthe finest qualities and powers, who, in the hope of rescuing afather who had been falsely imprisoned by the Senate, consents toassume the character, and bear the odium, of a public bravo, orassassin, though entirely innocent. This false position gives riseto many most effective scenes and incidents, and the character isin many respects admirably drawn. But when the end comes, we laydown the book and say,—“This could never have been: avirtuous and noble young man could not for years have been believedto be the most hateful of mankind; the laws of Nature and the lawsof the human mind forbid it: so vast a web of falsehood could nothave been woven without a flaw: we can credit much of the organizedand pitiless despotism of Venice, but could it workmiracles?”

Further illustrations of this same defect might easily be cited,if the task were not ungracious. Neither books, nor pictures, normen and women should be judged by their defects. It is enough tosay that Cooper never wrote a novel in regard to which the readermust not lay aside his critical judgment upon the structure of thestory and the interdependence of the incidents, and let himself beborne along by the rapid flow of the narrative, without questioningtoo curiously as to the nature of the means and instrumentsemployed to give movement to the stream.

In the delineation of character, Cooper may claim great, but notunqualified praise. This is a vague statement; and to draw asharper line of discrimination, we should say that he is generallysuccessful—sometimes admirably so—in drawing personagesin whom strong primitive traits have not been effaced by theattritions of artificial life, and generally unsuccessful when hedeals with those in whom the original characteristics are lessmarked, or who have been smoothed by education and polished bysociety. It is but putting this criticism in another form to saythat his best characters are persons of humble social position. Hewields his brush with a vigorous hand, but the brush itself has nota fine point. Of all the children of his brain, Natty Bumppo is themost universal favorite,—and herein the popular judgment isassuredly right. He is an original conception,—and not morehappily conceived than skilfully executed. It was a hazardousundertaking to present the character backwards, and let us see theclosing scenes of his life first,—like a Hebrew Bible, ofwhich the beginning is at the end; but the author’s geniushas triumphed over the perils of the task, and given us adelineation as consistent and symmetrical as it is striking andvigorous. Ignorant of books, simple, and credulous, guilelesshimself, and suspecting no evil in others, with moderateintellectual powers, he commands our admiration and respect by hiscourage, his love of Nature, his skill in woodland lore, hisunerring moral sense, his strong affections, and the veins ofpoetry that run through his rugged nature like seams of gold inquartz. Long Tom Coffin may be described as Leatherstockingsuffered a sea-change,—with a harpoon instead of a rifle, anda pea-jacket instead of a hunting-shirt. In both the same primitiveelements may be discerned: the same limited intellectual rangecombined with professional or technical skill; the same generousaffections and unerring moral instincts; the same religiousfeeling, taking the form at times of fatalism or superstition. LongTom’s love of the sea is like Leatherstocking’s love ofthe woods; the former’s dislike of the land is like thelatter’s dislike of the clearings. Cooper himself, as we aretold by his daughter, was less satisfied, in his last years, withLong Tom Coffin than most of his readers,—and, of the twocharacters, considered that of Boltrope the better piece ofworkmanship. We cannot assent to this comparative estimate; but weadmit that Boltrope has not had full justice done to him in popularjudgment. It is but a slight sketch, but it is extremely well done.His death is a bit of manly and genuine pathos; and in hisconversations with the chaplain there is here and there a touch oftrue humor, which we value the more because humor was certainly notone of the author’s best gifts.

Antonio, the old fisherman, in “The Bravo,” isanother very well drawn character, in which we can trace somethingof a family likeness to the hunter and sailor above mentioned. Thescene in which he is shrived by the Carmelite monk, in his boat,under the midnight moon, upon the Lagoons, is one of the finest weknow of in the whole range of the literature of fiction, leavingupon the mind a lasting impression of solemn and pathetic beauty.In “The Chainbearer,” the Yankee squatter,Thousandacres, is a repulsive figure, but drawn with a powerfulpencil. The energy of character, or rather of action, which is theresult of a passionate love of money, is true to human nature. Theclosing scenes of his rough and lawless life, in which his latentaffection for his faithful wife throws a sunset gleam over his hardand selfish nature, and prevents it from being altogether hateful,are impressively told, and are touched with genuine tragicpower.

On the other hand, Cooper generally fails when he undertakes todraw a character which requires for its successful execution a niceobservation and a delicate hand. His heroes and heroines are apt toabuse the privilege which such personages have enjoyed, time out ofmind, of being insipid. Nor can he catch and reproduce the easygrace and unconscious dignity of high-bred men and women. Hisgentlemen, whether young or old, are apt to be stiff, priggish, andcommonplace; and his ladies, especially his young ladies, are asdeficient in individuality as the figures and faces of afashion-print. Their personal and mental charms are set forth withall the minuteness of a passport; but, after all, we cannot butthink that these fine creatures, with hair, brow, eyes, and lips ofthe most orthodox and approved pattern, would do very littletowards helping one through a rainy day in a country-house. JudgeTemple, in “The Pioneers,” and Colonel Howard, in“The Pilot,” are highly estimable and respectablegentlemen, but, in looking round for the materials of a pleasantdinner-party, we do not think they would stand very high on thelist. They are fair specimens of their class,—the educatedgentleman in declining life,—many of whom are found in thesubsequent novels. They are wanting in those natural traits ofindividuality by which, in real life, one human being isdistinguished from another. They are obnoxious to this one generalcriticism, that the author is constantly reminding us of thequalities of mind and character on which he rests their claims tofavor, without causing them to appear naturally and unconsciouslyin the course of the narrative. The defect we are adverting to maybe illustrated by comparing such personages of this class as Cooperhas delineated with Colonel Talbot, in “Waverley,”Colonel Mannering and Counsellor Pleydell, in “GuyMannering,” Monkbarns, in “The Antiquary,” andold Osbaldistone, in “Rob Roy.” These are all old men:they are all men of education, and in the social position ofgentlemen; but each has certain characteristics which the othershave not: each has the distinctive individual flavor-perceptible,but indescribable, like the savor of a fruit—which is wantingin Cooper’s well-dressed and well-behaved lay-figures.

In the delineation of female loveliness and excellence Cooper isgenerally supposed to have failed,—at least, comparativelyso. But in this respect full justice has hardly been done him; andthis may be explained by the fact that it was from the heroines ofhis earlier novels that this unfavorable judgment was drawn.Certainly, such sticks of barley-candy as Frances Wharton, CeciliaHoward, and Alice Munro justify the common impression. But it wouldbe as unfair to judge of what he can do in this department by hisacknowledged failures as it would be to form an estimate of thegenius of Michel Angelo from the easel-picture of the Virgin andChild in the Tribune at Florence. No man ever had a justerappreciation of, and higher reverence for, the worth of woman thanCooper. Towards women his manners were always marked by chivalrousdeference, blended as to those of his own household with the mostaffectionate tenderness. His own nature was robust, self-reliant,and essentially masculine: such men always honor women, but theyunderstand them better as they grow older. There is so muchfoundation for the saying, that men are apt to love their firstwives best, but to treat their second wives best. Thus the readerwho takes up his works in chronological order will perceive thatthe heroines of his later novels have more spirit and character,are drawn with a more discriminating touch, take stronger hold uponthe interest, than those of his earlier. Ursula Malbone is a finergirl than Cecilia Howard, or even Elizabeth Temple. So when he hasoccasion to delineate a woman who, from her position in life, orthe peculiar circumstances into which she is thrown, is moved bydeeper springs of feeling, is obliged to put forth sternerenergies, than are known to females reared in the sheltered air ofprosperity and civilization,—when he paints the heart ofwoman roused by great perils, overborne by heavy sorrows, wasted bystrong passions,—we recognize the same master-hand which hasgiven us such powerful pictures of character in the other sex. Inother words, Cooper is not happy in representing those shadowy anddelicate graces which belong exclusively to woman, and distinguishher from man; but he is generally successful in sketching in womanthose qualities which are found in both sexes. In “TheBravo,” Donna Violetta, the heroine, a rich and high-bornyoung lady, is not remarkable one way or the other; but Gelsomina,the jailer’s daughter, born in an inferior position, rearedin a sterner school of discipline and struggle, is a beautiful andconsistent creation, constantly showing masculine energy andendurance, yet losing nothing of womanly charm. Ruth, in “TheWept of the Wish-ton-Wish,” Hetty Hutter, the weak-minded andsound-hearted girl, in “The Deerslayer,” Mabel Dunham,and the young Indian woman, “Dew of June,” in“The Pathfinder,” are further cases in point. No onecan read the books in which these women are represented and saythat Cooper was wanting in the power of delineating the finest andhighest attributes of womanhood,

Cooper cannot be congratulated upon his success in the fewattempts he has made to represent historical personages.Washington, as shown to us in “The Spy,” is a formalpiece of mechanism, as destitute of vital character asMaelzel’s automaton trumpeter. This, we admit, was a verydifficult subject, alike from the peculiar traits of Washington,and from the reverence in which his name and memory are held by hiscountrymen. But the sketch, in “The Pilot,” of PaulJones, a very different person, and a much easier subject, ishardly better. In both cases, the failure arises from the fact thatthe author is constantly endeavoring to produce the legitimateeffect of mental and moral qualities by a careful enumeration ofexternal attributes. Harper, under which name Washington isintroduced, appears in only two or three scenes; but, during these,we hear so much of the solemnity and impressiveness of his manner,the gravity of his brow, the steadiness of his gaze, that we getthe notion of a rather oppressive personage, and sympathize withthe satisfaction of the Whartons, when he retires to his own room,and relieves them of his tremendous presence. Mr. Gray, who standsfor Paul Jones, is more carefully elaborated, but the result is farfrom satisfactory. We are so constantly told of his calmness andabstraction, of his sudden starts and bursts of feeling, of his lowvoice, of his fits of musing, that the aggregate impression is thatof affectation and self-consciousness, rather than of a simple,passionate, and heroic nature. Mr. Gray does not seem to us at alllike the rash, fiery, and dare-devil Scotchman of history. Hisconduct and conversation, as recounted in the fifth chapter of thenovel, are unnatural and improbable; and we cannot wonder that thefirst lieutenant did not know what to make of so melodramatic andsententious a gentleman, in the guise of a pilot.

Cooper, as we need hardly say, has drawn copiously upon Indianlife and character for the materials of his novels; and amongforeign nations much of his reputation is due to this fact.Civilized men and women always take pleasure in reading about themanners and habits of savage life; and those in whom the shows ofthings are submitted to the desires of the mind delight to investthem with those ideal qualities which they do not find, or thinkthey do not, in the artificial society around them. Cooper hadenjoyed no peculiar opportunities of studying by personalobservation the characteristics of the Indian race, but he hadundoubtedly read everything he could get hold of in illustration ofthe subject. No one can question the vividness and animation of hissketches, or their brilliant tone of color. He paints with a pencildipped in the glow of our sunset skies and the crimson of ourautumn maples. Whenever he brings Indians upon the stage, we may besure that scenes of thrilling interest are before us: that riflesare to crack, tomahawks to gleam, and arrows to dart like sunbeamsthrough the air; that a net of peril is to be drawn around his heroor heroine, from the meshes of which he or she is to be extricatedby some unexpected combination of fortunate circumstances. Weexpect a succession of startling incidents, and a rapid course ofnarrative without pauses or languid intervals. We do not object tohis idealizing his Indians: this is the privilege of the novelist,time out of mind. He may make them swift of foot, graceful inmovement, and give them a form like the Apollo’s; he may putas much expression as he pleases into their black eyes; he maytessellate their speech as freely as he will with poetical andfigurative expressions, drawn from the aspects of the externalworld: for all this there is authority, and chapter and verse maybe cited in support of it. But we have a right to ask that he shallnot transcend the bounds of reason and possibility, and representhis red men as moved by motives and guided by sentiments which arewholly inconsistent with the inexorable facts of the case. Weconfess to being a little more than skeptical as to the Indian ofpoetry and romance: like the German’s camel, he is evolvedfrom the depth of the writer’s own consciousness. The poettakes the most delicate sentiments and the finest emotions ofcivilization and cultivation, and grafts them upon the bestqualities of savage life; which is as if a painter should representan oak-tree bearing roses. The life of the North-American Indian,like that of all men who stand upon the base-line of civilization,is a constant struggle, and often a losing struggle, for meresubsistence. The sting of animal wants is his chief motive ofaction, and the full gratification of animal wants his highestideal of happiness. The “noble savage,” as sketched bypoets, weary of the hollowness, the insincerity, and the meannessof artificial life, is really a very ignoble creature, when seen inthe “open daylight” of truth. He is selfish, sensual,cruel, indolent, and impassive. The highest graces of character,the sweetest emotions, the finest sensibilities,—which makeup the novelist’s stock in trade,—are not and cannot bethe growth of a so-called state of Nature, which is an essentiallyunnatural state. We no more believe that Logan ever made the speechreported by Jefferson, in so many words, than we believe thatChatham ever made the speech in reply to Walpole which begins with,“The atrocious crime of being a young man”; though wehave no doubt that the reporters in both cases had something fineand good to start from. We accept with acquiescence, nay, withadmiration, such characters as Magua, Chingachgook, Susquesus,Tamenund, and Canonchet; but when we come to Uncas, in “TheLast of the Mohicans,” we pause and shake our heads withincredulous doubt. That a young Indian chief should fall in lovewith a handsome quadroon like Cora Munro—for she was neithermore nor less than that—is natural enough; but that he shouldmanifest his passion with such delicacy and refinement isimpossible. We include under one and the same name all theaffinities and attractions of sex, but the appetite of the savagediffers from the love of the educated and civilized man as much ascharcoal differs from the diamond. The sentiment of love, asdistinguished from the passion, is one of the last and best resultsof Christianity and civilization: in no one thing does savage lifediffer from civilized more than in the relations between man andwoman, and in the affections that unite them. Uncas is a gracefuland beautiful image; but he is no Indian.

We turn now to a more gracious part of our task, and proceed tosay something of the many striking excellences which distinguishCooper’s writings, and have given him such wide popularity.Popularity is but one test of merit, and not thehighest,—gauging popularity by the number of readers, at anyone time, irrespective of their taste and judgment. In this sense,“The Scottish Chiefs” and “Thaddeus ofWarsaw” were once as popular as any of the Waverley Novels.But Cooper’s novels have enduring merit, and will surely keeptheir place in the literature of the language. The manners, habits,and costumes of England have greatly changed during the lasthundred years; but Richardson and Fielding are still read. We mustexpect corresponding changes in this country during the nextcentury; but we may confidently predict that in the year 1962 youngand impressible hearts will be saddened at the fate of Uncas andCora, and exult when Captain Munson’s frigate escapes fromthe shoals.

A few pages back we spoke of Cooper’s want of skill in thestructure of his plots, and his too frequent recurrence toimprobable incidents to help on the course of his stories. But mostreaders care little about this defect, provided the writer betraysno poverty of invention, and succeeds in making his narrativesinteresting. Herein Cooper never lays himself open to thatinstinctive and unconscious criticism, which is the only kind anauthor need dread, because from it there is no appeal. It is bad tohave a play hissed down, but it is worse to have it yawned down.But over Cooper’s pages his readers never yawn. They neverbreak down in the middle of one of his stories. The fortunes of hischaracters are followed with breathless and accumulating interestto the end. In vain does the dinner-bell sound, or the clock strikethe hour of bed-time: the book cannot be laid down till we knowwhether Elizabeth Temple is to get out of the woods without beingburned alive, or solve the mystery that hangs over the life ofJacopo Frontoni. He has in ample measure that paramount andessential merit in a novelist of fertility of invention. Theresources of his genius, alike in the devising of incidents and thecreation of character, are inexhaustible. His scenes are laid onthe sea and in the forest,—in Italy, Germany, Switzerland,and Spain,—amid the refinements and graces of civilizationand the rudeness and hardships of frontier and pioneer life; buteverywhere he moves with an easy and familiar tread, andeverywhere, though there may be the motive and the cue for minutecriticism, we recognize the substantial truth of his pictures. Inall his novels the action is rapid and the movement animated: hisincidents may not be probable, but they crowd upon each other sothickly that we have not time to raise the question: before oneimpression has become familiar, the scene changes, and new objectsenchain the attention. All rapid motion is exhilarating alike tomind and body; and in reading Cooper’s novels we feel apleasure analogous to that which stirs the blood when we drive afast horse or sail with a ten-knot breeze. This fruitfulness in theinvention of incidents is nearly as important an element in thecomposition of a novelist as a good voice in that of a singer. Apowerful work of fiction may be produced by a writer who has notthis gift; but such works address a comparatively limited public.To the common mind no faculty in the novelist is so fascinating asthis. “Caleb Williams” is a story of remarkable power;but “Ivanhoe” has a thousand readers to its one.

In estimating novelists by the number and variety of characterswith which they have enriched the repertory of fiction,Cooper’s place, if not the highest, is very high. Thefruitfulness of his genius in this regard is kindred to itsfertility in the invention of incidents. We can pardon in aportrait-gallery of such extent here and there an ill-drawn figureor a face wanting in expression. With the exception of Scott, andperhaps of Dickens, what writer of prose fiction has created agreater number of characters such as stamp themselves upon thememory so that an allusion to them is well understood in cultivatedsociety? Fielding has drawn country squires, and Smollett has drawnsailors; but neither has intruded upon the domain of the other, norcould he have made the attempt without failure. Some of our livingnovelists have a limited list of characters; they have half a dozentypes which we recognize as inevitably as we do the face and voiceof an actor in the king, the lover, the priest, or the bandit: butCooper is not a mere mannerist, perpetually copying from himself.His range is very wide: it includes white men, red men, and blackmen,—sailors, hunters, and soldiers,—lawyers, doctors,and clergymen,—past generations and present,—Europeansand Americans,—civilized and savage life. All hisdelineations are not successful; some are even unsuccessful: butthe aberrations of his genius must be viewed in connection with theextent of the orbit through which it moves. The courage which ledhim to expose himself to so many risks of failure is itself a proofof conscious power.

Cooper’s style has not the ease, grace, and various powerof Scott’s,—or the racy, idiomatic character ofThackeray’s,—or the exquisite purity and transparencyof Hawthorne’s: but it is a manly, energetic style, in whichwe are sure to find good words, if not the best. It has certainwants, but it has no marked defects; if it does not always commandadmiration, it never offends. It has not the highest finish; itsometimes betrays carelessness: but it is the natural garb in whicha vigorous mind clothes its conceptions. It is the style of a manwho writes from a full mind, without thinking of what he is goingto say; and this is in itself a certain kind of merit. Hisdescriptive powers are of a high order. His love of Nature wasstrong; and, as is generally the case with intellectual men, itrather increased than diminished as he grew older. It was not themeditative and self-conscious love of a sensitive spirit, thatseeks in communion with the outward world a relief from the burdensand struggles of humanity, but the hearty enjoyment of a thoroughlyhealthy nature, the schoolboy’s sense of a holiday dwellingin a manly breast. His finest passages are those in which hepresents the energies and capacities of humanity in combinationwith striking or beautiful scenes in Nature. His genius, whichsometimes moves with “compulsion and laborious flight”when dealing with artificial life and the manners and speech ofcultivated men, and women, here recovers all its powers, and sweepsand soars with victorious and irresistible wing. The breeze fromthe sea, the fresh air and wide horizon of the prairies, thenoonday darkness of the forest are sure to animate his droopingenergies, and breathe into his mind the inspiration of a freshlife. Here he is at home, and in his congenial element: he is theswan on the lake, the eagle in the air, the deer in the woods. Theescape of the frigate, in the fifth chapter of “ThePilot,” is a well-known passage of this kind; and nothing canbe finer. The technical skill, the poetical feeling, the rapidityof the narrative, the distinctness of the details, the vividness ofthe coloring, the life, power, and animation which breathe and burnin every line, make up a combination of the highest order ofliterary merit. It is as good a sea-piece as the best ofTurner’s; and we cannot give it higher praise. We hear thewhistling of the wind through the rigging, and the roar of thepitiless sea, bellowing for its prey; we see the white caps of thewaves flashing with spectral light through the darkness, and thegallant ship whirled along like a bubble by the irresistiblecurrent; we hold our breath as we read of the expedients andmanoeuvres which most of us but half understand, and heave a longsigh of relief when the danger is past, and the ship reaches theopen sea. A similar passage, though of more quiet and gentlerbeauty, is the description of the deer-chase on the lake, in thetwenty-seventh chapter of “The Pioneers.” Indeed, thiswhole novel is full of the finest expressions of the author’sgenius. Into none of his works has he put more of the warmth ofpersonal feeling and the glow of early recollection. His own heartbeats through every line. The fresh breezes of the morning of lifeplay round its pages, and its unexhaled dew hangs upon them. It iscolored throughout with the rich hues of sympathetic emotion. Allthat is attractive in pioneer life is reproduced with substantialtruth; but the pictures are touched with those finer lights whichtime pours over the memories of childhood. With what spirit andpower all the characteristic incidents and scenes of a newsettlement are described,—pigeon-shooting, bass-fishing,deer-hunting, the making of maple-sugar, the turkey-shooting atChristmas, the sleighing-parties in winter! How distinctly hislandscapes are painted,—the deep, impenetrable forest, thegleaming lake, the crude aspect and absurd architecture of thenew-born village! How full of poetry in the ore is the conversationof Leatherstocking! The incongruities and peculiarities of sociallife which are the result of a sudden rush of population into thewilderness are also well sketched; though with a pencil less freeand vivid than that with which he paints the aspects of Nature andthe movements of natural man. As respects the structure of thestory, and the probability of the incidents, the novel is open tocriticism; but such is the fascination that hangs over it, that itis impossible to criticize. To do this would be as ungracious as tocorrect the language and pronunciation of an old friend who revivesby his conversation the fading memories of school-boy and collegelife.

Cooper would have been a better writer, if he had had more ofthe quality of humor, and a keener sense of the ridiculous; forthese would have saved him from his too frequent practice ofintroducing both into his narrative and his conversations, but moreoften into the latter, scraps of commonplace morality, and bits ofsentiment so long worn as to have lost all their gloss. In general,his genius does not appear to advantage in dialogue. His charactershave not always a due regard to the brevity of human life. Theymake long speeches, preach dull sermons, and ventilate veryself-evident propositions with great solemnity of utterance. Theirdiscourse wants not only compression, but seasoning. They aresometimes made to talk in such a way that the force of caricaturecan hardly go farther. For instance, in “The Pioneers,”Judge Temple, coming into a room in his house, and seeing a fire ofmaple-logs, exclaims to Richard Jones, his kinsman andfactotum,—“How often have I forbidden the use of thesugar-maple in my dwelling! The sight of that sap, as itexudes with the heat, is painful to me, Richard.”And in another place, he is made to say to hisdaughter,—“Remember the heats of July, my daughter; norventure farther than thou canst retrace before themeridian.” We may be sure that no man of woman born, infinding fault about the burning of maple-logs, ever talked of thesap’s “exuding”; or, when giving a daughter acaution against walking too far, ever translated getting homebefore noon into “retracing before the meridian.” Thisis almost as bad as Sir Piercie Shafton’s calling the cows“the milky mothers of the herds.”

So, too, a lively perception of the ludicrous would have savedCooper from certain peculiarities of phrase and awkwardnesses ofexpression, frequently occurring in his novels, such as mighteasily slip from the pen in the rapidity of composition, but whichwe wonder should have been overlooked in the proof-sheet. A fewinstances will illustrate our meaning. In the elaborate descriptionof the personal charms of Cecilia Howard, in the tenth chapter of“The Pilot,” we are told of “a small hand whichseemed to blush at its own naked beauties.” In“The Pioneers,” speaking of the head and brow of OliverEdwards, he says,—“The very air and manner with whichthe member haughtily maintained itself over the coarse andeven wild attire,” etc. In “The Bravo,” weread,—“As the stranger passed, his glitteringorgans rolled over the persons of the gondolier and hiscompanion,” etc.; and again, in the samenovel,—“The packet was received calmly, though theorgan which glanced at its seal,” etc. In “TheLast of the Mohicans,” the complexion of Cora appears“charged with the color of the rich blood that seemedready to burst its bounds.” These are but trivialfaults; and if they had not been so easily corrected, it would havebeen hypercriticism to notice them.

Every author in the department of imaginative literature,whether of prose or verse, puts more or less of his personal traitsof mind and character into his writings. This is very true ofCooper; and much of the worth and popularity of his novels is to beascribed to the unconscious expressions and revelations they giveof the estimable and attractive qualities of the man. Bryant, inhis admirably written and discriminating biographical sketch,originally pronounced as a eulogy, and now prefixed to“Precaution” in Townsend’s edition, relates thata distinguished man of letters, between whom and Cooper an unhappycoolness had for some time existed, after reading “ThePathfinder,” remarked,—“They may say what theywill of Cooper, the man who wrote this book is not only a greatman, but a good man.” This is a just tribute; and theimpression thus made by a single work is confirmed by all.Cooper’s moral nature was thoroughly sound, and all his moralinstincts were right. His writings show in how high regard he heldthe two great guardian virtues of courage in man and purity inwoman. In all his novels we do not recall a single expression ofdoubtful morality. He never undertakes to enlist our sympathies onthe wrong side. If his good characters are not always engaging, henever does violence to virtue by presenting attractive qualities incombination with vices which in real life harden the heart andcoarsen the taste. We do not find in his pages those moral monstersin which the finest sensibilities, the richest gifts, the noblestsentiments are linked to heartless profligacy, or not lessheartless misanthropy. He never palters with right; he enters intono truce with wrong; he admits of no compromise on such points. Howadmirable in its moral aspect is the character of Leatherstocking!he is ignorant, and of very moderate intellectual range or grasp;but what dignity, nay, even grandeur, is thrown around him from hisnoble moral qualities,—his undeviating rectitude, hisdisinterestedness, his heroism, his warm affections! No writercould have delineated such a character so well who had not aninstinctive and unconscious sympathy with his intellectualoffspring. Praise of the same kind belongs to Long Tom Coffin, andAntonio, the old fisherman. The elements of character—truth,courage, and affection—are the same in all. Harvey Birch andJacopo Frontoni are kindred conceptions: both are in a falserelation to those around them; both assume a voluntary load ofobloquy; both live and move in an atmosphere of suspicion anddistrust; but in both the end sanctifies and exalts the means; theelement of deception in both only adds to the admiration finallyawakened. The carrying out of conceptions like these—thedelineation of a character that perpetually weaves a web ofuntruth, and yet through all maintains our respect, and at lastsecures our reverence—was no easy task; but Cooper’ssuccess is perfect.

Cooper was fortunate in having been born with a vigorousconstitution, and in having kept through life the blessing ofrobust health. He never suffered from remorse of the stomach orprotest of the brain; and his writings are those of a man whoalways digested his dinner and never had a headache. His novels,like those of Scott, are full of the breeze and sunshine of health.They breathe of manly tastes, active habits, sound sleep, a relishfor simple pleasures, temperate enjoyments, and the retention inmanhood of the fresh susceptibilities of youth. His genius isthoroughly masculine. He is deficient in acute perception, indelicate discrimination, in fine analysis, in the skill to seizeand arrest exceptional peculiarities; but he has in large measurethe power to present the broad characteristics of universalhumanity. It is to this power that he owes his wide popularity. Atthis moment, in every public and circulating library in England orAmerica, the novels of Cooper will be found to be in constantdemand. He wrote for the many, and not for the few; he hit thecommon mind between wind and water; a delicate and fastidiousliterary appetite may not be attracted to his productions, but thehealthy taste of the natural man finds therein food alikeconvenient and savory.

In a manly, courageous, somewhat impulsive nature likeCooper’s we should expect to find prejudices; and he was aman of strong prejudices. Among others, was an antipathy to thepeople of New England. His characters, male and female, arefrequently Yankees, but they are almost invariably caricatures;that is, they have all the unamiable characteristics andunattractive traits which are bestowed upon the people of NewEngland by their ill-wishers. Had he ever lived among them, withhis quick powers of observation and essentially kindly judgment ofmen and life, he could not have failed to correct hismisapprehensions, and to perceive that he had taken the reverseside of the tapestry for the face.

Cooper, with a very keen sense of injustice, conscious ofinexhaustible power, full of vehement impulses, and not largelyendowed with that safe quality called prudence, was a man likely toget involved in controversies. It was his destiny, and he nevercould have avoided it, to be in opposition to the dominant publicsentiment around him. Had he been born in Russia, he could hardlyhave escaped a visit to Siberia; had he been born in Austria, hewould have wasted some of his best years in Spielberg. Under adespotic government he would have been a vehement Republican; in aCatholic country he would have been the most uncompromising ofProtestants. He had full faith in the institutions of his owncountry; and his large heart, hopeful temperament, and robust soulmade him a Democrat; but his democracy had not the least tinge ofradicalism. He believed that man had a right to govern himself, andthat he was capable of self-government; but government, thesubordination of impulse to law, he insisted upon as rigorously asthe veriest monarchist or aristocrat in Christendom. He would haveno authority that was not legitimate; but he would tolerate noresistance to legitimate authority. All his sentiments, impulses,and instincts were those of a gentleman; and vulgar manners, coarsehabits, and want of respect for the rights of others were highlyoffensive to him. When in Europe, he resolutely, and at no littleexpense of time and trouble, defended America from unjustimputations and ignorant criticism; and when at home, with equalcourage and equal energy, he breasted the current of public Opinionwhere he deemed it to be wrong, and resisted those most formidableinvasions of right, wherein the many combine to oppress the one.His long controversy with the press was too important an episode inhis life to be passed over by us without mention; though our limitswill not permit us to make anything more than a passing allusion toit. The opinion which will be formed upon Cooper’s course inthis matter will depend, in a considerable degree, upon thetemperament of the critic. Timid men, cautious men, men who lovetheir ease, will call him Quixotic, rash, imprudent, to engage in acontroversy in which he had much to lose and little to gain; butthe reply to such suggestions is, that, if men always took counselof indolence, timidity, and selfishness, no good would ever beaccomplished, and no abuses ever be reformed. Cooper may not havebeen judicious in everything he said and did; but that he was rightin the main, both in motive and conduct, we firmly believe. Heacted from a high sense of duty; there was no alloy ofvindictiveness or love of money in the impulses which moved him.Criticism the most severe and unsparing he accepted as perfectlyallowable, so long as it kept within the limits of literaryjudgment; but any attack upon his personal character, especiallyany imputation or insinuation involving a moral stain, he would notsubmit to. He appealed to the laws of the land to vindicate hisreputation and punish his assailants. Long and gallant was thewarfare he maintained,—a friendless, solitarywarfare,—and all the hydra-heads of the press hissing andejaculating their venom upon him,—with none to stand by hisside and wish him God-speed. But he persevered, and, what is more,he succeeded: that, is to say, he secured all the substantialfruits of success. He vindicated the principle for which hecontended: he compelled the newspapers to keep within the pale ofliterary criticism; he confirmed the saying of President Jackson,that “desperate courage makes one a majority.”

Two of his novels, “Homeward Bound” and “Homeas Found,” bear a strong infusion of the feelings which ledto his contest with the press. After the publication of these, hebecame much interested in the well-known Anti-Rent agitation bywhich the State of New York was so long shaken; and three of hisnovels, “Satanstoe,” “The Chainbearer,” and“The Redskins,” forming one continuous narrative, werewritten with reference to this subject. Many professednovel-readers are, we suspect, repelled from these books, partlybecause of this continuity of the story, and partly because theycontain a moral; but we assure them, that, if on these grounds theypass them by, they lose both pleasure and profit. They are writtenwith all the vigor and spirit of his prime; they have many powerfulscenes and admirably drawn characters; the pictures of coloniallife and manners in “Satanstoe” are animated anddelightful; and in all the legal and ethical points for which theauthor contends he is perfectly right. In his Preface to “TheChainbearer” he says,—“In our view, New York isat this moment a disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from thefact that her laws are trampled under foot, without anyefforts—at all commensurate with the object—being madeto enforce them.” That any commonwealth is a disgraced Stateagainst which such charges can with truth be made no one will deny;and any one who is familiar with the history of that wretchedbusiness will agree, that, at the time it was made, the charge wasnot too strong. Who can fail to admire the courage of the man whoventured to write and print such a judgment as the above against aState of which he was a native, a citizen, and a resident, and inwhich the public sentiment was fiercely the other way? Here, too,Cooper’s motives were entirely unselfish: he had almost nopecuniary interest in the question of Anti-Rentism; he wrote all inhonor, unalloyed by thrift. His very last novel, “The Ways ofthe Hour,” is a vigorous exposition of the defects of thetrial by jury in cases where a vehement public sentiment hasalready tried the question, and condemned the prisoner. The storyis improbable, and the leading character is an impossible being;but the interest is kept up to the end,—it has many mostimpressive scenes,—it abounds with shrewd and soundobservations upon life, manners, and politics,—and all thelegal portion is stamped with an acuteness and fidelity to truthwhich no professional reader can note without admiration.

Cooper’s character as a man is the more admirable to usbecause it was marked by strong points which are not common in ourcountry, and which the institutions of our country do not foster.He had the courage to defy the majority: he had the courage toconfront the press: and not from the sting of ill-success, not frommortified vanity, not from wounded self-love, but from an heroicsense of duty. How easy a life might he have purchased by the cheapvirtues of silence, submission, and acquiescence! Booksellers wouldhave enriched him; society would have caressed him; politicaldistinction would have crowned him: he had only to watch the courseof public sentiment, and so dispose himself that he should seem tolead where he only followed, and all comfortable things would havebeen poured into his lap. But he preferred to breast the stream, tospeak ungrateful truths. He set a wholesome example in thisrespect; none the less valuable because so few have had themanliness and self-reliance to imitate him. More than twenty yearsago De Tocqueville said,—“I know of no country in whichthere is so little true independence of mind and freedom ofdiscussion as in America”: words which we fear are not lesstrue to-day than when they were written. Cooper’s dauntlesscourage would have been less admirable, had he been hard, cold,stern, and impassive: but he was none of these. He was full of warmaffections, cordial, sympathetic, and genial; he had awoman’s tenderness of heart; he was the most faithful offriends; and in his own home no man was ever more gentle, gracious,and sweet. The blows he received fell upon a heart that felt themkeenly; but he bared his breast none the less resolutely to thecontest because it was not protected by an armor ofinsensibility.

But we must bring this long paper to a close. We cannot give toit the interest which comes from personal recollections. We sawCooper once, and but once. This was the very year before he died,in his own home, and amid the scenes which his genius has madeimmortal. It was a bright midsummer’s day, and we walkedtogether about the village, and around the shores of the lake overwhich the canoe of Indian John had glided. His own aspect was assunny as that of the smiling heavens above us; age had not touchedhim with its paralyzing finger: his vigorous frame, elastic step,and animated glance gave promise of twenty years more of energeticlife. His sturdy figure, healthy face, and a slight bluffness ofmanner reminded one more of his original profession than of thelife and manners of a man of letters. He looked like a man who hadlived much in the open air,—upon whom the rain had fallen,and against whom the wind had blown. His conversation was hearty,spontaneous, and delightful from its frankness and fulness, but itwas not pointed or brilliant; you remembered the healthy ring ofthe words, but not the words themselves. We recollect, that, as wewere standing together on the shores of the lake,—shoreswhich are somewhat tame, and a lake which can claim no higherepithet than that of pretty,—he said: “I suppose itwould be patriotic to say that this is finer than Como, but we knowthat it is not.” We found a chord of sympathy in our commonimpressions of the beauty of Sorrento, about which, and hisresidence there, he spoke with contagious animation. Who could havethought that that rich and abundant life was so near its close?Nothing could be more thoroughly satisfying than the impression heleft in this brief and solitary interview. His air and movementrevealed the same manly, brave, true-hearted, warm-hearted man thatis imaged in his books. Grateful are we for the privilege of havingseen, spoken with, and taken by the hand the author of “ThePathfinder” and “The Pilot”: “it is apleasure to have seen a great man.” Distinctly through thegathering mists of years do his face and form rise up before themind’s eye: an image of manly self-reliance, of frankcourage, of generous impulse; a frank friend, an open enemy; a manwhom many misunderstood, but whom no one could understand withouthonoring and loving.

PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA.

LOVE AND SKATES.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

A KNOT AND A MAN TO CUT IT.

Consternation! Consternation in the back office of BenjaminBrummage, Esq., banker in Wall Street.

Yesterday down came Mr. Superintendent Whiffler, fromDunderbunk, up the North River, to say, that, “unlesssomething be done, at once, the Dunderbunk Foundry andIron-Works must wind up.” President Brummage forthwithconvoked his Directors. And here they sat around the green table,forlorn as the guests at a Barmecide feast.

Well they might be forlorn! It was the rosy summer solstice, thelongest and fairest day of all the year. But rose-color andsunshine had fled from Wall Street. Noisy Crisis towing blackPanic, as a puffing steam-tug drags a three-decker cocked andprimed for destruction, had suddenly sailed in upon Credit.

As all the green inch-worms vanish on the tenth of every June,so on the tenth of that June all the money in America had burieditself and was as if it were not. Everybody and everything wasready to fail. If the hindmost brick went, down would go the wholefile.

There were ten Directors of the Dunderbunk Foundry.

Now, not seldom, of a Board of ten Directors, five are wise andfive are foolish: five wise, who bag all the Company’s fundsin salaries and commissions for indorsing its paper; five foolish,who get no salaries, no commissions, no dividends,—nothing,indeed, but abuse from the stockholders, and the reputation ofthieves. That is to say, five of the ten are pick-pockets; theother five, pockets to be picked.

It happened that the Dunderbunk Directors were all honest andfoolish but one. He, John Churm, honest and wise, was off at theWest, with his Herculean shoulders at the wheels of a dead-lockedrailroad. These honest fellows did not wish Dunderbunk to fail forseveral reasons. First, it was not pleasant to lose theirinvestment. Second, one important failure might betray Credit toCrisis with Panic at its heels, whereupon every investment would bein danger. Third, what would become of their Directorialreputations? From President Brummage down, each of these gentlemenwas one of the pockets to be picked in a great many companies. Eachwas of the first Wall-Street fashion, invited to lend his name andtake stock in every new enterprise. Any one of them might havewalked down town in a long patchwork toga made of the newspaperadvertisements of boards in which his name proudly figured. IfDunderbunk failed, the toga was torn, and might presently go torags beyond repair. The first rent would inaugurate universalrupture. How to avoid this disaster?—that was thequestion.

“State the case, Mr. Superintendent Whiffler,” saidPresident Brummage, in his pompous manner, with its pomp a littlecollapsed, pro tempore.

Inefficient Whiffler whimpered out his story.

The confessions of an impotent executive are sorry stuff toread. Whiffler’s long, dismal complaint shall not berepeated. He had taken a prosperous concern, had carried on thingsin his own way, and now failure was inevitable. He had bought rawmaterial lavishly, and worked it badly into half-ripe material,which nobody wanted to buy. He was in arrears to his hands. He hadtried to bully them, when they asked for their money. They hadinsulted him, and threatened to knock off work, unless they werepaid at once. “A set of horrid ruffians,” Whifflersaid,—“and his life wouldn’t be safe many daysamong them.”

“Withdraw, if you please, Mr. Superintendent,”President Brummage requested. “The Board will discussmeasures of relief.”

The more they discussed, the more consternation. Nobody saidanything to the purpose, except Mr. Sam Gwelp, his latefather’s lubberly son and successor.

“Blast!” said he; “we shall have to let itslide!”

Into this assembly of imbeciles unexpectedly entered Mr. JohnChurm. He had set his Western railroad trains rolling, and was justreturned to town. Now he was ready to put those Herculean shouldersat any other bemired and rickety no-go-cart.

Mr. Churm was not accustomed to be a Director in feeblecompanies. He came into Dunderbunk recently as executor of hisfriend Damer, a year ago bored to death by a silly wife.

Churm’s bristly aspect and incisive manner made him asharp contrast to Brummage. The latter personage was flabby inflesh, and the oppressively civil counter-jumper style of his youthhad grown naturally into a deportment of most imposingpomposity.

The Tenth Director listened to the President’s recitativeof their difficulties, chorused by the Board.

“Gentlemen,” said Director Churm, “you wanttwo things. The first is Money!”

He pronounced this cabalistic word with such magic power thatall the air seemed instantly filled with a cheerful flight of goldAmerican eagles, each carrying a double eagle on its back and asilver dollar in its claws; and all the soil of America seemed tosprout with coin, as after a shower a meadow sprouts with theyellow buds of the dandelion.

“Money! yes, Money!” murmured the Directors.

It seemed a word of good omen, now.

“The second thing,” resumed the newcomer, “isa Man!”

The Directors looked at each other and did not see such abeing.

“The actual Superintendent of Dunderbunk is adunderhead,” said Churm.

“Pun!” cried Sam Gwelp, waking up from a snooze.

Several of the Directors, thus instructed, started acomplimentary laugh.

“Order, gentlemen! Orrderr!” said the President,severely, rapping with a paper-cutter.

“We must have a Man, not a Whiffler!” Churmcontinued. “And I have one in my eye.”

Everybody examined his eye.

“Would you be so good as to name him?” said OldBrummage, timidly.

He wanted to see a Man, but feared the strange creature might bedangerous.

“Richard Wade,” says Churm. They did not know him.The name sounded forcible.

“He has been in California,” the nominator said.

A shudder ran around the green table. They seemed to see afrowzy desperado, shaggy as a bison, in a red shirt and jackboots,hung about the waist with an assortment of six-shooters andbowie-knives, and standing against a background of mustangs,monte-banks, and lynch-law.

“We must get Wade,” Churm says, with authority.“He knows Iron by heart. He can handle Men. I will back himwith my blank check, to any amount, to his order.”

Here a murmur of applause, swelling to a cheer, burst from theDirectors.

Everybody knew that the Geological Bank deemed Churm’sdeposits the fundamental stratum of its wealth. They lay there inthe vaults, like underlying granite. When hot times came, theyboiled up in a mountain to buttress the world.

Churm’s blank check seemed to wave in the air like anoriflamme of victory. Its payee might come from Botany Bay; hemight wear his beard to his knees, and his belt stuck full ofhowitzers and boomerangs; he might have been repeatedly hung byVigilance Committees, and as often cut down and revived bygalvanism; but brandishing that check, good for anything less thana million, every Director in Wall Street was his slave, his friend,and his brother.

“Let us vote Mr. Wade in by acclamation,” cried theDirectors.

“But, gentlemen,” Churm interposed, “if I givehim my blank check, he must have carte blanche, and no oneto interfere in his management.”

Every Director, from President Brummage down, drew a long faceat this condition.

It was one of their great privileges to potter in the Dunderbunkaffairs and propose ludicrous impossibilities.

“Just as you please,” Churm continued. “I namea competent man, a gentleman and fine fellow. I back him with allthe cash he wants. But he must have his own way. Now take him, orleave him!”

Such despotic talk had never been heard before in thatDirectors’ Room. They relucted a moment. But they thought oftheir togas of advertisements in danger. The blank check shook itsblandishments before their eyes.

“We take him,” they said, and Richard Wade was thenew Superintendent unanimously.

“He shall be at Dunderbunk to take hold to-morrowmorning,” said Churm, and went off to notify him.

Upon this, Consternation sailed out of the hearts of Brummageand associates.

They lunched with good appetites over the green table, and thePresident confidently remarked,—

“I don’t believe there is going much of a crisis,after all.”

CHAPTER II.

BARRACKS FOR THE HERO.

Wade packed his kit, and took the Hudson-River train forDunderbunk the same afternoon.

He swallowed his dust, he gasped for his fresh air, he wept overhis cinders, he refused his “lozengers,” he was admiredby all the pretty girls and detested by all the puny men in thetrain, and in good time got down at his station.

He stopped on the platform to survey the land—andwater-privileges of his new abode.

“The June sunshine is unequalled,” he soliloquized,“the river is splendid, the hills are pretty, and theHighlands, north, respectable; but the village has gone to seed.Place and people look lazy, vicious, and ashamed. I suppose thosechimneys are my Foundry. The smoke rises as if the furnaces wereill-fed and weak in the lungs. Nothing, I can see, looks alive,except that queer little steamboat coming in,—the ‘I.Ambuster,’—jolly name for a boat!”

Wade left his traps at the station, and walked through thevillage. All the gilding of a golden sunset of June could not makeit anything but commonplace. It would be forlorn on a gray day, andutterly dismal in a storm.

“I must look up a civilized house to lodge in,”thought the stranger. “I cannot possibly camp at the tavern.Its offence is rum, and smells to heaven.”

Presently our explorer found a neat, white, two-story, home-likeabode on the upper street, overlooking the river.

“This promises,” he thought. “Here are roseson the porch, a piano, or at least a melodeon, by theparlor-window, and they are insured in the Mutual, as theMutual’s plate announces. Now, if that nice-looking person inblack I see setting a table in the back-room is a widow, I willcamp here.”

Perry Purtett was the name on the door, and opposite the sign ofan omnium-gatherum country-store hinted that Perry wasdeceased. The hint was a broad one. Wade read, “Ringdove,Successor to late P. Purtett.”

“It’s worth a try to get in here out of the paganbarbarism around. I’ll propose—as a lodger—to thewidow.”

So said Wade, and rang the bell under the roses. A pretty, slim,delicate, fair-haired maiden answered.

“This explains the roses and the melodeon,” thoughtWade, and asked, “Can I see your mother?”

Mamma came. “Mild, timid, accustomed to depend on the latePerry, and wants a friend,” Wade analyzed, while he bowed. Heproposed himself as a lodger.

“I didn’t know it was talked of generally,”replied the widow, plaintively; “but I have said that we feltlonesome, Mr. Purtett bein’ gone, and if the newminister”—

Here she paused. The cut of Wade’s jib was unclerical. Hedid not stoop, like a new minister. He was not pallid, meagre, andclad in unwholesome black, like the same. His bronzed face wasfrank and bold and unfamiliar with speculations on Original Sin orTotal Depravity.

“I am not the new minister,” said Wade, smilingslightly over his moustache; “but a new Superintendent forthe Foundry.”

“Mr. Whiffler is goin’?” exclaimed Mrs.Purtett.

She looked at her daughter, who gave a little sob and ran out ofthe room.

“What makes my daughter Belle feel bad,” says thewidow, “is, that she had a friend,—well, it isn’ttoo much to say that they was as good as engaged,—and he wasforeman of the Foundry finishin’-shop. But somehow Whifflerspoilt him, just as he spoils everything he touches; and lastwinter, when Belle was away, William Tarbox—that’s hisname, and his head is runnin’ over with inventions—tookto spreein’ and liquor, and got ashamed of himself, and letdown from a foreman to a hand, and is all the while lettin’down lower.”

The widow’s heart thus opened, Wade walked in as consoler.This also opened the lodgings to him. He was presently installed inthe large and small front-rooms up-stairs, unpacking his traps, andmaking himself permanently at home.

Superintendent Whiffler came over, by-and-by, to see hissuccessor. He did not like his looks. The new man should havelooked mean or weak or rascally, to suit the outgoer.

“How long do you expect to stay?” asks Whiffler,with a half-sneer, watching Wade hanging a map and a printvis-à-vis.

“Until the men and I, or the Company and I, cannot pulltogether.”

“I’ll give you a week to quarrel with both, andanother to see the whole concern go to everlasting smash. And now,if you’re ready, I’ll go over the accounts with you andprove it.”

Whiffler himself, insolent, cowardly, and a humbug, if not aswindler, was enough, Wade thought, to account for any failure. Buthe did not mention this conviction.

CHAPTER III.

HOW TO BEHEAD A HYDRA!

At ten next morning, Whiffler handed over the safe-key to Wade,and departed to ruin some other property, if he could get one toruin. Wade walked with him to the gate.

“I’m glad to be out of a sinking ship,” saidthe ex-boss. “The Works will go down, sure as shooting. And Ithink myself well out of the clutches of these men. They’re abullying, swearing, drinking set of infernal ruffians. Foremen arejust as bad as hands. I never felt safe of my life with‘em.”

“A bad lot, are they?” mused Wade, as he returned tothe office. “I must give them a little sharp talk by way ofInaugural.”

He had the bell tapped and the men called together in the mainbuilding.

Much work was still going on in an inefficient, unsystematicway.

While hot fires were roaring in the great furnaces, smoke rosefrom the dusty beds where Titanic castings were cooling. Greatcranes, manacled with heavy chains, stood over the furnace-doors,ready to lift steaming jorums of melted metal, and pour out, hotand hot, for the moulds to swallow.

Raw material in big heaps lay about, waiting for the fire toripen it. Here was a stack of long, rough, rusty pigs, clumsy asthe shillelabs of the Anakim. There was a pile of short, thickmasses, lying higgledy-piggledy, stuff from the neighboring mines,which needed to be crossed with foreign stock before it could be ofmuch use in civilization.

Here, too, was raw material organized: a fly-wheel, large enoughto keep the knobbiest of asteroids revolving without a wabble; across-head, cross-tail, and piston-rod, to help a great sea-goingsteamer breast the waves; a light walking-beam, to whirl thepaddles of a fast boat on the river; and other members of machines,only asking to be put together and vivified by steam and they wouldgo at their work with a will.

From the black rafters overhead hung the heavy folds of a dimatmosphere, half dust, half smoke. A dozen sunbeams, forcing theirway through the grimy panes of the grimy upper windows, found thiscompound quite palpable and solid, and they moulded out of it aseries of golden bars set side by side aloft, like the pipes of anorgan out of its perpendicular.

Wade grew indignant, as he looked about him and saw so much goodstuff and good force wasting for want of a little will and skill totrain the force and manage the stuff. He abhorred bankruptcy andchaos.

“All they want here is a head,” he thought.

He shook his own. The brain within was well developed withhealthy exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like awithered kernel, or sound soft like a rotten one. It was avigorous, muscular brain. The owner felt that he could trust it foran effort, as he could his lungs for a shout, his legs for a leap,or his fist for a knock-down argument.

At the tap of the bell, the “bad lot” of men cametogether. They numbered more than two hundred, though the Foundrywas working short. They had been notified that “that gonophof a Whiffler was kicked out, and a new feller was in, who lookedcranky enough, and wanted to see ‘em and tell ‘emwhether he was a damn’ fool or not.”

So all hands collected from the different parts of the Foundryto see the head.

They came up with easy and somewhat swaggering bearing,—agood many roughs, with here and there a ruffian. Several, as theyapproached, swung and tossed, for mere overplus of strength, thesledges with which they had been tapping at the bald shiny pates oftheir anvils. Several wielded their long pokers like lances.

Grimy chaps, all with their faces streaked, like Blackfeet intheir warpaint. Their hairy chests showed, where some men paradeelaborate shirt-bosoms. Some had their sleeves pushed up to theelbow to exhibit their compact flexors and extensors. Some hadrolled their flannel up to the shoulder, above the bulging musclesof the upper arm. They wore aprons tied about the neck, like thebibs of our childhood,—or about the waist, like thecoquettish articles which young housewives affect. But there was nocoquetry in these great flaps of leather or canvas, and they werebesmeared and rust-stained quite beyond any bib that ever sufferedunder bread-and-molasses or mud-pie treatment.

They lounged and swaggered up, and stood at ease, not withoutrough grace, in a sinuous line, coiled and knotted like asnake.

Ten feet back stood the new Hercules who was to take down thatHydra’s two hundred crests of insubordination.

They inspected him, and he them as coolly. He read and ticketedeach man, as he came up,—good, bad, or on thefence,—and marked each so that he would know him among amyriad.

The Hands faced the Head. It was a question whether the twohundred or the one would be master in Dunderbunk.

Which was boss? An old question.

It has to be settled whenever a new man claims power, and thereis always a struggle until it is fought out by main force of brainor muscle.

Wade had made up his mind on this subject. He waited a momentuntil the men were still. He was a Saxon six-footer of thirty. Hestood easily on his pins, as if he had eyed men and facts before.His mouth looked firm, his brow freighted, his noseclipper,—that the hands could see. But clipper noses are notalways backed by a stout hull. Seemingly freighted brows sometimescarry nothing but ballast and dunnage. The firmness may be all inthe moustache, while the mouth hides beneath, a mere silly slit.All which the hands knew.

Wade began, short and sharp as a trip-hammer, when it has a barto shape.

“I’m the new Superintendent. Richard Wade is myname. I rang the bell because I wanted to see you and have you seeme. You know as well as I do that these Works are in a bad way.They can’t stay so. They must come up and pay you regularwages and the Company profits. Every man of you has got to be hereon the spot when the bell strikes, and up to the mark in his work.You haven’t been,—and you know it. You’ve turnedout rotten iron,—stuff that any honest shop would be ashamedof. Now there’s to be a new leaf turned over here.You’re to be paid on the nail; but you’ve got to earnyour money. I won’t have any idlers or shirkers or rebelsabout me. I shall work hard myself, and every man of you will, orhe leaves the shop. Now, if anybody has a complaint to make,I’ll hear him before you all.”

The men were evidently impressed with Wade’s Inaugural. Itmeant something. But they were not to be put down so easily, afterlong misrule. There began to be a whisper,—

“B’il in, Bill Tarbox! and talk up tohim!”

Presently Bill shouldered forward and faced the new ruler.

Since Bill took to drink and degradation, he had been thebutt-end of riot and revolt at the Foundry. He had had his own waywith Whiffler. He did not like to abdicate and give in to this newchap without testing him.

In a better mood, Bill would have liked Wade’s looks andwords; but today he had a sore head, a sour face, and a bitterheart from last night’s spree. And then he had heard—itwas as well known already in Dunderbunk as if the town-crier hadcried it—that Wade was lodging at Mrs. Purtett’s, wherepoor Bill was excluded. So Bill stepped forward as spokesman of theruffianly element, and the immoral force gathered behind and backedhim heavily.

Tarbox, too, was a Saxon six-footer of thirty. But he had saggedone inch for want of self-respect. He had spoilt his color and dyedhis moustache. He wore foxy-black pantaloons tucked into red-toppedboots, with the name of the maker on a gilt shield. His red flannelshirt was open at the neck and caught with a black handkerchief.His damaged tile was in permanent crape for the late lamentedPoole.

“We allow,” says Bill, in a tone halfway betweenLablache’s De profundis and a burglar’sbull-dog’s snarl, “that we’ve did our work asgood as need to be did. We ‘xpect we know our rights. Weha’n’t ben treated fair, and I’m damned ifwe’re go’n’ to stan’ it.”

“Stop!” says Wade. “No swearing in thisshop!”

“Who the Devil is go’n’ to stop it?”growled Tarbox.

“I am. Do you step back now, and let some one come out whocan talk like a gentleman!”

“I’m damned if I stir till I’ve had my sayout,” says Bill, shaking himself up and lookingdangerous.

“Go back!”

Wade moved close to him, also looking dangerous.

“Don’t tech me!” Bill threatened, squaringoff.

He was not quick enough. Wade knocked him down flat on a heap ofmoulding-sand. The hat in mourning for Poole found its place in apuddle.

Bill did not like the new Emperor’s method of compellingkotou. Round One of the mill had not given him enough.

He jumped up from his soft bed and made a vicious rush at Wade.But he was damaged by evil courses. He was fighting against law andorder, on the side of wrong and bad manners.

The same fist met him again, and heavier.

Up went his heels! Down went his head! It struck the ragged edgeof a fresh casting, and there he lay stunned and bleeding on hishard black pillow.

“Ring the bell to go to work!” said Wade, in a tonethat made the ringer jump. “Now, men, take hold and do yourduty and everything will go smooth!”

The bell clanged in. The line looked at its prostrate champion,then at the new boss standing there, cool and brave, and not afraidof a regiment of sledge-hammers.

They wanted an Executive. They wanted to be well governed, asall men do. They wanted disorder out and order in. The new manlooked like a man, talked fair, hit hard. Why not all hands give inwith a good grace and go to work like honest fellows?

The line broke up. The hands went off to their duty. And therewas never any more insubordination at Dunderbunk.

This was June.

Skates in the next chapter.

Love in good time afterward shall glide upon the scene.

CHAPTER IV.

A CHRISTMAS GIFT.

The pioneer sunbeam of next Christmas morning rattled over theDunderbunk hills, flashed into Richard Wade’s eyes, wakedhim, and was off, ricochetting across the black ice of theriver.

Wade jumped up, electrified and jubilant. He had gone to bed,feeling quite too despondent for so healthy a fellow. ChristmasEve, the time of family-meetings, reminded him how lonely he was.He had not a relative in the world, except two littlenieces,—one as tall as his knee, the other almost up to hiswaist; and them he had safely bestowed in a nook of New England, togain wit and virtues as they gained inches.

“I have had a stern and lonely life,” thought Wade,as he blew out his candle last night, “and what has itprofited me?”

Perhaps the pioneer sunbeam answered this question with atruism, not always as applicable as in this case,—“Abrave, able, self-respecting manhood is fair profit for anyman’s first thirty years of life.”

But, answered or not, the question troubled Wade no more. Heshot out of bed in tip-top spirits; shouted “MerryChristmas!” at the rising disk of the sun; looked over theblack ice; thrilled with the thought of a long holiday for skating;and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough clothes, singing,“Ah, non giunge!” as he slid into them.

Presently, glancing from his south window, he observed severalmatinal smokes rising from the chimneys of a country-house a mileaway, on a slope fronting the river.

“Peter Skerrett must be back from Europe at last,”he thought. “I hope he is as fine a fellow as he was tenyears ago. I hope marriage has not made him a muff, and wealth aweakling.”

Wade went down to breakfast with an heroic appetite. His“Merry Christmas” to Mrs. Purtett was followed up by aravished kiss and the gift of a silver butter-knife. The good widowdid not know which to be most charmed with. The butter-knife wasgenuine, shining, solid silver, with her initials, M.B.P., MarthaBilsby Purtett, given in luxuriant flourishes; but then the kisshad such a fine twang, such an exhilarating titillation! The latePerry’s kisses, from first to last, had wanted point. Theywere, as the Spanish proverb would put it, unsavory as unsaltedeggs, for want of a moustache. The widow now perceived, with mildregret, how much she had missed when she married “a man allshaven and shorn.” Her cheek, still fair, though forty,flushed with novel delight, and she appreciated her lodger morethan ever.

Wade’s salutation to Belle Purtett was more distant. Theremust be a little friendly reserve between a handsome young man anda pretty young woman several grades lower in the social scale,living in the same house. They were on the most cordial terms,however; and her gift—of course embroideredslippers—and his to her—of course “TheIllustrated Poets,” in Turkey morocco—were exchangedwith tender good-will on both sides.

“We shall meet on the ice, Miss Belle,” said Wade.“It is a day of a thousand for skating.”

“Mr. Ringdove says you are a famous skater,” Bellerejoined. “He saw you on the river yesterdayevening.”

“Yes; Tarbox and I were practising to exhibit to-day; butI could not do much with my dull old skates.”

Wade breakfasted deliberately, as a holiday morning allowed, andthen walked down to the Foundry. There would be no work doneto-day, except by a small gang keeping up the fires. TheSuperintendent wished only to give his First Semi-Annual Report anhour’s polishing, before he joined all Dunderbunk on theice.

It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto, “Peace onearth, good-will to men.” The air was electric, the sunoverflowing with jolly shine, the river smooth and sheeny from thehither bank to the snowy mountains opposite.

“I wish I were Rembrandt, to paint this grand shadowyinterior,” thought Wade, as he entered the silent, desertedFoundry. “With the gleam of the snow in my eyes, it looksdeliciously warm and chiaroscuro. When the men are hereand ‘fervet opus,’—the potboils,—I cannot stop to see the picturesque.”

He opened his office, took his Report and began to complete itwith ,s, ;s, and .s in the right places.

All at once the bell of the Works rang out loud and clear.Presently the Superintendent became aware of a tramp and a bustlein the building. By-and-by came a tap at the office-door.

“Come in,” said Wade, and, enter young PerryPurtett.

Perry was a boy of fifteen, with hair the color of freshsawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look.Ringdove, his father’s successor, could never teach Perry thesmirk, the grace, and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boyhad found his place in the finishing-shop of the Foundry.

“Some of the hands would like to see you for half a jiff,Mr. Wade,” said he. “Will you come along, if youplease?”

There was a good deal of easy swagger about Perry, as there isalways in boys and men whose business is to watch the lunging ofsteam-engines. Wade followed him. Perry led the way with a jauntyair that said,—

“Room here! Out of the way, you lubberly bits ofcast-iron! Be careful, now, you big derricks, or I’ll walkright over you! Room now for Me and My suite!”

This pompous usher conducted the Superintendent to the very spotin the main room of the Works where, six months before, theInaugural had been pronounced and the first Veto spoken andenacted.

And there, as six months before, stood the Hands awaiting theirHead. But the aprons, the red shirts, and the grime of working-dayswere off, and the whole were in holiday rig,—as black andsmooth and shiny from top to toe as the members of a Congress ofUndertakers.

Wade, following in the wake of Perry, took his stand facing therank, and waited to see what he was summoned for. He had not longto wait.

To the front stepped Mr. William Tarbox, foreman of thefinishing-shop, no longer a boy, but an erect, fine-looking fellow,with no nitrate in his moustache, and his hat permanently out ofmourning for the late Mr. Poole.

“Gentlemen,” said Bill, “I move that thismeeting organize by appointing Mr. Smith Wheelwright Chairman. Asmany as are in favor of this motion, please to say‘Aye.’”

“Aye!” said the crowd, very loud and big. And thenevery man looked at his neighbor, a little abashed, as if hehimself had made all the noise.

“This is a free country,” continues Bill.“Every woter has a right to a fair shake. Contrary minds,‘No.’”

No contrary minds. The crowd uttered a great silence. Every manlooked at his neighbor, surprised to find how well they agreed.

“Unanimous!” Tarbox pronounced. “No fractiousminorities here, to block the wheels oflegislation!”

The crowd burst into a roar at this significant remark, and,again abashed, dropped portcullis on its laughter, cutting off theflanks and tail of the sound.

“Mr. Purtett, will you please conduct the Chairman to theChair,” says Bill, very stately.

“Make way here!” cried Perry, with the manner of aman seven feet high. “Step out now, Mr. Chairman!”

He took a big, grizzled, docile-looking fellow patronizingly bythe arm, led him forward, and chaired him on a large cylinder-head,in the rough, just hatched out of its mould.

“Bang away with that, and sing out,‘Silence!’” says the knowing boy, handingWheelwright an iron bolt, and taking his place beside him, asprompter.

The docile Chairman obeyed. At his breaking silence by hooting“Silence!” the audience had another mighty bob-tailedlaugh.

“Say, ‘Will some honorable member state the objectof this meeting?’” whispered the prompter.

“Will some honorable mumbler state the subject of this‘ere meetin’?” says Chair, a little bashful andconfused.

Bill Tarbox advanced, and, with a formal bow, began,—

“Mr. Chairman”—

“Say, ‘Mr. Tarbox has the floor,’” pipedPerry.

“Mr. Tarbox has the floor,” diapasoned theChair.

“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen”—Bill began, andstopped.

“Say, ‘Proceed, Sir!’” suggested Perry,which the senior did, magnifying the boy’s whisper a dozentimes.

Again Bill began and stopped.

“Boys,” said he, dropping grandiloquence,“when I accepted the office of Orator of the Day at ourprimary, and promised to bring forward our Resolutions in honor ofMr. Wade with my best speech, I didn’t think I was going tohave such a head of steam on that the walves would get stuck andthe piston jammed and I couldn’t say a word.

“But,” he continued, warming up, “when I thinkof the Indian powwow we had in this very spot six monthsago,—and what a mean bloat I was, going to the stub-tail dogswith my hat over my eyes,—and what a hard lot we were allround, livin’ on nothing but argee whiskey, and rampin’off on benders, instead of makin’ good iron,—and howthe Works was flat broke,—and how Dunderbunk was full ofwomen crying over their husbands and mothers ashamed of theirsons,—boys, when I think how things was, and see how theyare, and look at Mr. Wade standing there like a”—

Bill hesitated for a comparison.

“Like a thousand of brick,” Perry Purtett suggested,sotto voce.

The Chairman took this as a hint to himself.

“Like a thousand of brick,” he said, with the voiceof a Stentor.

Here the audience roared and cheered, and the Orator got a freshstart.

“When you came, Mr. Wade,” he resumed, “we wasabout sick of putty-heads and sneaks that didn’t know enoughor didn’t dare to make us stand round and bone in. You walkedin, b’ilin’ over with grit. You took hold as if youbelonged here. You made things jump like a two-headed tarrier. Allwe wanted was a live man, to say, ‘Here, boys, all togethernow! You’ve got your stint, and I’ve got mine.I’m boss in this shop,—but I can’t do the firstthing, unless every man pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is onthe throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke the fires,hook on, and let’s yank her through with awill!’”

At this figure the meeting showed a tendency to cheer.“Silence!” Perry sternly suggested.“Silence!” repeated the Chair.

“Then,” continued the Orator, “youwasn’t one of the uneasy kind, always fussin’ andcussin’ round. You wasn’t always spyin’ to see wedidn’t take home a cross-tail or a hundred-weight ofcast-iron in our pants’ pockets, or go to swiggin’ hotmetal out of the ladles on the sly.”

Here an enormous laugh requited Bill’s joke. Perryprompted, the Chair banged with his bolt and cried,“Order!”

“Well, now, boys,” Tarbox went on, “what hascome of having one of the right sort to be boss? Why, this. TheWorks go ahead, stiddy as the North River. We work full time andfull-handed. We turn out stuff that no shop needs to be ashamed of.Wages is on the nail. We have a good time generally. How is that,boys,—Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen?”

“That’s so!” from everybody.

“And there’s something better yet,” Billresumed. “Dunderbunk used to be full of crying women.They’ve stopped crying now.”

Here the whole assemblage, Chairman and all, burst into anirrepressible cheer.

“But I’m making my speech as long as alightning-rod,” said the speaker. “I’ll put onthe brakes, short. I guess Mr. Wade understands pretty well, now,how we feel; and if he don’t, here it all is in shape, inthis document, with ‘Whereas’ at the top and‘Resolved’ entered along down in five places. Mr.Purtett, will you hand the Resolutions to theSuperintendent?”

Perry advanced and did his office loftily, much to the amusementof Wade and the workmen.

“Now,” Bill resumed, “we wanted, besides, tomake you a little gift, Mr. Wade, to remember the day by. So we gotup a subscription, and every man put in his dime. Here’s thepresent,—hand ‘em over, Perry!

“There, Sir, is THE BEST PAIR OF SKATES to be had in YorkCity, made for work, and no nonsense about ‘em. We Dunderbunkboys give ‘em to you, one for all, and hope you’ll like‘em and beat the world skating, as you do in all the thingswe’ve knowed you try.

“Now, boys,” Bill perorated, “before I retireto the shades of private life, I motion we give ThreeCheers—regular Toplifters—for Richard Wade!”

“Hurrah! Wade and Good Government!” “Hurrah!Wade and Prosperity!” “Hurrah! Wade and theWomen’s Tears Dry!”

Cheers like the shout of Achilles! Wielding sledges is good forthe bellows, it appears. Toplifters! Why, the smoky black raftersoverhead had to tug hard to hold the roof on. Hurrah! From everycorner of the vast building came back rattling echoes. The Works,the machinery, the furnaces, the stuff, all had their voice to addto the verdict.

Magnificent music! and our Anglo-Saxon is the only race in theworld civilized enough to join in singing it. We are the onlyhurrahing people,—the only brood hatched in a“Hurrah’s nest.”

Silence restored, the Chairman, prompted by Perry, said,“Gentlemen, Mr. Wade has the floor for a fewremarks.”

Of course Wade had to speak, and did. He would not have been anAmerican in America else. But his heart was too full to say morethan a few hearty and earnest words of good feeling.

“Now, men,” he closed, “I want to get away onthe river and see if my skates will go as they look; so I’llend by proposing three cheers for Smith Wheelwright, our Chairman,three for our Orator, Tarbox, three for OldDunderbunk,—Works, Men, Women, and Children; and one bigcheer for Old Father Iron, as rousing a cheer as ever wasroared.”

So they gave their three times three with enormous enthusiasm.The roof shook, the furnaces rattled, Perry Purtett banged with theChairman’s hammer, the great echoes thundered through theFoundry.

And when they ended with one gigantic cheer for IRON, tough andtrue, the weapon, the tool, and the engine of allcivilization,—it seemed as if the uproar would never ceaseuntil Father Iron himself heard the call in his smithy away underthe magnetic pole, and came clanking up, to return thanks inperson.

CHAPTER V.

SKATING AS A FINE ART.

Of all the plays that are played by this playful world on itsplay-days, there is no play like Skating.

To prepare a board for the moves of this game of games, a panelfor the drawings of this Fine Art, a stage for theentrechats and pirouettes of its graceful adepts,Zero, magical artificer, had been, for the last two nights, slidingat full speed up and down the North River.

We have heard of Midas, whose touch made gold, and of the virginunder whose feet sprang roses; but Zero’s heels and toes werearmed with more precious influences. They left a diamond way, wherethey slid,—a hundred and fifty miles of diamond, half a milewide and six inches thick.

Diamond can only reflect sunlight; ice can contain it.Zero’s product, finer even than diamond, was filled—atthe rate of a million to the square foot—with bubblesimmeasurably little, and yet every one big enough to comprise theentire sun in small, but without alteration or abridgment. When thesun rose, each of these wonderful cells was ready to catch the tipof a sunbeam and house it in a shining abode.

Besides this, Zero had inlaid its work, all along shore, withexquisite marquetry of leaves, brown and evergreen, of sprays andtwigs, reeds and grasses. No parquet in any palace fromFontainebleau to St. Petersburg could show such delicate patterns,or could gleam so brightly, though polished with all the wax inChristendom.

On this fine pavement, all the way from Cohoes to SpuytenDuyvil, Jubilee was sliding without friction, the Christmas morningof these adventures.

Navigation was closed. Navigators had leisure. The sloops andschooners were frozen in along shore, the tugs and barges were laidup in basins, the floating palaces were down at New York,deodorizing their bar-rooms, regilding their bridal chambers, andenlarging their spittoon accommodations alow and aloft, for nextsummer. All the population was out on the ice, skating, sliding,sledding, slipping, tumbling, to its heart’s content.

One person out of every Dunderbunk family was of course at home,roasting Christmas turkey. The rest were already at high jinks onZero’s Christmas present, when Wade and the men came down,from the meeting.

Wade buckled on his new skates in a jiffy. He stamped to settlehimself, and then flung off half a dozen circles on the right leg,half a dozen with the left, and the same with either legbackwards.

The ice, traced with these white peripheries, showed like ablackboard where a school has been chalking diagrams of Euclid, topoint at with the “slow unyielding finger” ofdemonstration.

“Hurrah!” cries Wade, halting in front of the men,who, some on the Foundry wharf, some on the deck of our firstacquaintance at Dunderbunk, the tug “L Ambuster,” wereputting on their skates or watching him, “Hurrah! the skatesare perfection! Are you ready, Bill?”

“Yes,” says Tarbox, whizzing off rings, as exact asGiotto’s autograph.

“Now, then,” Wade said, “we’ll giveDunderbunk a laugh, as we practised last night.”

They got under full headway, Wade backwards, Bill forwards,holding hands. When they were near enough to the merry throng outin the stream, both dropped into a sitting posture, with the leftknee bent, and each with his right leg stretched out parallel tothe ice and fitting compactly by the other man’s leg. In thisqueer figure they rushed through the laughing crowd.

Then all Dunderbunk formed a ring, agog for a grand show of

SKATING AS A FINE ART.

The world loves to see Great Artists, and expects them to dotheir duty.

It is hard to treat of this Fine Art by the Art of Fine Writing.Its eloquent motions must be seen.

To skate Fine Art, you must have a Body and a Soul, each of theFirst Order; otherwise you will never get out of coarse art andskating in one syllable. So much for yourself, the motive power.And your machinery,—your smooth-bottomed rockers, the sameshape stem and stern,—this must be as perfect as the man itmoves, and who moves it.

Now suppose you wish to skate so that the critics will say,“See! this athlete docs his work as Church paints, as Darleydraws, as Palmer chisels, as Wittier strikes the lyre, andLongfellow the dulcimer; he is as terse as Emerson, as clever asHolmes, as graceful as Curtis; he is as calm as Seward, as keen asPhillips, as stalwart as Beecher; be is Garibaldi, he is KitCarson, he is Blondin; he is as complete as the steamboatMetropolis, as Steers’s yacht, as Singer’ssewing-machine, as Colt’s revolver, as the steam-plough, asCivilization.” You wish to be so ranked among the people andthings that lead the age;—consider the qualities you musthave, and while you consider, keep your eye on Richard Wade, for hehas them all in perfection.

First,—of your physical qualities. You must have lungs,not bellows; and an active heart, not an assortment of sluggishauricles and ventricles. You must have legs, not shanks. Theirshape is unimportant, except that they must not interfere at theknee. You must have muscles, not flabbiness; sinews like wire;nerves like sunbeams; and a thin layer of flesh to cushion thegable-ends, where you will strike, if you tumble,—which, oncefor all be it said, you must never do. You must be allmomentum, and no inertia. You must be one partgrace, one force, one agility, and the rest caoutchouc, Manilahemp, and watch-spring. Your machine, your body, must be thoroughlyobedient. It must go just so far and no farther. You have got to beas unerring as a planet holding its own, emphatically, betweenforces centripetal and centrifugal. Your aplomb must be asabsolute as the pounce of a falcon.

So much for a few of the physical qualities necessary to be aGreat Artist in Skating. See Wade, how be shows them!

Now for the moral and intellectual. Pluck is the first;—italways is the first quality. Then enthusiasm. Then patience. Thenpertinacity. Then a fine aesthetic faculty,—in short, goodtaste. Then an orderly and submissive mind, that can consent to actin accordance with the laws of Art. Circumstances, too, must havebeen reasonably favorable. That well-known skeptic, the King oftropical Bantam, could not skate, because he had never seen ice anddoubted even the existence of solid water. Widdrington, after theBattle of Chevy Chace, could not have skated, because he had nolegs,—poor fellow!

But granted the ice and the legs, then if you begin in theelastic days of youth, when cold does not sting, tumbles do notbruise, and duckings do not wet; if you have pluck and ardor enoughto try everything; if you work slowly ahead and stick to it; if youhave good taste and a lively invention; if you are a man, and not alubber;—then, in fine, you may become a Great Skater, just aswith equal power and equal pains you may put your grip on any kindof Greatness.

The technology of skating is imperfect. Few of the great feats,the Big Things, have admitted names. If I attempted to catalogueWade’s achievements, this chapter might become anunintelligible rhapsody. A sheet of paper and a pen-point cannotsupply the place of a sheet of ice and a skate-edge. Geometry musthave its diagrams, Anatomy its corpus to carve. Skatingalso refuses to be spiritualized into a Science; it remains an Art,and cannot be expressed in a formula.

Skating has its Little Go, its Great Go, its Baccalaureate, itsM.A., its F.S.D., (Doctor of Frantic Skipping,) its A.G.D., (Doctorof Airy Gliding,) its N.T.D., (Doctor of No Tumbles,) and finallyits highest degree, U.P. (Unapproachable Podographer).

Wade was U.P.

There were a hundred of Dunderbunkers who had passed theirLittle Go and could skate forward and backward easily. Ahalf-hundred, perhaps, were through the Great Go; these could doouter edge freely. A dozen had taken the Baccalaureate, and wereproudly repeating the pirouettes and spread-eagles of that degree.A few could cross their feet, on the edge, forward and backward,and shift edge on the same foot, and so were MagistriArtis.

Wade, U.P., added to these an indefinite list of combinationsand fresh contrivances. He spun spirals slow, and spirals neck ornothing. He pivoted on one toe, with the other foot cutting rings,inner and outer edge, forward and back, He skated on one footbetter than the M.A.s could on both. He ran on his toes; he slid onhis heels; he cut up shines like a sunbeam on a bender; he swung,light as if he could fly, if he pleased, like a wing-footedMercury; he glided as if will, not muscle, moved him; he tore aboutin frenzies; his pivotal leg stood firm, his balance leg flappedlike a graceful pinion; he turned somersets; he jumped, whirlingbackward as he went, over a platoon of boys laid flat on theice;—the last boy winced, and thought he was amputated; butWade flew over, and the boy still holds together as well as mostboys. Besides this, he could write his name, with a flourish at theend, like the rubrica of a Spanish hidalgo. Hecould podograph any letter, and multitudes of ingenious curlicueswhich might pass for the alphabets of the unknown tongues. He couldnot tumble.

It was Fine Art.

Bill Tarbox sometimes pressed the champion hard. But Billstopped just short of Fine Art, in High Artisanship.

How Dunderbunk cheered this wondrous display! How delighted thewhole population was to believe they possessed the best skater onthe North River! How they struggled to imitate! How they tumbled,some on their backs, some on their faces, some with dignity likethe dying Caesar, some rebelliously like a cat thrown out of agarret, some limp as an ancient acrobate! How they laughed atthemselves and at each other!

“It’s all in the new skates,” says Wade,apologizing for his unapproachable power and finish.

“It’s suthin’ in the man,” says SmithWheelwright.

“Now chase me, everybody,” said Wade.

And, for a quarter of an hour, he dodged the merry crowd, untilat last, breathless, he let himself be touched by pretty BellePurtett, rosiest of all the Dunderbunk bevy of rosy maidens on theice.

“He rayther beats Bosting,” says Captain IsaacAmbuster to Smith Wheelwright. “It’s so cold there thatthey can skate all the year round; but he beats them, all thesame.”

The Captain was sitting in a queer little bowl of a skiff on thedeck of his tug, and rocking it like a cradle, as he talked.

“Bosting’s always hard to beat in anything,”rejoined the ex-Chairman. “But if Bosting is to be beat,here’s the man to do it.”

And now, perhaps, gentle reader, you think I have said enough inbehalf of a limited fraternity, the Skaters.

The next chapter, then, shall take up the cause of the Lovers, amore numerous body, and we will see whether True Love, which nevermakes “smooth running,” can help its progress by askate-blade.

CHAPTER VI.

“GO NOT, HAPPY DAY, TILL THE MAIDEN YIELDS.”

Christmas noon at Dunderbunk. Every skater was in gallopingglee,—as the electric air, and the sparkling sun, and theglinting ice had a right to expect that they all should be.

Belle Purtett, skating simply and well, had never looked sopretty and graceful. So thought Bill Tarbox.

He had not spoken to her, nor she to him, for more than sixmonths. The poor fellow was ashamed of himself and penitent for hispast bad courses. And so, though he longed to have his old flamerecognize him again, and though he was bitterly jealous andmiserably afraid he should lose her, he had kept away and consumedhis heart like a true despairing lover.

But to-day Bill was a lion, only second to Wade, theunapproachable lion-in-chief. Bill was reinstated in public esteem,and had won back his standing in the Foundry. He had to-day made aspeech which Perry Purtett gave everybody to understand “noneof Senator Bill Seward’s could hold the tallow to.”Getting up the meeting and presenting Wade with the skates wasBill’s own scheme, and it had turned out an eminent success.Everything began to look bright to him. His past life drifted outof his mind like the rowdy tales he used to read in the Sundaynewspapers.

He had watched Belle Purtett all the morning, and saw that shedistinguished nobody with her smiles, not even that coq duvillage, Ringdove. He also observed that she was furtivelywatching him.

By-and-by she sailed out of the crowd, and went off a little wayto practise.

“Now,” said he to himself, “sail in, BillTarbox!”

Belle heard the sharp strokes of a powerful skater coming afterher. Her heart divined who this might be. She sped away like theswift Camilla, and her modest drapery showed just enough and“ne quid nimis” of her ankles.

Bill admired the grace and the ankles immensely. But his hopessank a little at the flight,—for he thought she perceived hischase and meant to drop him. Bill had not bad a classicaleducation, and knew nothing of Galatea in the Eclogue,—howshe did not hide, until she saw her swain was looking fondlyafter.

“She wants to get away,” he thought “But shesha’n’t,—no, not if I have to follow her toAlbany.”

He struck out mightily. Presently the swift Camilla let herselfbe overtaken.

“Good morning, Miss Purtett.” (Dogged air.)

“Good morning, Mr. Tarbox.” (Taken-by-surpriseair.)

“I’ve been admiring your skating,” says Bill,trying to be cool.

“Have you?” rejoins Belle, very cool anddistant.

“Have you been long on the ice?” he inquired,hypocritically.

“I came on two hours ago with Mr. Ringdove and thegirls,” returned she, with a twinkle which said, “Takethat, Sir, for pretending you did not see me.”

“You’ve seen Mr. Wade skate, then,” Bill said,ignoring Ringdove.

“Yes; isn’t it splendid?” Belle replied,kindling.

“Tip-top!”

“But then he does everything better thananybody.”

“So he does!” Bill said,—true to his friend,and yet beginning to be jealous of this enthusiasm. It was not thefirst time he had been jealous of Wade; but he had quelled hisfears, like a good fellow.

Belle perceived Bill’s jealousy, and could have cried forjoy. She had known as little of her once lover’s heart as heof hers. She only knew that he stopped coming to see her when hefell, and had not renewed his visits now that he was risen again.If she had not been charmingly ruddy with the brisk air andexercise, she would have betrayed her pleasure at Bill’sjealousy with a fine blush.

The sense of recovered power made her wish to use it again. Shemust tease him a little. So she continued, as they skated on ingood rhythm,—

“Mother and I wouldn’t know what to do without Mr.Wade. We like him so much,”—said ardently.

What Bill feared was true, then, he thought. Wade, noble fellow,worthy to win any woman’s heart, had fascinated hislandlady’s daughter.

“I don’t wonder you like him,” said he.“He deserves it.”

Belle was touched by her old lover’s forlorn tone.

“He does indeed,” she said. “He has helped andtaught us all so much. He has taken such good care of Perry. Andthen”—here she gave her companion a little look and alittle smile—“he speaks so kindly of you, Mr.Tarbox.”

Smile, look, and words electrified Bill. He gave such a springon his skates that he shot far ahead of the lady. He broughthimself back with a sharp turn.

“He has done kinder than he can speak,” says Bill.“He has made a man of me again, Miss Belle.”

“I know it. It makes me very happy to hear you able to sayso of yourself.” She spoke gravely.

“Very happy”—about anything that concernedhim? Bill had to work off his overjoy at this by an exuberantflourish. He whisked about Belle,—outer edge backward. Shestopped to admire. He finished by describing on the virgin ice,before her, the letters B.P., in his neatest style ofpodography,—easy letters to make, luckily.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Belle. “What are thoseletters? Oh! B.P.! What do they stand for?”

“Guess!”

“I’m so dull,” said she, looking bright as adiamond. “Let me think! B.P.? British Poets,perhaps.”

“Try nearer home!”

“What are you likely to be thinking of that begins withB.P.?—Oh, I know! Boiler Plates!”

She looked at him,—innocent as a lamb. Bill looked at her,delighted with her little coquetry. A woman without coquetry isinsipid as a rose without scent, as Champagne without bubbles, oras corned beef without mustard.

“It’s something I’m thinking of most of thetime,” says he; “but I hope it’s softer thanBoiler Plates. B.P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett.”

“Oh!” says Belle, and she skated on in silence.

“You came down with Alonzo Ringdove?” Bill asked,suddenly, aware of another pang after a moment of peace.

“He came with me and his sisters,” she replied.

Yes; poor Ringdove had dressed himself in his shiniest black,put on his brightest patent-leather boots, with his new swan-neckedskates newly strapped over them, and wore his new dove-coloredovercoat with the long skirts, on purpose to be lovely in the eyesof Belle on this occasion. Alas, in vain!

“Mr. Ringdove is a great friend of yours, isn’the?”

“If you ever came to see me now, you would know who myfriends are, Mr. Tarbox.”

“Would you be my friend again, if I came, MissBelle?”

“Again? I have always been so,—always,Bill.”

“Well, then, something more than my friend,—now thatI am trying to be worthy of more, Belle?”

“What more can I be?” she said, softly.

“My wife.”

She curved to the right. He followed. To the left. He was not tobe shaken off.

“Will you promise me not to say walves instead ofvalves, Bill?” she said, looking pretty and saucy ascould be. “I know, to say W for V is fashionable in the ironbusiness; but I don’t like it.”

“What a thing a woman is to dodge!” says Bill.“Suppose I told you that men brought up inside of boilers,hammering on the inside against twenty hammering like Wulcans onthe outside, get their ears so dumfounded that they can’ttell whether they are saying valves or walves,wice or virtue,—suppose I told youthat,—what would you say, Belle?”

“Perhaps I’d say that you pronounce virtueso well, and act it so sincerely, that I can’t make anyobjection to your other words. If you’d asked me to be yourvife, Bill, I might have said I didn’t understand;but wife I do understand, and I say”—

She nodded, and tried to skate off. Bill stuck close to herside.

“Is this true, Belle?” he said, almostdoubtfully.

“True as truth!”

She put out her hand. He took it, and they skated ontogether,—hearts beating to the rhythm of their movements.The uproar and merriment of the village came only faintly to them.It seemed as if all Nature was hushed to listen to their plightedtroth, their words of love renewed, more earnest for longsuppression. The beautiful ice spread before them, like their lifeto come, a pathway untouched by any sorrowful or weary footstep.The blue sky was cloudless. The keen air stirred the pulses likethe vapor of frozen wine. The benignant mountains westward kindlysurveyed the happy pair, and the sun seemed created to warm andcheer them.

“And you forgive me, Belle?” said the lover.“I feel as if I had only gone bad to make me know how muchbetter going right is.”

“I always knew you would find it out. I never stoppedhoping and praying for it.”

“That must have been what brought Mr. Wadehere.”

“Oh, I did hate him so, Bill, when I heard of somethingthat happened between you and him! I thought him a brute and atyrant. I never could get over it, until he told mother that youwere the best machinist he ever knew, and would some time grow tobe a great inventor.”

“I’m glad you hated him. I suffered rattlesnakes andcollapsed flues for fear you’d go and love him.”

“My affections were engaged,” she said, with simpleseriousness.

“Oh, if I’d only thought so long ago! How lovely youare!” exclaims Bill, in an ecstasy. “And how refined!And how good! God bless you!”

He made up such a wishful mouth,—so wishful for one of thepleasurable duties of mouths, that Belle blushed, laughed, andlooked down, and as she did so saw that one of her straps wastrailing.

“Please fix it, Bill,” she said, stopping andkneeling.

Bill also knelt, and his wishful mouth immediately took itschance.

A manly smack and sweet little feminine chirp sounded as theirlips met.

Boom! twanging gay as the first tap of a marriage-bell, a loudcrack in the ice rang musically for leagues up and down the river.“Bravo!” it seemed to say. “Well done, BillTarbox! Try again!” Which the happy fellow did, and the happymaiden permitted.

“Now,” said Bill, “let us go and hug Mr.Wade!”

“What! Both of us?” Belle protested. “Mr.Tarbox, I am ashamed of you!”

LIGHT LITERATURE.

Though the smallest boulder is heavy, and even the merest pebblehas a perceptible weight, yet the entire planet, toward which bothgravitate, floats more lightly than any feather. In literaturesomewhat analogous may be observed. Here also are found theinsignificant lightness of the pebble and the mighty lightness ofthe planet; while between them range the weighty masses, superiorto the petty ponderability of the one, and unequal to thefirmamental float of the other. Accordingly, setting out from themote-and-pebble extreme, you find, that, up to a certain point,increasing values of thought are commonly indicated by increasinggravity, by more and more of state-paper weightiness; but beyondthis the rule is reversed, and lightness becomes the sign andmeasure of excellence. Bishop Butler and RichardHooker—especially the latter, the first book of whose“Ecclesiastical Polity” is a truly noble piece ofwriting—stand, perhaps, at the head of the weighty class ofwriters in our language; but going beyond these to the“Areopagitica” of Milton, or even to the powerful proseof Raleigh, you pass the boundary-line, and are touched with thebuoyant influences of the Muse. Shakspeare and Plato are lighterthan levity; they are lifting forces, and weigh less thannothing. The novelette of the season, or any finest and flimsiestgossamer that is fabricated in our literary looms, compares with“Lear,” with “Prometheus Bound,” with anysupreme work, only as cobwebs and thistle-down, that are easilyborne by the breeze, may compare with sparrows and thrushes, thatcan fly and withal sing.

There is a call for “light reading,” and I for oneapplaud the demand. A lightening influence is the best that booksor men can bestow upon us. Information is good, but invigoration isa thousand times better. Cheer, cheer and vigor for theworld’s heart! It is because man’s hope is so low, andhis imaginations so poor, that he is earthly and evil. Wings forthese unfledged hearts! Transformation for these grubs! Give usanimation, inspiration, joy, faith! Give us enlivening, lightsomeairs, to which our souls shall, on a sudden, begin to dance,keeping step with the angels! What else is worth having? Each oneof these sordid sons of men—is he not a new-born Apollo, whowaits only for the ambrosia from Olympus, to spring forth indivineness of beauty and strength?

Nevertheless, I know not of any reading so hopelessly heavy aslarge portions of that which claims the name of light. Lightwriting it may be; but, considered as reading, one would be unjustto charge upon it any lack of avoirdupois. It is like the bran ofwheat, which, though of little weight in the barrel, is heavyenough in the stomach,—Dr. Sylvester Graham to the contrarynotwithstanding. It is related of an Italian culprit, that, beingrequired, in punishment of his crime, to make choice between lyingin prison for a term of years and reading the history ofGuicciardini, he chose the latter, but, after a brief trial,petitioned for leave to reverse his election. I never attemptedGuicciardini; but I did once attempt Pope’s“Dunciad.” And was it really the doom of a generationof readers to find delight in this book? One must suppose so. Thereare those in our day whose hard fate it is to read and to likeJames’s and Bulwer’s novels. But greatly mistaken isthe scholar who, for relief from severe studies, goes to an emptyor insincere book. It is like saying money, after large and worthyexpenditures, by purchasing at a low price that which is worthnothing,—buying “gold” watches at a mock-auctionroom.

Indeed, no book, however witty, lively, saltatory, can have thevolant effects we covet, if it want substance and seriousness.Substance, however, is to be widely distinguished fromponderability. Oxygen is not so ponderous as lead or granite, butit is far more substantial than either, and, as every one knows,infinitely more serviceable to life. The distinction is equallyvalid when applied to books and to men. The “airynothings” of imagination prove to be the most enduringsomethings of the world’s literature; and the last lightnessof heart may go with the purest truth of soul and the most preciousvirtue of intelligence. All expressions carry the perpetual savorsof their origin; and as brooks that dance and frolic with thesunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted forever, will yetbear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills, so anybubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthysoul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of themerriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted.And as airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, soit is an effect very similar to that of noble and significant mirththat is produced upon us by the grandest pieces of serious writing.Thus, he who rightly reads the “Phaedon” or“Phaedrus” of Plato smiles through all the depths ofhis brain, though no pronounced smile show on his face; and he whorightly reads the book of Cervantes, though the laughters plunge,as it were, in cascades from his lips, is earnest at heart, andfull of sound and tender meditations.

If now, setting aside all books, whether pretending to gayety orgravity, that are simply empty and ineffectual, we inquire for theprime distinction between books light in a worthy and unworthysense, it will appear to be the distinction between inspiration andalcohol,—between effects divinely real and effects illusoryand momentary. The drunkard dreams of flying, and fancies the starsthemselves left below him, while he is really lying in the gutter.There are those, and numbers of those, who in reading seek no morethan to be cheated in a similar way. Indeed, to acknowledge adisagreeable fact, there is a very great deal of reading in our daythat is simply a substitute for the potations and“heavy-handed revel” of our Saxon ancestors. In bothcases it is a spurious exaltation of feeling that is sought; inboth cases those who for a moment seem to themselves larksascending to meet the sun are but worms eating earth.

This celestial lightness, which constitutes the last praise andcauses the purest benefit of books, comes not of any manner ofwriting; no mere vivacity, though that of a French writer ofmemoirs, though that of Arsène Houssaye himself, can compassit; by no knack or talents is it to be attained. Perfect style has,indeed, many allurements, and is of exceeding price; but it is nochariot of Elijah, nevertheless. Was ever style more delightful, ofits kind, than Dryden’s? Was ever style more heavy andmonotonous than that of Swedenborg in his theological works? But Ihave read Dryden, not indeed without pleasure in his masterlyexquisite ease and sureness of statement and his occasional touchesof admirable good sense, yet with no slightest liberation ofspirit, with no degree, greater or less, of that magical andmarvellous evocation, of inward resource, whose blessed surprisenow and then in life makes for us angelic moments, and feelinglypersuades us that our earth also is a star and in the sky. On theother hand, I once read Swedenborg’s “Angelic Wisdomconcerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom” with suchenticement, such afflatus, such quickening and heightening of soul,as I cannot describe without seeming excessive. Until half throughthe book, I turned every page with the feeling that before anotherpage I might see the chasm between the real and phenomenal worldsfairly bridged over. Of course, it disappointed me in the end; butwhat of that? To have kindled and for a time sustained theexpectation which should render possible such disappointment was abenefit that a whole Bodleian Library might fail to confer. Thesebenefits come to us not from the writer as such, but from the manbehind the writer. He who dwells aloft amid the deathless orientimaginations of the human race, easily inhabiting their atmosphereas his native element,—about him, and him only, are the halosand dawns of immortal youth; and his speech, though with manybabyish or barbarous fancies, many melancholies and vices of theblood compounded, carries nevertheless some refrain of divinehilarity, that beguiles men of their sordidness, their sullenness,and low cares, they know not how nor why.

PILGRIMAGE TO OLD BOSTON.

We set out at a little past eleven, and made our first stage toManchester. We were by this time sufficiently Anglicized to reckonthe morning a bright and sunny one; although the May sunshine wasmingled with water, as it were, and distempered with a very bittereast-wind.

Lancashire is a dreary county, (all, at least, except its hillyportions,) and I have never passed through it without wishingmyself anywhere but in that particular spot where I then happenedto be. A few places along our route were historically interesting;as, for example, Bolton, which was the scene of many remarkableevents in the Parliamentary War, and in the market-square of whichone of the Earls of Derby was beheaded. We saw, along the way-side,the never-failing green fields, hedges, and other monotonousfeatures of an ordinary English landscape. There were littlefactory villages, too, or larger towns, with their tall chimneys,and their pennons of black smoke, their uglinesses of brick-work,and their heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems tobe the only kind of stuff which Nature cannot take back to herselfand resolve into the elements, when man has thrown it aside. Thesehillocks of waste and effete mineral always disfigure theneighborhood of ironmongering towns, and, even after a considerableantiquity, are hardly made decent with a little grass.

At a quarter to two we left Manchester by the Sheffield andLincoln Railway. The scenery grew rather better than that throughwhich we had hitherto passed, though still by no means verystriking; for (except in the show-districts, such as the Lakecountry, or Derbyshire) English scenery is not particularly wellworth looking at, considered as a spectacle or a picture. It has areal, homely charm of its own, no doubt; and the rich verdure, andthe thorough finish added by human, art, are perhaps as attractiveto an American eye as any stronger feature could be. Our journey,however, between Manchester and Sheffield was not through a richtract of country, but along a valley walled in by bleak, ridgyhills extending straight as a rampart, and across black moorlandswith here and there a plantation of trees. Sometimes there werelong and gradual ascents, bleak, windy, and desolate, conveying thevery impression which the reader gets from many passages of MissBronté’s novels, and still more from those of her twosisters. Old stone or brick farm-houses, and, once in a while, anold church-tower, were visible: but these are almost too commonobjects to be noticed in an English landscape.

On a railway, I suspect, what little we do see of the country isseen quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked atfrom any point of view in that straight line; so that it is likelooking at the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. The old highwaysand footpaths were as natural as brooks and rivulets, and adaptedthemselves by an inevitable impulse to the physiognomy of thecountry; and, furthermore, every object within view of them hadsome subtile reference to their curves and undulations: but theline of a railway is perfectly artificial, and puts all precedentthings at sixes-and-sevens. At any rate, be the cause what it may,there is seldom anything worth seeing—within the scope of arailway traveller’s eye; and if there were, it requires analert marksman to take a flying shot at the picturesque.

At one of the stations, (it was near a village of ancientaspect, nestling round a church, on a wide Yorkshire moor,) I saw atall old lady in black, who seemed to have just alighted from thetrain. She caught my attention by a singular movement of the head,not once only, but continually repeated, and at regular intervals,as if she were making a stern and solemn protest against someaction that developed itself before her eyes, and were forebodingterrible disaster, if it should be persisted in. Of course, it wasnothing more than a paralytic or nervous affection; yet one mightfancy that it had its origin in some unspeakable wrong, perpetratedhalf a lifetime ago in this old gentlewoman’s presence,either against herself or somebody whom she loved still better. Herfeatures had a wonderful sternness, which, I presume, was caused byher habitual effort to compose and keep them quiet, and therebycounteract the tendency to paralytic movement. The slow, regular,and inexorable character of the motion,—her look of force andself-control, which had the appearance of rendering it voluntary,while yet it was so fateful,—have stamped this poorlady’s face and gesture into my memory; so that, some darkday or other, I am afraid she will reproduce herself in a dismalromance.

The train stopped a minute or two, to allow the tickets to betaken, just before entering the Sheffield station, and thence I hada glimpse of the famous town of razors and penknives, enveloped ina cloud of its own diffusing. My impressions of it are extremelyvague and misty,—or, rather, smoky: for Sheffield seems to mesmokier than Manchester, Liverpool, or Birmingham,—smokierthan all England besides, unless Newcastle be the exception. Itmight have been Pluto’s own metropolis, shrouded insulphurous vapor; and, indeed, our approach to it had been by theValley of the Shadow of Death, through a tunnel three miles inlength, quite traversing the breadth and depth of a mountainoushill.

After passing Sheffield, the scenery became softer, gentler, yetmore picturesque. At one point we saw what I believe to be theutmost northern verge of Sherwood Forest,—not consisting,however, of thousand-year oaks, extant from Robin Hood’sdays, but of young and thriving plantations, which will require acentury or two of slow English growth to give them much breadth ofshade. Earl Fitzwilliam’s property lies in this neighborhood,and probably his castle was hidden among some soft depth of foliagenot far off. Farther onward the country grew quite level around us,whereby I judged that we must now be in Lincolnshire; and shortlyafter six o’clock we caught the first glimpse of theCathedral towers, though they loomed scarcely huge enough for ourpreconceived idea of them. But, as we drew nearer, the greatedifice began to assert itself, making us acknowledge it to belarger than our receptivity could take in.

At the railway-station we found no cab, (it being an unknownvehicle in Lincoln,) but only an omnibus belonging to theSaracen’s Head, which the driver recommended as the besthotel in the city, and took us thither accordingly. It received ushospitably, and looked comfortable enough; though, like the hotelsof most old English towns, it had a musty fragrance of antiquity,such as I have smelt in a seldom-opened London church where thebroad-aisle is paved with tombstones. The house was of an ancientfashion, the entrance into its interior court-yard being through anarch, in the side of which is the door of the hotel. There are longcorridors, an intricate arrangement of passages, and an up-and-downmeandering of staircases, amid which it would be no marvel toencounter some forgotten guest who had gone astray a hundred yearsago, and was still seeking for his bed-room while the rest of hisgeneration were in their graves. There is no exaggerating theconfusion of mind that seizes upon a stranger in the bewilderinggeography of a great old-fashioned English inn.

This hotel stands in the principal street of Lincoln, and withina very short distance of one of the ancient city-gates, which isarched across the public way, with a smaller arch forfoot-passengers on either side; the whole, a gray, time-gnawn,ponderous, shadowy structure, through the dark vista of which youlook into the Middle Ages. The street is narrow, and retains manyantique peculiarities; though, unquestionably, English domesticarchitecture has lost its most impressive features, in the courseof the last century. In this respect, there are finer old townsthan Lincoln: Chester, for instance, and Shrewsbury,—whichlast is unusually rich in those quaint and stately edifices wherethe gentry of the shire used to make their winter-abodes, in aprovincial metropolis. Almost everywhere, nowadays, there is amonotony of modern brick or stuccoed fronts, hiding houses that areolder than ever, but obliterating the picturesque antiquity of thestreet.

Between seven and eight o’clock (it being still broaddaylight in these long English days) we set out to pay apreliminary visit to the exterior of the Cathedral. Passing throughthe Stone Bow, as the city-gate close by is called, we ascended astreet which grew steeper and narrower as we advanced, till at lastit got to be the steepest street I ever climbed,—so steepthat any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle downward muchfaster than it could possibly be drawn up. Being almost the onlyhill in Lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make themost of it. The houses on each side had no very remarkable aspect,except one with a stone portal and carved ornaments, which is now adwelling-place for poverty-stricken people, but may have been anaristocratic abode in the days of the Norman kings, to whom itsstyle of architecture dates back. This is called the Jewess’sHouse, having been inhabited by a woman of that faith who washanged six hundred years ago.

And still the street grew steeper and steeper. Certainly, theBishop and clergy of Lincoln ought not to be fat men, but of veryspiritual, saint-like, almost angelic habit, if it be a frequentpart of their ecclesiastical duty to climb this hill; for it is areal penance, and was probably performed as such, and groaned overaccordingly, in monkish times. Formerly, on the day of hisinstallation, the Bishop used to ascend the hill barefoot, and wasdoubtless cheered and invigorated by looking upward to the grandeurthat was to console him for the humility of his approach. We,likewise, were beckoned onward by glimpses of the Cathedral towers,and, finally, attaining an open square on the summit, we saw an oldGothic gateway to the left hand, and another to the right. Thelatter had apparently been a part of the exterior defences of theCathedral, at a time when the edifice was fortified. The west frontrose behind. We passed through one of the side-arches of the Gothicportal, and found ourselves in the Cathedral Close, a wide, levelspace, where the great old Minster has fair room to sit, lookingdown on the ancient structures that surround it, all of which, informer days, were the habitations of its dignitaries and officers.Some of them are still occupied as such, though others are in tooneglected and dilapidated a state to seem worthy of so splendid anestablishment. Unless it be Salisbury Close, however, (which isincomparably rich as regards the old residences that belong to it,)I remember no more comfortably picturesque precincts round anyother cathedral. But, in, truth, almost every cathedral close, inturn, has seemed to me the loveliest, coziest, safest, leastwind-shaken, most decorous, and most enjoyable shelter that everthe thrift and selfishness of mortal man contrived for himself. Howdelightful, to combine all this with the service of the temple!

Lincoln Cathedral is built of a yellowish brown-stone, whichappears either to have been largely restored, or else does notassume the hoary, crumbly surface that gives such a venerableaspect to most of the ancient churches and castles in England. Inmany parts, the recent restorations are quite evident; but other,and much the larger portions, can scarcely have been touched forcenturies: for there are still the gargoyles, perfect, or withbroken noses, as the case may be, but showing that variety andfertility of grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation caneffect. There are innumerable niches, too, up the whole height ofthe towers, above and around the entrance, and all over the walls:most of them empty, but a few containing the lamentable remnants ofheadless saints and angels. It is singular what a native animositylives in the human heart against carved images, insomuch that,whether they represent Christian saint or Pagan deity, allunsophisticated men seize the first safe opportunity to knock offtheir heads! In spite of all dilapidations, however, the effect ofthe west front of the Cathedral is still exceedingly rich, beingcovered from massive base to airy summit with the minutest detailsof sculpture and carving: at least, it was so once; and even nowthe spiritual impression of its beauty remains so strong, that wehave to look twice to see that much of it has been obliterated. Ihave seen a cherry-stone carved all over by a monk, so minutelythat it must have cost him half a lifetime of labor; and thiscathedral front seems to have been elaborated in a monkish spirit,like that cherry-stone. Not that the result is in the least petty,but miraculously grand, and all the more so for the faithful beautyof the smallest details.

An elderly man, seeing us looking up at the west front, came tothe door of an adjacent house, and called to inquire if we wishedto go into the Cathedral; but as there would have been a duskytwilight beneath its roof, like the antiquity that has sheltereditself within, we declined for the present. So we merely walkedround the exterior, and thought it more beautiful than that ofYork; though, on recollection, I hardly deem it so majestic andmighty as that. It is vain to attempt a description, or seek evento record the feeling which the edifice inspires. It does notimpress the beholder as an inanimate object, but as something thathas a vast, quiet, long-enduring life of its own,—a creationwhich man did not build, though in some way or other it isconnected with him, and kindred to human nature. In short, I fallstraightway to talking nonsense, when I try to express my innersense of this and other cathedrals.

While we stood in the close, at the eastern end of the Minster,the clock chimed the quarters; and then Great Tom, who hangs in theRood Tower, told us it was eight o’clock, in far the sweetestand mightiest accents that I ever heard from any bell,—slow,and solemn, and allowing the profound reverberations of each stroketo die away before the next one fell. It was still broad daylightin that upper region of the town, and would be so for some timelonger; but the evening atmosphere was getting sharp and cool. Wetherefore descended the steep street,—our younger companionrunning before us, and gathering such headway that I fully expectedhim to break his head against some projecting wall.

In the morning we took a fly, (an English term for anexceedingly sluggish vehicle,) and drove up to the Minster by aroad rather less steep and abrupt than the one we had previouslyclimbed. We alighted before the west front, and sent our charioteerin quest of the verger; but, as he was not immediately to be found,a young girl let us into the nave. We found it very grand, it isneedless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the vast nave ofYork Cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of thelatter. Unless a writer intends a professedly architecturaldescription, there is but one set of phrases in which to talk ofall the cathedrals in England, and elsewhere. They are alike intheir great features: an acre or two of stone flags for a pavement;rows of vast columns supporting a vaulted roof at a dusky height;great windows, sometimes richly bedimmed with ancient or modernstained glass; an elaborately carved screen between the nave andchancel, breaking the vista that might else be of such gloriouslength, and which is further choked up by a massive organ,—inspite of which obstructions, you catch the broad, variegatedglimmer of the painted east window, where a hundred saints weartheir robes of transfiguration. Within the screen are the carvedoaken stalls of the Chapter and Prebendaries, the Bishop’sthrone, the pulpit, the altar, and whatever else may furnish outthe Holy of Holies. Nor must we forget the range of chapels, (oncededicated to Catholic saints, but which have now lost theirindividual consecration,) nor the old monuments of kings, warriors,and prelates, in the side-aisles of the chancel. In closecontiguity to the main body of the Cathedral is the Chapter-House,which, here at Lincoln, as at Salisbury, is supported by onecentral pillar rising from the floor, and putting forth brancheslike a tree, to hold up the roof. Adjacent to the Chapter-House arethe cloisters, extending round a quadrangle, and paved withlettered tombstones, the more antique of which have had theirinscriptions half obliterated by the feet of monks taking theirnoontide exercise in these sheltered walks, five hundred years ago.Some of these old burial-stones, although with ancient crossesengraved upon them, have been made to serve as memorials to deadpeople of very recent date.

In the chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops andknights, we saw an immense slab of stone purporting to be themonument of Catherine Swineferd, wife of John of Gaunt; also, herewas the shrine of the little Saint Hugh, that Christian child whowas fabled to have been crucified by the Jews of Lincoln. TheCathedral is not particularly rich in monuments; for it sufferedgrievous outrage and dilapidation, both at the Reformation and inCromwell’s time. This latter iconoclast is in especially badodor with the sextons and vergers of most of the old churches whichI have visited. His soldiers stabled their steeds in the nave ofLincoln Cathedral, and hacked and hewed the monkish sculptures, andthe ancestral memorials of great families, quite at their wickedand plebeian pleasure. Nevertheless, there are some most exquisiteand marvellous specimens of flowers, foliage, and grape-vines, andmiracles of stone-work twined about arches, as if the material hadbeen as soft as wax in the cunning sculptor’shands,—the leaves being represented with all their veins, sothat you would almost think it petrified Nature, for which hesought to steal the praise of Art. Here, too, were those grotesquefaces which always grin at you from the projections of monkisharchitecture, as if the builders had gone mad with their own deepsolemnity, or dreaded such a catastrophe, unless permitted to throwin something ineffably absurd.

Originally, it is supposed, all the pillars of this greatedifice, and all these magic sculptures, were polished to theutmost degree of lustre; nor is it unreasonable to think that theartists would have taken these further pains, when they had alreadybestowed so much labor in working out their conceptions to theextremest point. But, at present, the whole interior of theCathedral is smeared over with a yellowish wash, the very meanesthue imaginable, and for which somebody’s soul has a bitterreckoning to undergo.

In the centre of the grassy quadrangle about which the cloistersperambulate is a small, mean, brick building, with a locked door.Our guide,—I forgot to say that we had been captured by averger, in black, and with a white tie, but of a lusty and jollyaspect,—our guide unlocked this door, and disclosed a flightof steps. At the bottom appeared what I should have taken to be alarge square of dim, worn, and faded oil-carpeting, which mightoriginally have been painted of a rather gaudy pattern. This was aRoman tessellated pavement, made of small colored bricks, or piecesof burnt clay. It was accidentally discovered here, and has notbeen meddled with, further than by removing the superincumbentearth and rubbish.

Nothing else occurs to me, just now, to be recorded about theinterior of the Cathedral, except that we saw a place where thestone pavement had been worn away by the feet of ancient pilgrimsscraping upon it, as they knelt down before a shrine of theVirgin.

Leaving the Minster, we now went along a street of morevenerable appearance than we had heretofore seen, bordered withhouses, the high, peaked roofs of which were covered with redearthen tiles. It led us to a Roman arch, which was once thegateway of a fortification, and has been striding across theEnglish street ever since the latter was a faint village-path, andfor centuries before. The arch is about four hundred yards from theCathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are Roman remains inall this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless innumerablemore beneath it; for, as in ancient Rome itself, an inundation ofaccumulated soil seems to have swept over what was the surface ofthat earlier day. The gateway which I am speaking about is probablyburied to a third of its height, and perhaps has as perfect a Romanpavement (if sought for at the original depth) as that which runsbeneath the Arch of Titus. It is a rude and massive structure, andseems as stalwart now as it could have been two thousand years ago;and though Time has gnawed it externally, he has made what amendshe could by crowning its rough and broken summit with grass andweeds, and planting tufts of yellow flowers on the projections upand down the sides.

There are the ruins of a Norman castle, built by the Conqueror,in pretty close proximity to the Cathedral; but the old gateway isobstructed by a modern door of wood, and we were denied admittancebecause some part of the precincts are used as a prison. We nowrambled about on the broad back of the hill, which, besides theMinster and ruined castle, is the site of some stately and queerold houses, and of many mean little hovels. I suspect that all ormost of the life of the present day has subsided into the lowertown, and that only priests, poor people, and prisoners dwell inthese upper regions. In the wide, dry moat at the base of thecastle-wall are clustered whole colonies of small houses, some ofbrick, but the larger portion built of old stones which once madepart of the Norman keep, or of Roman structures that existed beforethe Conqueror’s castle was ever dreamed about. They are liketoadstools that spring up from the mould of a decaying tree. Uglyas they are, they add wonderfully to the picturesqueness of thescene, being quite as valuable, in that respect, as the great,broad, ponderous ruin of the castle-keep, which rose high above ourheads, heaving its huge gray mass out of a bank of green foliageand ornamental shrubbery, such as lilacs and otherflowering-plants, in which its foundations were completelyhidden.

After walking quite round the castle, I made an excursionthrough the Roman gateway, along a pleasant and level road borderedwith dwellings of various character. One or two were houses ofgentility, with delightful and shadowy lawns before them; many hadthose high, red-tiled roofs, ascending into acutely pointed gables,which seem to belong to the same epoch as some of the edifices inour own earlier towns; and there were pleasant-looking cottages,very sylvan and rural, with hedges so dense and high, fencing themin, as almost to hide them up to the eaves of their thatched roofs.In front of one of these I saw various images, crosses, and relicsof antiquity, among which were fragments of old Catholictombstones, disposed by way of ornament.

We now went home to the Saracen’s Head; and as the weatherwas very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, Iwould gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to theCathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let mebe at rest; so at length I found myself compelled to climb the hillagain, between daylight and dusk. A mist was now hovering about theupper height of the great central tower, so as to dim and halfobliterate its battlements and pinnacles, even while I stood in theclose beneath it. It was the most impressive view that I had had.The whole lower part of the structure was seen with perfectdistinctness; but at the very summit the mist was so dense as toform an actual cloud, as well denned as ever I saw resting on amountain-top. Really and literally, here was a “cloud-capttower.”

The entire Cathedral, too, transfigured itself into a richerbeauty and more imposing majesty than ever. The longer I looked,the better I loved it. Its exterior is certainly far more beautifulthan that of York Minster; and its finer effect is due, I think, tothe many peaks in which the structure ascends, and to the pinnacleswhich, as it were, repeat and re-echo them into the sky. YorkCathedral is comparatively square and angular in its generaleffect; but here there is a continual mystery of variety, so thatat every glance you are aware of a change, and a disclosure ofsomething new, yet working an harmonious development of what youhave heretofore seen. The west front is unspeakably grand, and maybe read over and over again forever, and still show undetectedmeanings, like a great, broad page of marvellous writing inblack-letter,—so many sculptured ornaments there are,blossoming out before your eyes, and gray statues that have grownthere since you looked last, and empty niches, and a hundred airycanopies beneath which carved images used to be, and where theywill show themselves again, if you gaze long enough.—But Iwill not say another word about the Cathedral.

We spent the rest of the day within the sombre precincts of theSaracen’s Head, reading yesterday’s“Times,” “The Guide-Book of Lincoln,” and“The Directory of the Eastern Counties.” Dismal as theweather was, the street beneath our window was enlivened with agreat bustle and turmoil of people all the evening, because it wasSaturday night, and they had accomplished their week’s toil,received their wages, and were making their small purchases againstSunday, and enjoying themselves as well as they knew how. A band ofmusic passed to and fro several times, with the rain-drops fallinginto the mouth of the brazen trumpet and pattering on thebass-drum; a spirit-shop, opposite the hotel, had a vast run ofcustom; and a coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional ventfor his commodity, in spite of the cold water that dripped into thecups. The whole breadth of the street, between the Stone Bow andthe bridge across the Witham, was thronged to overflowing, andhumming with human life.

Observing in the Guide-Book that a steamer runs on the RiverWitham between Lincoln and Boston, I inquired of the waiter, andlearned that she was to start on Monday, at ten o’clock.Thinking it might be an interesting trip, and a pleasant variationof our customary mode of travel, we determined to make the voyage.The Witham flows through Lincoln, crossing the main street under anarched bridge of Gothic construction, a little below theSaracen’s Head. It has more the appearance of a canal than ofa river, in its passage through the town,—being bordered withhewn stone mason-work on each side, and provided with one or twolocks. The steamer proved to be small, dirty, and altogetherinconvenient. The early morning had been bright; but the sky nowlowered upon us with a sulky English temper, and we had not longput off before we felt an ugly wind from the German Ocean blowingright in our teeth. There were a number of passengers on board,country-people, such as travel by third-class on the railway; for,I suppose, nobody but ourselves ever dreamt of voyaging, by thesteamer for the sake of what he might happen upon in the way ofriver-scenery.

We bothered a good while about getting through a preliminarylock; nor, when fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, I think,six miles an hour. Constant delays were caused, moreover, bystopping to take up passengers and freight,—not at regularlanding-places, but anywhere along the green banks. The scenery wasidentical with that of the railway, because the latter runs alongby the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere departsfrom it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so thatour only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness ofour progress, which allowed us time enough and to spare for theobjects along the shore. Unfortunately, there was nothing, or nextto nothing, to be seen,—the country being one unvaried levelover the whole thirty miles of our voyage,—not a hill insight, either near or far, except that solitary one on the summitof which we had left Lincoln Cathedral. And the Cathedral was ourlandmark for four hours or more, and at last rather faded out thanwas hidden by any intervening object.

It would have been a pleasantly lazy day enough, if the roughand bitter wind had not blown directly in our faces, and chilled usthrough, in spite of the sunshine that soon succeeded a sprinkle ortwo of rain. These English east-winds, which prevail from Februarytill June, are greater nuisances than the east-wind of our ownAtlantic coast, although they do not bring mist and storm, as withus, but some of the sunniest weather that England sees. Under theirinfluence, the sky smiles and is villanous.

The landscape was tame to the last degree, but had an Englishcharacter that was abundantly worth our looking at. A greenluxuriance of early grass; old, high-roofed farm-houses, surroundedby their stone barns and ricks of bay and grain; ancient villages,with the square, gray tower of a church seen afar over the levelcountry, amid the cluster of red roofs; here and there a shadowygrove of venerable trees, surrounding what was perhaps anElizabethan ball, though it looked more like the abode of some richyeoman. Once, too, we saw the tower of a mediaeval castle, that ofTattershall, built by a Cromwell, but whether of theProtector’s family I cannot tell. But the gentry do notappear to have settled multitudinously in this tract of country;nor is it to be wondered at, since a lover of the picturesque wouldas soon think of settling in Holland. The river retains itscanal-like aspect all along; and only in the latter part of itscourse does it become more than wide enough for the little steamerto turn itself round,—at broadest, not more than twice thatwidth.

The only memorable incident of our voyage happened when amother-duck was leading her little fleet of five ducklings acrossthe river, just as our steamer went swaggering by, stirring thequiet stream into great waves that lashed the banks on either side.I saw the imminence of the catastrophe, and hurried to the stern ofthe boat to witness, since I could not possibly avert it. The poorducklings had uttered their baby-quacks, and striven with all theirtiny might to escape: four of them, I believe, were washed asideand thrown off unhurt from the steamer’s prow; but the fifthmust have gone under the whole length of the keel, and never couldhave come up alive.

At last, in, mid-afternoon, we beheld the tall tower of SaintBotolph’s Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevationas the tallest tower of Lincoln Cathedral) looming in the distance.At about half-past four we reached Boston, (which name has beenshortened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly Englishpronunciation, from Botolph’s town,) and were taken by a cabto the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best hotel in town,though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small, stilledparlor, dingy, musty, and scented with staletobacco-smoke,—tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiterassured us that the room had not more recently been fumigated. Anexceedingly grim waiter he was, apparently a genuine descendant ofthe old Puritans of this English Boston, and quite as sour as thosewho peopled the daughter-city in New England. Our parlor had theone recommendation of looking into the market-place, and affordinga sidelong glimpse of the tail spire and noble old church.

In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to theriver-side, at that quarter where the port is situated. Here werelong buildings of an old-fashioned aspect, seemingly warehouses,with windows in the high, steep roofs. The Custom-House found ampleaccommodation within an ordinary dwelling-house. Two or three largeschooners were moored along the river’s brink, which had herea stone margin; another large and handsome schooner was evidentlyjust finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; therudiments of another were on the stocks, in a ship-yard borderingon the river. Still another, while I was looking on, came up thestream, and lowered her main-sail, from a foreign voyage. An oldman on the bank hailed her and inquired about her cargo; but theLincolnshire people have such a queer way of talking English that Icould not understand the reply. Farther down the river, I saw abrig, approaching rapidly under sail. The whole scene made an oddimpression of bustle, and sluggishness, and decay, and a remnant ofwholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the mighty andpopulous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feebleinfant of this old English town;—the latter, perhaps, almoststationary ever since that day, as if the birth of such anoffspring had taken away its own principle of growth. I thought ofLong Wharf, and Faneuil Hall, and Washington Street, and the GreatElm, and the State-House, and exulted lustily,—but yet beganto feel at home in this good old town, for its very name’ssake, as I never had before felt, in England.

The next morning we came out in the early sunshine, (the sunmust have been shining nearly four hours, however, for it was aftereight o’clock,) and strolled about the streets, like peoplewho had a right to be there. The market-place of Boston is anirregular square, into one end of which the chancel of the churchslightly projects. The gates of the church-yard were open and freeto all passengers, and the common footway of the towns-people seemsto lie to and fro across it. It is paved, according to Englishcustom, with flat tombstones; and there are also raised, oraltar-tombs, some of which have armorial bearings on them. Oneclergyman has caused himself and his wife to be buried right in themiddle of the stone-bordered path that traverses the church-yard;so that not an individual of the thousands who pass along thispublic way can help trampling over him or her. The scene,nevertheless, was very cheerful in the morning sun: people goingabout their business in the day’s primal freshness, which wasjust as fresh here as in younger villages; children, withmilk-pails, loitering over the burial-stones; school-boys playingleap-frog with the altar-tombs; the simple old town preparingitself for the day, which would be like myriads of other days thathad passed over it, but yet would be worth living through. And downon the church-yard, where were buried many generations whom itremembered in their time, looked the stately tower of SaintBotolph; and it was good to see and think of such an age-longgiant, intermarrying the present epoch with a distant past, andgetting quite imbued with human nature by being so immemoriallyconnected with men’s familiar knowledge and homely interests.It is a noble tower; and the jackdaws evidently have pleasant homesin their hereditary nests among its topmost windows, and livedelightful lives, flitting and cawing about its pinnacles andflying-buttresses. I should almost like to be a jackdaw myself, forthe sake of living up there.

In front of the church, not more than twenty yards off, and witha low brick wall between, flows the River Witham. On the hitherbank a fisherman was washing his boat; and another skiff, with hersail lazily half-twisted, lay on the opposite strand. The stream,at this point, is about of such width, that, if the tall tower wereto tumble over flat on its face, its top-stone might perhaps reachto the middle of the channel. On the farther shore there is a lineof antique-looking houses, with roofs of red tile, and windowsopening out of them,—some of these dwellings being soancient, that the Reverend Mr. Cotton, subsequently our firstBoston minister, must have seen them with his own bodily eyes, whenhe used to issue from the front-portal after service. Indeed, theremust be very many houses here, and even some streets, that bearmuch the aspect that they did when the Puritan divine pacedsolemnly among them.

In our rambles about town, we went into a bookseller’sshop to inquire if he had any description of Boston for sale. Heoffered me (or, rather, produced for inspection, not supposing thatI would buy it) a quarto history of the town, published bysubscription, nearly forty years ago. The bookseller showed himselfa well-informed and affable man, and a local antiquary, to whom aparty of inquisitive strangers were a godsend. He had met withseveral Americans, who, at various times, had come on pilgrimagesto this place, and had been in correspondence with others.Happening to have heard the name of one member of our party, heshowed us great courtesy and kindness, and invited us into hisinner domicile, where, as he modestly intimated, he kept a fewarticles which it might interest us to see. So we went with himthrough the shop, up-stairs, into the private part of hisestablishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest adventures Iever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with histreasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind theunostentatious front of a bookseller’s shop, in a verymoderate line of village-business. The two up-stair rooms intowhich he introduced us were so crowded with inestimable articles,that we were almost afraid to stir, for fear of breaking somefragile thing that had been accumulating value for unknowncenturies.

The apartment was hung round with pictures and old engravings,many of which were extremely rare. Premising that he was going toshow us something very curious, Mr. Porter went into the next roomand returned with a counterpane of fine linen, elaboratelyembroidered with silk, which so profusely covered the linen thatthe general effect was as if the main texture were silken. It wasstained, and seemed very old, and had an ancient fragrance. It waswrought all over with birds and flowers in a most delicate style ofneedle-work, and among other devices, more than once repeated, wasthe cipher, M.S.,—being the initials of one of the mostunhappy names that ever a woman bore. This quilt was embroidered bythe hands of Mary-Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment atFotheringay Castle; and having evidently been a work of years, shehad doubtless shed many tears over it, and wrought many dolefulthoughts and abortive schemes into its texture, along with thebirds and flowers. As a counterpart to this most precious relic,our friend produced some of the handiwork of a former Queen ofOtaheite, presented by her to Captain Cook: it was a bag, cunninglymade of some delicate vegetable stuff, and ornamented withfeathers. Next, he brought out a green silk waistcoat of veryantique fashion, trimmed about the edges and pocket-holes with arich and delicate embroidery of gold and silver. This (as thepossessor of the treasure proved, by tracing its pedigree till itcame into his hands) was once the vestment of QueenElizabeth’s Lord Burleigh: but that great statesman must havebeen a person of very moderate girth in the chest and waist; forthe garment was hardly more than a comfortable fit for a boy ofeleven, the smallest American of our party, who tried on thegorgeous waistcoat. Then, Mr. Porter produced some curiouslyengraved drinking-glasses, with a view of Saint Botolph’ssteeple on one of them, and other Boston edifices, public ordomestic, on the remaining two, very admirably done. These crystalgoblets had been a present, long ago, to an old master of the FreeSchool from his pupils; and it is very rarely, I imagine, that aretired schoolmaster can exhibit such trophies of gratitude andaffection, won from the victims of his birch rod.

Our kind friend kept bringing out one unexpected and whollyunexpectable thing after another, as if he were a magician, and hadonly to fling a private signal into the air, and some attendant impwould hand forth any strange relic we might choose to ask for. Hewas especially rich in drawings by the Old Masters, producing twoor three, of exquisite delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, ahead by Rembrandt, and others, in chalk or pen-and-ink, byGiordano, Benvenuto Cellini, and hands almost as famous; andbesides what were shown us, there seemed to be an endless supply ofthese art-treasures in reserve. On the wall hung a crayon-portraitof Sterne, never engraved, representing him as a rather young man,blooming, and not uncomely: it was the worldly face of a man fondof pleasure, but without that ugly, keen, sarcastic, odd expressionthat we see in his only engraved portrait. The picture is anoriginal, and must needs be very valuable; and we wish it might beprefixed to some new and worthier biography of a writer whosecharacter the world has always treated with singular harshness,considering how much it owes him. There was likewise acrayon-portrait of Sterne’s wife, looking so haughty andunamiable, that the wonder is, how he ever contrived to live a weekwith such an awful woman.

After looking at these, and a great many more things than I canremember, above stairs, we went down to a parlor, where thiswonderful bookseller opened an old cabinet, containing numberlessdrawers, and looking just fit to be the repository of suchknick-knacks as were stored up in it. He appeared to possess moretreasures than he himself knew of, or knew where to find; but,rummaging here and there, he brought forth things new and old:rose-nobles, Victoria crowns, gold angels, double-sovereigns ofGeorge IV., two-guinea pieces of George II.; a marriage-medal ofthe first Napoleon, only forty-five of which were ever struck off,and of which even the British Museum does not contain a specimenlike this, in gold; a brass medal, three or four inches indiameter, of a Roman Emperor; together with buckles, bracelets,amulets, and I know not what besides. There was a green silk tasselfrom the fringe of Queen Mary’s bed at Holyrood Palace. Therewere illuminated missals, antique Latin Bibles, and (what may seemof especial interest to the historian) a Secret-Book of QueenElizabeth, written, for aught I know, by her own hand. Onexamination, however, it proved to contain, not secrets of State,but recipes for dishes, drinks, medicines, washes, and all suchmatters of housewifery, the toilet, and domestic quackery, amongwhich we were horrified by the title of one of the nostrums,“How to kill a Fellow quickly”! We never doubted thatbloody Queen Bess might often have had occasion for such a recipe,but wondered at her frankness, and at her attending to theseanomalous necessities in such a methodical way. The truth is, wehad read amiss, and the Queen had spelt amiss: the word was“Fellon,”—a sort of whitlow,—not“Fellow.”

Our hospitable friend now made us drink a glass of wine, as oldand genuine as the curiosities of his cabinet; and while sippingit, we ungratefully tried to excite his envy, by telling of variousthings, interesting to an antiquary and virtuoso, which we had seenin the course of our travels about England. We spoke, for instance,of a missal bound in solid gold and set round with jewels, but ofsuch intrinsic value as no setting could enhance, for it wasexquisitely illuminated, throughout, by the hand of Raphaelhimself. We mentioned a little silver case which once contained aportion of the heart of Louis XIV, nicely done up in spices, but,to the owner’s horror and astonishment, Dean Buckland poppedthe kingly morsel into his mouth, and swallowed it. We told aboutthe black-letter prayer-book of King Charles the Martyr, used byhim upon the scaffold, taking which into our hands, it opened ofitself at the Communion Service; and there, on the left-hand page,appeared a spot about as large as a sixpence, of a yellowish orbrownish hue: a drop of the King’s blood had fallenthere.

Mr. Porter now accompanied us to the church, but first leadingus to a vacant spot of ground where old John Cotton’svicarage had stood till a very short time since. According to ourfriend’s description, it was a humble habitation, of thecottage order, built of brick, with a thatched roof. The site isnow rudely fenced in, and cultivated as a vegetable garden. In theright-hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel, which,at the time of our visit, was in process of restoration, and was tobe dedicated to Cotton, whom these English people consider as thefounder of our American Boston. It would contain a paintedmemorial-window, in honor of the old Puritan minister. A festivalin commemoration of the event was to take place in the ensuingJuly, to which I had myself received an invitation, but I knew toowell the pains and penalties incurred by an invited guest at publicfestivals in England to accept it. It ought to be recorded, (and itseems to have made a very kindly impression on our kinsfolk here,)that five hundred pounds had been contributed by persons in theUnited States, principally in Boston, towards the cost of thememorial-window, and the repair and restoration of the chapel.

After we emerged from the chapel, Mr. Porter approached us withthe vicar, to whom he kindly introduced us, and then took hisleave. May a stranger’s benediction rest upon him! He is amost pleasant man; rather, I imagine, a virtuoso than an antiquary;for he seemed to value the Queen of Otaheite’s bag as highlyas Queen Mary’s embroidered quilt, and to have an omnivorousappetite for everything strange and rare. Would that we could fillup his shelves and drawers (if there are any vacant spaces left)with the choicest trifles that have dropped out of Time’scarpet-bag, or give him the carpet-bag itself, to take out what hewill!

The vicar looked about thirty years old, a gentleman, evidentlyassured of his position, (as clergymen of the Established Churchinvariably are,) comfortable and well-to-do, a scholar and aChristian, and fit to be a bishop, knowing how to make the most oflife without prejudice to the life to come. I was glad to see sucha model English priest so suitably accommodated with an old Englishchurch. He kindly and courteously did the honors, showing us quiteround the interior, giving us all the information that we required,and then leaving us to the quiet enjoyment of what we came tosee.

The interior of Saint Botolph’s is very fine andsatisfactory, as stately, almost, as a cathedral, and has beenrepaired—so far as repairs were necessary—in a chasteand noble style. The great eastern window is of modern paintedglass, but is the richest, mellowest, and tenderest modern windowthat I have ever seen: the art of painting these glowingtransparencies in pristine perfection being one that the world haslost. The vast, clear space, of the interior church delighted me.There was no screen,—nothing between the vestibule and thealtar to break the long vista; even the organ stoodaside,—though it by-and-by made us aware of its presence by amelodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved brasses,and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and analabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life,and in perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch atthe tips of their noses. In the chancel we saw a great deal ofoaken work, quaintly and admirably carved, especially about theseats formerly appropriated to the monks, which were so contrivedas to tumble down with a tremendous crash, if the occupant happenedto fall asleep.

We now essayed to climb into the upper regions. Up we went,winding and still winding round the circular stairs, till we cameto the gallery beneath the stone roof of the tower, whence we couldlook down and see the raised Fort, and my Talma lying on one of thesteps, and looking about as big as a pocket-handkerchief. Then upagain, up, up, up, through a yet smaller staircase, till we emergedinto another stone gallery, above the jackdaws, and far above theroof beneath which we had before made a halt. Then up anotherflight, which led us into a pinnacle of the temple, but not thehighest; so, retracing our steps, we took the right turret thistime, and emerged into the loftiest lantern, where we saw levelLincolnshire, far and near, though with a haze on the distanthorizon. There were dusty roads, a river, and canals, convergingtowards Boston, which—a congregation of red-tiledroofs—lay beneath our feet, with pigmy people creeping aboutits narrow streets. We were three hundred feet aloft, and thepinnacle on which we stood is a landmark forty miles at sea.

Content, and weary of our elevation, we descended the corkscrewstairs and left the church; the last object that we noticed in theinterior being a bird, which appeared to be at home there, andresponded with its cheerful notes to the swell of the organ.Pausing on the church-steps, we observed that there were formerlytwo statues, one on each side of the door-way; the canopies stillremaining, and the pedestals being about a yard from the ground.Some of Mr. Cotton’s Puritan parishioners are probablyresponsible for the disappearance of these stone saints. Thisdoor-way at the base of the tower is now much dilapidated, but mustonce have been very rich and of a peculiar fashion. It opens itsarch through a great square tablet of stone, reared against thefront of the tower. On most of the projections, whether on thetower or about the body of the church, there are gargoyles ofgenuine Gothic grotesqueness,—fiends, beasts, angels, andcombinations of all three; and where portions of the edifice arerestored, the modern sculptors have tried to imitate these wildfantasies, but with very poor success. Extravagance and absurdityhave still their law, and should pay as rigid obedience to it asthe primmest things on earth.

In our further rambles about Boston, we crossed the river by abridge, and observed that the larger part of the town seems to lieon that side of its navigable stream. The crooked streets andnarrow lanes reminded me much of Hanover Street, Ann Street, andother portions of the North End of our American Boston, as Iremember that picturesque region in my boyish days. It is notunreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections ofthe first settlers may have had some influence on the physicalcharacter of the streets and houses in the New-England metropolis;at any rate, here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes, andnumbers of old peaked and projecting-storied dwellings, such as Iused to see there. It is singular what a home-feeling and sense ofkindred I derived from this hereditary connection and fanciedphysiognomical resemblance between the old town and its well-growndaughter, and how reluctant I was, after chill years of banishment,to leave this hospitable place, on that account. Moreover, itrecalled some of the features of another American town, my own dearnative place, when I saw the seafaring people leaning againstposts, and sitting on planks, under the lee of warehouses,—orlolling on long-boats, drawn up high and dry, as sailors and oldwharf-rats are accustomed to do, in seaports of little business. Inother respects, the English town is more village-like than eitherof the American ones. The women and budding girls chat together attheir doors, and exchange merry greetings with young men; childrenchase one another in the summer twilight; school-boys sail littleboats on the river, or play at marbles across the flat tombstonesin the churchyard; and ancient men, in breeches and longwaistcoats, wander slowly about the streets, with a certainfamiliarity of deportment, as if each one were everybody’sgrandfather. I have frequently observed, in old English towns, thatOld Age comes forth more cheerfully, and genially into the sunshinethan among ourselves, where the rush, stir, bustle, and irreverentenergy of youth are so preponderant, that the poor, forlorngrandsires begin to doubt whether they have a right to breathe insuch a world any longer, and so hide their silvery heads insolitude. Speaking of old men, I am reminded of the scholars of theBoston Charity-School, who walk about in antique, long-skirted bluecoats, and knee-breeches, and with bands at theirnecks,—perfect and grotesque pictures of the costume of threecenturies ago.

On the morning of our departure, I looked from the parlor-windowof the Peacock into the market-place, and beheld its irregularsquare already well-covered with booths, and more in process ofbeing put up, by stretching tattered sail-cloth on poles. It wasmarket-day. The dealers were arranging their commodities,consisting chiefly of vegetables, the great bulk of which seemed tobe cabbages. Later in the forenoon there was a much greater varietyof merchandise: basket-work, both for fancy and use; twig-brooms,beehives, oranges, rustic attire; all sorts of things, in short,that are commonly sold at a rural fair. I heard the lowing ofcattle, too, and the bleating of sheep, and found that there was amarket for cows, oxen, and pigs, in another part of the town. Acrowd of towns-people and Lincolnshire yeomen elbowed one anotherin the square; Mr. Punch was squeaking in one corner, and avagabond juggler tried to find space for his exhibition in another:so that my final glimpse of Boston was calculated to leave alivelier impression than my former ones. Meanwhile the tower ofSaint Botolph’s looked benignantly down; and I fancied thatit was bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cotton, two or threehundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height,and the town beneath it, to the people of the American city, whoare partly akin, if not to the living inhabitants of Old Boston,yet to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard.

One thing more. They have a Bunker Hill in the vicinity of theirtown; and (what could hardly be expected of an English community)seem proud to think that their neighborhood has given name to ourfirst and most widely celebrated and best-rememberedbattle-field.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ASTRENGTH-SEEKER.

“There goes the smallest fellow in our class.”

I was crossing one of the paths that intersect the college greenof old Harvard when this remark fell upon my ears. Looking up, Isaw two stalwart Freshmen on their way to recitation, one of whomhad called the other’s attention to my humble self by thisobservation, reminding me of a distinction which I did notcovet.

It was not quite true. There was one, and only one, member ofthe class of ‘54 who was as small as I. Some consolation,though not much, in that! But the air of amused compassion withwhich the lusty Down-Easter, who had made me feel what thedigito monstrari was, now looked down on me, raised afeeling of resentment and self-depreciation which left me in nomood to make a brilliant show of scholarship in construing my“Isocrates” that morning.

“True, I am small, nay, diminutive,” I soliloquized,as I wended my way homeward under the classic umbrage of venerableelms. “But surely this is no fault of mine.—Hold there!Are you quite sure it’s no fault of yours? Are we notresponsible to a much greater extent than we imagine for ourphysical condition? After making all abatement for insurmountablehereditary influences upon organization,—after granting tothat remorseless law of genealogical transmission its properweight,—after admitting the seemingly capricious facts ofwhat the modern French physiologists call atavism, underwhich we are made drunkards or consumptives, lunatics or wise men,short or tall, because of certain dominant traits in some remoteancestor,—after conceding all this, does not Nature leave itlargely in our own power to counteract both physical and moraltendencies, and to mould the body as well as the mind, if we willonly put forth in action the requisite energy of will?”

This disposition to cavil at received axioms has beset methrough life. No sooner does a truth present itself than I want tosee it on its other side. If I hear the Devil spoken ill of, Ipuzzle myself to find what can be said in his favor. The man whothus halts between conflicting opinions, solicitous to give boththeir due, and to see the truth, pure and simple and entire, maymiss laying hold of great convictions till it is too late for himto act on them; but what he accepts he generally holds.

My meditations on the subject of my inferior stature led me to adetermination to try what gymnastic practice could do to remedy thedefect. For some thirty years, gymnastics, first introduced intothis country, I believe, at the Round-Hill School at Northampton,then under the charge of Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft, hadlanguished and revived fitfully at Cambridge. It was during one ofthe languishing periods that I began my practice. For some five orsix weeks I kept it up with enthusiasm. Then I began to grow lessmethodical and regular in my habits of exercise; and then to findexcuses for my delinquencies.

After all, what matter, if, like Paul’s, my “bodilypresence is weak”? Were not Alexander the Great and Napoleonsmall men? Were not Pope, and Dr. Watts, and Moore, and Campbell,and a long list of authors, artists, and philosophers, considerablyunder medium height? Were not Garrick and Kean and the elder Boothall under five feet four or five? Is there not a volume somewherein our college library, written by a learned Frenchman, devotedexclusively to the biography of men who have been great in mind,though diminutive in stature? Is not Lord John Russell as smallalmost as I? Have I many inches to grow before I shall be as tallas Dr. Holmes?

These consolatory considerations softened my chagrin at thecontemplation of my height. “Care I for the limb, the thews,the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me thespirit, Master Shallow,—the spirit!”

And so my gymnastic ardor, after a brief blaze, flickered, fell,was ashes. But it was destined to be soon revived by an incident,trifling in itself, though of a character to assume exaggeratedproportions in the mind of a sensitive boy. A youth, who hadconsiderably the advantage of me both in inches and in years, andwhose overflow of animal spirits required some object to ventitself upon, selected me as the victim of his ebullient vivacity.He began by tossing my book down stairs. This seemed to me ratherrough play, especially from one with whom I was not, at the time,on terms of intimacy; but, making allowance for the hilarity ofclassmates just let loose from recitation, I picked up, without athought of resentment, the abused volume, and took no furthernotice of the matter. I subsequently found that it was merely thecommencement of a series of similar annoyances. This livelyclassmate would even play tricks on me at the dinner table.

What was to be done? I mentioned the grievance to a friend, andhe remonstrated with my lively classmate, threatening him with myserious displeasure. “Pooh! how can he help himself?”was the reply which came duly to my ears.

Sure enough! How could I help myself? The aggressor was mysuperior in weight and size. It was a plain case that I should getbadly and ridiculously whipped, if I attempted to cope with him inany pugilistic encounter. But how would it do to demand of him thesatisfaction of a gentleman? True, I knew nothing ofpistol-shooting, and had never handled a small-sword. No matter forthat!

But another consideration speedily drove this scheme ofvengeance à l’outrance out of my head. Notmany years before, a peppery little Freshman had been insulted, ashe thought, by a Sophomore. The Soph, I believe, had knocked theyoung one’s hat over his eyes, as they were kicking foot-ballin the Delta. Freshman sent a challenge, the effect of which was toexcite inextinguishable laughter among the Sophs convened overtheir cigars in the aggressor’s room. Amid roars, one of theconspirators penned an acceptance, fixing as the weapon, hairtriggers,—time, five o’clock in themorning,—place, the Delta,—second, the bearer, Mr.M——, the writer of this reply.

It was a cruel business. A sham second was imposed on poorlittle Fresh. Brave as Julius Caesar, he sat up all night writingletters and preparing his will. Prompt to the moment, he was on thechosen ground. An unusually large delegation for such a delicateaffair seemed to be present. One rascal who wore enormous greengoggles was pointed out to the innocent as Dr. Von Guldenstubbe, acelebrated German surgeon, just from Leipsic. Little Fresh shookhands with him gravely, amid the smothered laughter of theconspirators. The distance was to be five paces; for it waswhispered so as to reach the ear of Fresh, that Soph was thirstingfor his heart’s blood. They take their places,—thesignal is given,—they fire,—and with a hideous groanand a wild pirouette, the Soph falls to the ground.

The Freshman is led up near enough to see the fellow’sface covered with blood, and to hear his cries to his friends toput him out of his misery. Intensely agitated, poor little Fresh ishurried by pretended friends into a carriage, and driven off; andit is not till a week afterwards that he learns he has been thevictim of a hoax.

No! it would never answer for me to run the risk of beingsold in any such way as this. I must select a surer andmore practical vengeance. I thought the matter over intently, andfinally resolved that I would put myself on a physical equalitywith my persecutor, and then meet him in a fair fight with suchweapons as Nature had given us both. I accordingly said to thefriend and classmate who had played the part of intercessor,“Wait two years, and I promise you I will either make mytormentor apologize or give him such a thrashing as he willremember for the rest of his life.”

Thus was my resolve renewed to accomplish myself as a gymnast,and, above all, to develop my physical strength. My previousattempts in the gymnasium had been spasmodic and irregular. Havingnow a definite object in view, I set about my work in earnest, andwent through a daily systematic practice of a little more than anhour’s duration.

The gymnasium was kept by a Mr. Law, and, though ordinary in itsaccommodations, had a good arrangement of apparatus, of which Ifaithfully availed myself. The spring-board, horse,vaulting-apparatus, parallel bars, suspended rings, horizontal andinclined ladders, pulley-weights, pegs, climbing-rope, trapezoid,etc., were all put in frequent requisition. My time for exercisewas generally in the evening, when I would find myself almostalone,—while the clicking of balls from the billiard-roomsand bowling-alleys down-stairs announced that a busy crowd—ifamusement may be called a business—were there assembled.

Naturally indolent, it was not without a severe struggle that Iovercame a besetting propensity to confine myself to sedentarypursuits. The desire of retaliation soon became extinct. My pledgeto my friend and sympathizer, that in two years I would cryquittance to my foe, would occasionally act as a spur inthe side of my intent; but my two best aids in supplying me withthe motive power to keep up my gymnastic practice werehabit and progress. What will not habit make easyto us, whether it be for good or for evil? And what an incentive wehave to renewed effort in finding that we are making actualprogress,—that we can do with comparative facility to-daywhat we could do only with difficulty yesterday!

Two years, while we are yet on the sunny side of twenty, are notrifle; but for two years I persistently and methodically wentthrough the exercises of the gymnasium. At the end of that time Ihad quite lost sight of my original object in cultivating myathletic powers; for all annoyances towards me had long since beendropped by my old enemy. But punctually on the day of expiration,the friend who had listened to my pledge came to me and claimed itsfulfilment. From some evidences which he had recently had of mystrength he felt a soothing assurance that I should have nodifficulty in making good my promise.

I accordingly called on the lively young gentleman who two yearsbefore had indulged in those little frolics at my expense. Withdiplomatic ceremony and circumlocution I introduced the object ofmy visit, and wound up with an ultimatum to this effect:There must either be a frank apology for past indignities, or hemust accompany me, each with a friend, to some suitable spot, andthere decide which was “the better man.”

If he had been called on to expiate an offence committed beforehe was breeched, the young gentleman could not have been moreastounded. Two years had made some change in our relativepositions. I was now about his equal in size, and felt acomfortable sense of my superiority, so far as strength wasconcerned. My shoulders had broadened, and my muscles beendeveloped, so as to present to the critical and interested observera somewhat threatening appearance. Mr. —— (who, by theway, was a good fellow in the main) protested that he had neverintended to give me any offence,—that he, in fact, did notremember the circumstances to which I referred,—and finishedby peremptorily declining my proposal. When I reflected on thedisparity between us in strength, which my two years’practice had established, I felt that it would be cowardly for meto urge the matter further, especially as it was so long a timesince he had given me cause of complaint. I have only to add, thatwe parted without a collision, and that, in my heart, I could nothelp thanking him for the service he had rendered in inciting me tothe regimen which had resulted so beneficially to my health.

The impetus given to my gymnastic education by the littleincident I have just related was continued without abatementthrough my whole college life. Gradually I acquired the reputationof being the strongest man in my class. I discovered that withevery day’s development of my strength there was an increaseof my ability to resist and overcome all fleshly ailments, pains,and infirmities,—a discovery which subsequent experience hasso amply confirmed, that, if I were called on to condense theproposition which sums it up into a formula, it would be in thesewords: Strength is Health.

Until I had renovated my bodily system by a faithful gymnastictraining, I had been subject to nervousness, headache, indigestion,rush of blood to the head, and a weak circulation. It was tortureto me to have to listen to the grating of a slate-pencil, thefiling of a saw, or the scratching of glass. As I grew in strength,my nerves ceased to be impressible to such annoyances. Another goodeffect was to take away all appetite for any stimulating food ordrink. Although I had never applied “rebelliousliquors” to my blood, I had been in the habit of taking abowl of strong coffee morning and night. Now a craving for milktook the place of this want, and my coffee was gradually diminishedto less than a fourth of what had been a customary indulgence.

At last arrived the eagerly looked-for day of release fromcollegiate restrictions and labors. I graduated, and the question,so momentous in the history of all adolescents, “What shall Ibe?” addressed itself seriously to my mind. My father wasdesirous that I should choose medicine for a profession, and becomethe fourth physician, in lineal sequence, of my family on thepaternal side.

Medicine. I cavilled at it awhile, that I might bring out toview its grimmest and most discouraging aspect The cares, trials,humiliations of a young physician, his months and years ofuncompensated drudgery, passed in awful review before me. I thoughtof his toils among the poor and lowly, the vicious anddepraved,—of his broken sleep,—the interruptions of hissocial ease,—and then of the many scenes so repugnant todelicate nerves which he has to pass through,—scenes of painand insanity, of maimed and severed limbs, and all theeccentricities and fearful forms of disease. These considerationspressed with such weight on my mind that for a time my ancestralcraft was in danger of being ignominiously rejected by me. Indeed,I began to think seriously of adopting a very different vocation.And here I will make a confession, if the gentle reader will takeit confidentially.

It is a familiar fact, that every college-boy has to passthrough an attack of the rhyming frenzy as regularly as the childhas to submit to measles and the whooping-cough. A less frequent,but not less trying complaint, is that which manifests itself in apassion for the stage and in an espousal of the delusion that onewas born for a great actor. At any rate, this last was the typewhich my juvenile malaise-du-coeur finally assumed.

I have heard of a young gentleman who, whenever he was hard upfor money, went to his nearest relatives and threatened them withthe publication of a volume of his original poems. This threatnever failed to open the paternal purse. I do not know what effectthe intimation of my histrionic aspirations would have had; but onefine day I found myself on my way to Rochester, in the State of NewYork.

My rôle of dramatic characters was a very modestone for a beginner. It embraced only Richelieu, Bertram, Brutus,Lear, Richard, Shylock, Sir Giles Overreach, Hamlet, Othello, andMacbeth. My principal literary recreation for several years hadbeen in studying these parts; and as I knew them by heart, I didnot doubt that a few rehearsals would put me in possession of therequisite stage-business. And yet my familiarity with the theatrewas very limited. I had never been behind the scenes. Once, with aclassmate, I had penetrated in the daytime to the stage of the oldFederal-Street Theatre, and looked with awe on the boards formerlytrodden by the elder Kean; but a growl from that augustfunctionary, the prompter, sent us back in quick retreat, and I hadnever ventured again into those sacred precincts.

Arrived at Rochester,—which place I had selected for mydébut because of its remoteness from home,—Ilooked in, the evening of my arrival, to see the performances atthe theatre. It was a hall of humble dimensions, seating anaudience of five or six hundred. The piece was a travesty of“Hamlet,” neither edifying nor amusing. A little of thecouleur-de-rose which had flushed my prospect faded thatnight; but the few friends at home to whom I had confided my planshad so pertinaciously assured me that I—the most diffidentman in the world—could never appear before an audiencewithout letting them see I was shaky in the knees, that I resolvedto do what I could to show my depreciators they were falseprophets.

And so I called on the manager,—with a beating heart, asyou may suppose. He was a small, quiet, gentlemanly person, whom Iregret I cannot, consistently with historical truth, show up as aCrummles. But not even Dickens could have found any salient traitfor ridicule in the man. Frankly and kindly he went into thestatistics of the theatrical business, and showed me, that, unlessI was rich, and could afford to play for my own amusement, thestage held out few inducements; it was barren of promise to a youngman anxious to make himself independent of the world.

I did not reply, “Perish the lucre!” but said that Iwould be content, in the early part of my career, to labor forreputation. He soon satisfied me that he could not give up hisstage to an experimentalist, and I did not urge my suit; but badeMr. S. good morning, and, a day or two afterwards, started forNiagara. Here, wet by the mist and listening to the roar of thegreat cataract, I speedily forgot my chagrin, and took a notunfriendly leave of the illusions which had lured me on to try myfortune on the stage. Even now they return occasionally with alltheir fascination.

While at Rochester, as I was passing through the principalstreet, I met a crowd assembled about a lifting-machine. On makingtrial of it, I found I could lift four hundred and twenty pounds. Ihad then been for four years a gymnast, and I supposed my practicewould have qualified me to make the crowd stare at my achievement.But the result was far from triumphant. I found what many othergymnasts will find, that main strength, by which I meanthe strength of the truckman and the porter, cannot be acquired inthe ordinary exercises of the gymnasium.

Returning home, I began the study of anatomy and physiology, andin the autumn of 1854 entered the Harvard Medical School. Thequestion of the extent to which human strength can be developed hadlong been invested with a scientific interest to my mind. One ofthe greatest lifting feats on authentic record is that of ThomasTopham, an Englishman, who in Bath Street, Cold Bath Fields,London, on the 28th of May, 1741, lifted three hogsheads of water,said to weigh, with the connections, eighteen hundred andthirty-six pounds. In the performance of this feat, Tophamstood on a raised platform, his hands grasping a fixture on eitherside, and a broad strap over his shoulders communicating with theweight. An immense concourse of persons was assembled on theoccasion,—the performance having been announced as “inhonor of Admiral Vernon,” or rather, “in commemorationof his taking Porto Bello with six ships only.” Being adescendant myself from the Vernon family of Haddon Hall,Derbyshire, England, I have reserved it for future genealogicalinquiry to learn whether the Admiral was connected with that branchof the Vernons. If so, a somewhat remarkable coincidence isinvolved.

I now informed my father that I intended to go through a seriesof experiments in lifting. He was afraid I should injure myself,and expressly forbade any such practice on his premises. To gratifyhim, I gave up testing the question for a whole year.

But the desire re-awoke, and I had frequent arguments with myfather in the endeavor to overcome his objections.

“Look at that man,” he said to me oneday,—pointing to a large, stout individual in front ofus,—“you might practise lifting all your life, andnever be able to lift as much as that big fellow.”

“Let me construct a lifting-apparatus in the back-yard,and I will soon prove to you that you are mistaken,” Ireplied.

Finding that I was bent on the experiment, he at length gave areluctant consent.

It was now the August of 1855, and I was in my twenty-secondyear. My first lifting-apparatus was constructed in the followingmanner. I first sank into the ground a hogshead, and into thehogshead a flour-barrel. Then I lowered to the bottom of the barrela rope having at the end a round stick transversely balanced, aboutfour inches in diameter and fifteen inches long. A quantity ofgravel, nearly sufficient to bury the stick, was then thrown intothe barrel; some oblong stones were placed across the stick andacross and between one another, and the interstices filled withsmaller stones and gravel. When I had by this method abouttwo-thirds filled the barrel, taking care to keep the axis of therope in correspondence with the long axis of the barrel, I judged Ihad a sufficient weight for a first trial. I now formed a loop inthe end of the rope over the top of the barrel, and put through ita piece of a hoe-handle, about two feet long; and standing astrideof the hogshead, and holding the handle with one hand before me andthe other behind,—straightening my body, previously a littleflexed,—with mouth closed, head up, chest out, and shouldersdown,—I succeeded in lifting the barrel, containing a weightof between four and five hundred pounds, some five or six inchesfrom the bottom of the hogshead.

It was no great feat, after all, considering that I had been forfive years a gymnast. I found that I was inharmoniously developedin many points of my frame,—was perilously weak in the sides,between the shoulders, and at the back of the head. However, theday after this trial, I succeeded in lifting the same weight withsomewhat less difficulty. This induced me to add on a few pounds;and in three or four weeks I could lift between six and sevenhundred. I now had the satisfaction of seeing the stout gentleman,whom a few months before my father had pointed out as possessed ofa strength I could never attain to, introduced to an inspection ofmy apparatus. Through the blinds of a back-parlor window I watchedhis movements, as, encouraged by pater-familias, he drewoff his coat, moistened his hands, and undertook to “snakeup” the big weight. An ignominious failure to start thebarrel was the result. The stout gentleman tugged till he was sored in the face that apoplexy seemed imminent, and then hedejectedly gave it up. The reputation he had long enjoyed of beingone of the “strongest men about” must henceforth be athing of the past till it fades into a myth.

In the December of 1855 I was admitted to the arcana of thedissecting-room, and forthwith commenced some experiments with theview of testing the sustaining power of human bones. Some one hadtold me, that, in lifting a heavy weight, there was danger offracturing the neck of the thigh-bone; but my experiments satisfiedme, that, if properly positioned, it would safely bear a strain oftwo or three thousand pounds. And so I concluded that I mightsecurely continue my practice of lifting till I reached thelast-named limit.

In order to get all possible hints from the inspiration andexperience of the past, I studied some of the ancient statues. Thespecimens of Grecian statuary at the Boston Athenæum wereobjects of my frequent contemplation,—especially theFarnesian Hercules. From this I derived a proper conception of thebodily outline compatible with the exercise of the greatest amountof strength. I was particularly struck by the absence of allexaggeration in the muscular developments as represented. I saw bythis statue that a Hercules must be free from superfluous flesh,neatly made, and finely organized,—that form and quality wereof more account than quantity in his formation. Some years earlierI might have been more attracted by the Apollo Belvedere; but itwas a Hercules I dreamed of becoming, and the Apollo was but theincipient and potential Hercules. Two other statues that shared myadmiration and study were the Quoit-Thrower and the DyingGladiator. From the careful inspection of all these relics ofancient Art I obtained some valuable hints as to my own physicaldeficiencies. I learned that the upper region of my chest neededdeveloping, and that in other points I had not yet reached theartist’s ideal of a strong man.

Good casts of these and other masterpieces in statuary may behad at a trifling cost. Why are they not generally introduced intothe gymnasia attached to our colleges and schools? The habitualcontemplation of such works could not fail to have a good effectupon the physical bearing and development of the young. We are thecreatures of imitation. I remember, at the school I attended in myseventh year, the strongest boy among my mates was quiteround-shouldered. Fancying that he derived his strength from hisstoop, I began to imitate him; and it was not till I learned thathe was strong in spite of his round shoulders, and not because ofthem, that I gave up aping his peculiarity.

On the 29th of January, 1856, I lifted seven hundred pounds inBailey’s Gymnasium, Franklin Street, Boston. The exhibitioncreated great surprise among the lookers-on; and at that time itwas, perhaps, an extraordinary feat; but since the extension andgrowth of the lifting mania, it would not be regarded by theknowing ones as anything to marvel at. The fourth of Aprilfollowing, my lifting capacity had reached eight hundred and fortypounds.

On Fast-Day of that year, two Irishmen knocked at my door andasked to see the strong man. I presented myself, and they told methere was great curiosity among the “ould counthrymen”in the vicinity to ascertain if one Pat Farren, the strongestIrishman in Roxbury, could lift my weight. “Would it beconvanient for me to let him thry?”“Certainly,—and I think he’ll lift it,” Imodestly added.

Soon afterwards a delegation of Irishmen, rather startling fromits numbers, entered the yard. Among them was Mr. Farren. Theysurrounded my lifting-apparatus, while I, unseen, surveyed themfrom a back window. I saw Mr. Farren take the handle, straddle thehogshead, throw himself into a lifting posture, and, strainingevery muscle to its utmost tension, give a tremendous pull. But theweight made no sign; and his friends, thinking he was merelyfeeling it, said, “Wait a bit,—Pat’ll have it upthe next pull.” Mr. Farren rested a moment,—then threwoff his coat, rubbed his hands, and, seizing the handle a secondtime, tugged away at it till his muscles swelled and his framequivered. But he failed in starting the barrel, and a burst oflaughter from his friends and backers announced his defeat.

It is now but justice to Mr. Farren to say that it could hardlybe expected of him to lift such a weight at either the first trialor the second. A want of confidence, or the maladjustment of therope, might have interfered with the full exercise of his strength.I need not say that his discomfiture was witnessed by me from myhiding-place with the liveliest satisfaction; for I had begun topride myself on being able to outlift any man in the country.

In May, 1856, I received the appointment of medical assistant toDr. Walker, at the Lunatic Hospital, South Boston, and gave up fora couple of months my practice of lifting. The consequence was arapid diminution of strength, which suggested to me a return to thelifting exercise. Near the hospital was a large unoccupiedbuilding, formerly the House of Industry. In the cellar of thisbuilding I put a barrel, and loaded it with rocks and gravel as Ihad done in Roxbury. Immediately overhead, on the first floor, Icut a hole, about six inches square, and passed up a rope attachedto the barrel. This rope I looped at the end, for the reception ofa handle. On the floor I nailed two cleats between three and fourfeet apart, as guards to keep my feet from slipping. Beginning withabout six hundred pounds, I added a few pounds daily, till I wasable, in November, 1856, to lift with my hands alone nine hundredpounds.

Returning home the ensuing winter, I attended a second course ofmedical lectures, and, in the routine of labors incident to amedical student’s life, omitted to develop further my powersas a lifter. In the summer of 1857 I became a practitioner ofmedicine. In the autumn of that year, a gentleman, who had beenlooking at my lifting-apparatus, remarked to me, “If you areas strong as they tell me, what is to prevent your seizing hold ofme, (I weigh only a hundred and eighty pounds) holding me atarm’s-length over your head, and pitching me over thatfence?” To this I replied, that, if he would give me sixweeks for practice, I would satisfy him the thing could be done. Heagreed to be on hand at the end of the time named.

In order to be sure of the muscles that would be brought intoplay by the feat, I procured an oblong box with a handle on eitherside running the whole length. Into the box I threw a number ofbrick-bats,—then raised the box at arm’s-length abovemy head, and threw it over my vaulting-pole, which was at anelevation of six and a half feet from the ground. Subsequently Iadded more brick-bats, till gradually their weight amounted toprecisely one hundred and eighty pounds. Having practised till Icould easily handle and throw the box thus charged, I informed mychallenger that I was ready for him. He came, when, seizing him bythe middle, I lifted him struggling above my head, and threw himover the fence before he was hardly aware of my intent. As he wassomewhat corpulent and puffy, and the act involved an abdominalpressure which was by no means agreeable, he expressed himselfperfectly satisfied with the experiment, but objected verydecidedly to its repetition.

In June, 1858, I commenced practising with two fifty-pounddumb-bells, and subsequently added one of a hundred pounds, which Iwas prompted to get from hearing that one of that weight was usedby Mr. James Montgomery, at that time a celebrated gymnast of NewYork City, and afterwards a successful teacher at the AlbanyGymnasium. Not having given much attention to the development ofthe extensor muscles of the arms for several months previous, itwas a number of weeks before I could put this dumb-bell up atarm’s-length above my head with one hand. As soon as Isucceeded in doing this with comparative ease, I procured anotherhundred-pound dumb-bell, and in a few months succeeded inexercising with both of the instruments at the same time, raisingeach alternately above my head. I then commenced practice with adumb-bell weighing one hundred and forty-one pounds. It consistedof two shells connected by a handle, which, being removable,allowed me to introduce shot, from time to time, into the cavitiesof the shells. After a few months of practice, I could, with ajerk, raise the instrument from my shoulder to arm’s-lengthabove my head. My first public exhibition of this feat took placein Philadelphia, in April, 1860.

The spring of 1859 was now drawing nigh, and I began to think ofgiving a public lecture on Physical Culture, illustrating it withsome exhibitions of the strength to which I had attained. My fatherapproved the venture, but, bethinking himself of my extremediffidence, significantly asked, when I would be ready topermit a public announcement of my intention. “Oh, in a fewdays,” I replied, as if it were as small a matter for me tolecture in public as to lift a thousand pounds in a gymnasium.Weeks flew by, and still to the galling inquiry,“When?” I could only answer, “Soon, butnot just yet.” February and March had come and gone, andstill I was not ready. Finally, to the oft-renewed interrogatory, Imade this reply: “As soon as I can shoulder a barrel offlour, a feat which I am determined to accomplish before anaudience, you may announce my lecture.”

I had then been practising some two months with a loaded barrel,so contrived that it should weigh a little more each succeedingday; and it had now reached a hundred and ninety pounds. About thistime it occurred to me, that, among my many experiments, I hadnever fairly tried that of a vegetable diet. I read anew the worksof Graham and Alcott; and conceiving that my strength had reached astagnation-point, I gave up meat, and restricted my animal diet tomilk.

A barrel of flour weighs on an average two hundred and sixteenpounds. I therefore could not succeed in shouldering one untiltwenty-six pounds had been added to my loaded barrel. Day after dayI shouldered my one hundred and ninety pounds, but could not get anounce beyond that limit. My grand theory of the possibledevelopment of a man’s strength began to look somewhatinsecure.

The shouldering of a barrel of flour is a feat, by the way,which many an old inhabitant will tell you that he, or some friendof his, could accomplish in his eighteenth year. Why it shouldalways be among the res gestæ temporis acti cannotbe readily explained. It is a common belief that any stout truckmancan do the thing; but I have been assured by one of the leadingtruckmen of Boston, that there are not, probably, three individualsin the city who are equal to the accomplishment.

The mode of life that I had hitherto found essential to thekeeping up of my strength was quite simple, and rather negativethan positive. From tobacco and all ardent spirits, including wine,I had to abstain as a matter of course. Beer and all fermentedliquors had also been ruled out. Impure air must be avoided likepoison. Summer and winter I slept with my windows open. Badlyventilated apartments were scrupulously shunned. Cold bathing ofthe entire person was rarely practised oftener than once a week incold weather or twice a week in warm weather. A more frequentablution seemed to over-stimulate the excretory functions of theskin, so that excessive bathing defeated its very object. The“tranquil mind” must be preserved with little or nointerruption. Great physical strength cannot coexist with anunhappy, discontented temper. You must be habitually cheerful, ifyou would be strong. With regard to diet,—that was the veryexperiment I was trying,—the experiment, namely, of goingwithout solid animal food. With me it did not succeed. So far fromgaining in strength, hardly did I hold my own. Suddenly I resolvedto give up my vegetable diet, and return to beef-steaks,mutton-chops, and loins of veal. A daily appreciable increase ofstrength was soon the consequence. Within ten days I succeeded inshouldering the loaded barrel weighing two hundred and sixteenpounds; and a day or two after I shouldered, in the presence of ourgrocer himself, a barrel of flour.

I had now no further excuse for deferring my promised lecture.The month of May had arrived. My father delicately broached thesubject of the announcement. Being a little fractious, perhaps fromsome ebb in my strength, I hastily replied,—

“Announce it for the 30th of May.”

“What hall shall I engage?”

“Any hall in Boston. Why not the Music Hall?” Iadded, affecting a valor I was far from feeling; but, like Macbeth,I now realized that “returning were as tedious as goo’er.”

Mercantile Hall, in Summer Street, was engaged for me,—itbeing central, modest in point of size, commodious, and favorablyknown. At this time I was in excellent health and weighed onehundred and forty-three pounds. But from the moment of the publicannouncement of my lecture, my appetite for food, for meatparticularly, began to fail me. “How peevish and irritable heis growing!” I heard one member of the family remark toanother. Soon the grocer’s scales indicated that my weightwas diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,—thento one hundred and forty,—then to one hundred andthirty-eight,—and finally, when the 30th of May arrived, Ifound I weighed only one hundred and thirty-four pounds!

The crisis was now at hand. Do not laugh at me, ye self-assuredones, with your comfortable sense of your own powers,—ye whocare as little for an audience as for a field of cabbages,—donot jeer at one who has felt the pangs of shyness and quailed underthe imaginary terrors of a first public appearance. For you it maybe a small matter to face an audience,—that nearestapproximation to the many-headed monster which we can palpablyencounter; but for one whose diffidence had become the standard ofthat quality to his acquaintances the venture was perilous anddesperate, as the sequel showed.

Never had time rolled by with such fearful velocity as on thateventful day. Breakfast was hardly over before preparations werebeing made for dinner. Small appetite had I for either. Before Ihad finished pacing the parlor there was a summons to tea. It waslike the summons to the criminal: “Rise up, MasterBarnardine, and be hanged.” With a most shallow affectationof nonchalance I sat down at the table. A child might havedetected my agitation; and yet, with horrible insincerity, Ialluded to the news of the day, and asked the family why they wereall so silent. They saw from my look that they might as well havejoked with a man on his way to execution.

Having dressed and adorned myself for the sacrifice, I returnedto the parlor, when the rumbling of coach-wheels, the suddenletting down of steps, and then a frightfully discordant ring ofthe doorbell, sent the blood from my cheeks and made my heartpalpitate like a trip-hammer. “Is th-th-that theoff-officer,—I mean the coachman?” I stammered. Yes,there was no doubt about it.

Straightening my person, I affected a dignified calmness, andassured my dear, anxious mother that I was not in the leastnervous,—oh, not in the least!

It was a gloomy night, and the streets wore a dismal aspect. Thehall was distant about three miles; but in some mysterious manner,or by some route which I have never been able to discover, thecoachman seemed to abridge the distance to less than half a mile.We are in Summer Street,—before the door. Some juvenileamateurs, attracted by stories of the strong man, surround thecarriage to get a sight of him.

“Ha! what are these? Sure, hangmen, That come to bind myhands, and then to drag me Before the judgment-seat: now they arenew shapes, And do appear like Furies!”

The words of Sir Giles Overreach, one of the parts I had studiedduring my histrionic accès, were not at allinappropriate to the state of mind in which, with knee-jointsslipping from under me, I now made my way up-stairs. Having reachedthe upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the audience through thewindows, before entering the little retiring-room behind the stage.With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on. To think,that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that momentcomfortably at home, reading the evening paper! Nay, were it notbetter to be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore,toiling as a slave under a tropic sun, than here, with a gapingaudience waiting to devour me with their eyes and ears?

The first thing I did, on reaching the retiring-room, was togive way to a fearful fascination and take another peep at theaudience from behind a curtain at the side-entrance. I then lookedat my watch. Twenty minutes to eight! People were pouring in,notwithstanding the inclement weather. The hall was nearly crowdedalready. One familiar face after another was recognized. Surelyeverybody I know is present.

Another look at my watch. Quarter to eight! Suddenly the franticthought occurred to me, What if I have lost my manuscript? Wheredid I put it? ‘Tis in none of my pockets! Good gracious! Hasany one seen my manuscript? Come, Jerome, no fooling at a time likethis! Where have you hidden it? What! You know nothing about it?Hunt for it, then! Wouldn’t it be a charming scrape,if I couldn’t find my lecture? Isn’t this it, in thedrawer? Oh, yes! I must have put it there unconsciously.

Being in a high state of perspiration, and wiping my foreheadincessantly, I disarrange my hair. Where’s that brush? No onecan tell. Agony! Where’s the brush? Here on the floor. Oh,yes! There! What a blaze my cheeks are in! The audience will thinkthey are flushed with Bourbon. No matter. That manuscript hasdisappeared again. Confusion! Where is it? Here in yourovercoat-pocket. All right.

Five minutes to eight. Grasping the scroll, I rush to theside-entrance. The audience begin to manifest their impatience byapplause. Suddenly I hear the bell of the Old South Church strikeeight. The last vibration passes like an ice-bolt through my heart.Wrought up to desperation, I thrust aside the curtain. This gives aportion of the audience a sight of me, and I hear some one exclaim,“There he is!” Horrible exposure! I dodge back out ofview, as if to escape the discharge of a battery. A round ofimpatient applause rouses me. I count three, and precipitate myselfforward to the centre of the stage.

The hall is filled,—all the seats and most of thestanding-places occupied. But I can no longer recognize any one.Friend and foe are confounded in an undistinguishable mass; or,rather, they are but parts and members of one hideous monster,moving itself by one volition, winking its thousand eyes all atonce, and ready to swallow me with a single deglutition. However,the plunge is made. The worst is over. I rallied from the shock,and in a clear, but unnecessarily loud and ponderous voice, pitchedmany degrees too high, I commenced my lecture.

For some ten minutes, if I may believe the tender reports in thenewspapers the next day, I got on very respectably. I had won theattention of the audience. But, at an unlucky moment, a fresharrival of persons at the door made the monster turn his thousandeyes in that direction. I mistook it for an indication that he wasgetting weary of my talk. My attention was distracted. Then came asuspension of all thought, an appalling paralysis of memory. Havinglearnt the first part of my discourse by heart, I had been recitingit without turning over the leaves of the manuscript; and now I wasunable to recollect at what point I had left off, or whether I hadgiven five pages or ten.

Frightful dilemma! Stupefied with horror, I gazed intently onthe page before me till the lines became all blurred, and a bluemist wavered before my eyes. Then came a pause of intensestsilence. The monster lying in wait for me evidently began toanticipate that his victim’s time was come, and so, like acrafty monster, he remained still and patient. Who could endure anightmare like this? I felt myself reeling to and fro. Then apleasant thrill, like that, perhaps, which drowning men feel, ranthrough my frame. All became dark,—and the strong mandropped, like a felled ox, senseless on the stage.

When consciousness returned I was lying flat on my back, andseveral persons were bending over me.

“Keep down,—don’t rise,” some onesaid.

“What has happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,—only you were a little faint.”

“Faint? A man who can lift a thousand poundsfaint—at the sight of an audience? Absurd! Let merise.”

And in spite of all opposition I rose, grasped my manuscript,walked to the front of the stage, and resumed my lecture. Alas!

I had not proceeded far before I felt symptoms of a repetitionof the calamity; and lest I should be overtaken before I couldretreat, I stammered a few words of apology, and withdrewingloriously from public view. Fresh air and a draught of water,which some obliging friend had dashed with eau-de-vie,soon restored me. But I took the advice of friends and did not makea third attempt that evening.

The audience, had it been wholly composed of brothers andsisters, could not have been more indulgent and considerate. Oneskeptical gentleman was heard to say,—

“I don’t believe he can lift nine hundredpounds.”

And another added,—

“Nor I,—any more than that he can shoulder a barrelof flour.”

“Or raise his body by the little finger of onehand,” said another.

Whereupon a venerable citizen, a gentleman long known andrespected as the very soul of honor, truthfulness, and uprightness,came forward on the stage before the audience, and with emphaticearnestness, and in a loud, intrepid tone of voice,exclaimed,—

“Ladies and gentlemen,—The heat of the room was toomuch for the lecturer; but he can easily do all the feats announcedin the bills. I’ve seen him do them twentytimes.”

The dear, but infatuated old gentleman! He had never seen me doanything of the kind. He hardly knew me by sight. He thought onlyof coming to the rescue of an unfortunate lecturer, prostrated onthe very threshold of his career; and a friendly hallucination madehim for the moment really believe what he said. His unpremeditatedassertion must have been set down by the recording angel on thesame page with Uncle Toby’s oath, and then obliterated in thesame manner.

Ten days after the above-mentioned catastrophe, having engagedthe largest hall in Boston, (the Music Hall,) I delivered mylecture—in the words of the newspapers—“withéclat.” The illustrations of strength which Iexhibited on the occasion, though far inferior to subsequentefforts, were looked on as most extraordinary. The weight I liftedbefore the audience, with my hands alone, was nine hundred andtwenty-nine pounds. This was testified to by the City Sealer ofWeights and Measures, Mr. Moulton. My success induced me to repeatmy lecture in other places. Invitations and liberal offers pouredin upon me from all directions; and during the ensuing seasons, Ilectured in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Albany, and manyof the principal cities throughout the Northern States and theCanadas.

To return to my lifting experiments. I had promised my father to“stop at a thousand pounds.” In the autumn of 1859 Ihad reached ten hundred and thirty-two pounds. An incident nowoccurred that induced me to reconsider my promise and getabsolution from it. One day, while engaged in lifting, I had avisit from two powerful-looking men who asked permission to try myweight. One of them was five feet ten inches in height, and ahundred and ninety-two pounds in weight. The other was fully sixfeet in his stockings, and two hundred and twelve pounds inweight,—a fearful superiority in the eyes of a man, underfive feet seven and weighing less than a hundred and fifty pounds.The smaller of these men failed to lift eight of my iron disks,which, with the connections, amounted to eight hundred andtwenty-seven pounds. The larger individual fairly lifted them atthe second or third trial, but declined to attempt an increase.They left me, and I soon, afterward heard that they were practisingwith a view of “outlifting Dr. Windship.”

My father had incautiously remarked to me, “Those hugefellows, with a little practice, can lift your weight and you ontop of it. You can’t expect to compete with giants.”This decided me to test the question whether five feet seven mustnecessarily yield to mere bulk in the attainment of the maximum ofhuman strength. I had the start of my competitors by some twohundred pounds, and I determined to preserve that distance betweenus. In the autumn of that year I advanced to lifting with the handseleven hundred and thirty-three pounds, and in the spring of 1860to twelve hundred and eight. I have had no evidence that mycompetitors ever got beyond a thousand pounds; though I doubt not,if they had had my leisure for practice, they might have surpassedme.

In July, 1860, I commenced lifting by means of a padded ropeover my shoulders,—my body, during the act of lifting, beingsteadied and partly supported by my hands grasping a stout frame ateach side. After a few unsuccessful preliminary trials, I quicklyadvanced to fourteen hundred pounds. The stretching of the rope nowproved so great an annoyance, that I substituted for it a stoutleather band of double thickness, about two inches and a half wide,and which had been subjected to a process which was calculated torender it proof against stretching more than half an inch under anyweight it was capable of sustaining. But on trial, I found, almostto my despair, that it was of a far more yielding nature than therope, and consequently the rope was again brought into requisition.A few weeks of unsatisfactory practice followed, when it occurredto me that an iron chain, inasmuch as it could not stretch, mightbe advantageously used, provided it could be so padded as not tochafe my shoulders. After many experiments I succeeded in thissubstitution; but the chain had yet one objection in common withthe rope and the strap, arising from the difficulty of getting itproperly adjusted. I contented myself with its use, however, untilthe spring of 1861, when I hit upon a contrivance which has proveda complete success. It consists of a wooden yoke fitting across myshoulders, and having two chains connected with it in such a manneras to enable me to lift on every occasion to the most advantage.With this contrivance my lifting-power has advanced withmathematical certainty, slowly, but surely, to two thousand andseven pounds, up to this twenty-third day of November,1861.

In my public experiments in lifting, when I have not used theiron weights cast for the purpose, I have, as a convenientsubstitute, used kegs of nails. It recently occurred to me, that,if, instead of these kegs, I could employ a number of men selectedfrom the audience, the spectacle would he still more satisfactoryto the skeptical. Accordingly I contrived an apparatus by means ofwhich I have been able to present this convincing proof of theactual weight lifted. I introduced it after my lecture at theTown-Hall in Brighton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of October, 1861;and the following account of the result appeared in one of the citypapers:—

“Standing upon a staging at an elevation of about eight orten feet from the floor, the Doctor lifted and sustained, for aconsiderable time and without apparent difficulty, a platformsuspended beneath him on which stood twelve gentlemen, all heavierindividually than the Doctor himself, and weighing, inclusive ofthe entire apparatus lifted with them, nearly nineteen hundredpounds avoirdupois. In the performance of this tremendousfeat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, norgirdle,—nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fittingacross his shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of ratherformidable-looking chains. At his request, a committee, appointedby the audience, and furnished with one of Fairbanks’sscales, superintended all the experiments.”

The exact weight lifted on this occasion was eighteen hundredand thirty-six pounds. A few evenings after, I lifted, in the sameway, in Lynn, eighteen hundred and sixty; in Brookline, eighteenhundred and ninety; in Medford, nineteen hundred and thirty-four;in Maiden, nineteen hundred and two; and in Charlestown, nineteenhundred and forty.

As my strength is still increasing in an undiminished ratio, Iam fairly beginning to wonder where the limit will be; and the oldadage of the camel’s back and the last feather occasionallysuggests itself. I have fixed three thousand pounds as my neplus ultra.

FREMONT’S HUNDRED DAYS INMISSOURI.

I.

The narrative we propose to give of events in Missouri is notintended to be a defence of General Fremont, nor in any respect ananswer to the charges which have been made against him. Our purposeis the more humble one of presenting a hasty sketch of theexpedition to Springfield, confining ourselves almost entirely tothe incidents which came under the observation of an officer of theGeneral’s staff.

General Fremont was in command of the Western Departmentprecisely One Hundred Days. He assumed the command at the time whenthe army with which Lyon had captured Camp Jackson and won theBattle of Booneville was on the point of dissolution. The enemy,knowing that the term for which our soldiers had been enlisted wasnear its close, began offensive movements along their whole line.Cairo, Bird’s Point, Ironton, and Springfield weresimultaneously threatened. Jeff Thompson wrote to his friends inSt. Louis, promising to be in that city in a month. The sad, butglorious day upon Wilson’s Creek defeated the Rebel designs,and compelled McCulloch, Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson toretire.

Relieved from immediate danger, General Fremont found anopportunity to organize the expedition down the Mississippi. Won bythe magic of his name and the ceaseless energy of his action, thehardy youth of the Northwest, flocked into St. Louis, eager toshare his labors and his glory. There was little time fororganization and discipline. They were armed with such weapons ascould be procured against the competition of the GeneralGovernment, and at once forwarded to the exposed points. Historycan furnish few parallels to the hasty levy and organization of theArmy of the West. When suddenly required to defend Washington, theGovernment was able to summon the equipped and disciplined militiaof the East, and could call upon the inexhaustible resources of awealthy and skilful people. But in the West there was neither adisciplined militia nor trained mechanics. Men, indeed, brave,earnest, patriotic men, were plenty,—men who appreciated themagnitude and importance of the task before them, and who wereconfident of their ability to accomplish it. But to introduce orderinto their tumultuous ranks, to place arms in their eager hands, toclothe and feed them, to provide them with transportation andequipage for the march, and inspire them with confidence for thesiege and the battle,—this labor the General, almost unaided,was called upon to perform. Like all the rest of our generals, hewas without experience in military affairs of such magnitude andurgency, and he was compelled to rely chiefly upon the assistanceof men entirely without military training and knowledge. Thegeneral staff and the division and brigade staffs were, from thenecessity of the case, made up mainly of civilians. A small numberof foreign officers brought to his aid their learning andexperience, and a still smaller number of West-Point officers gavehim their invaluable assistance. In spite of all difficulties thework proceeded. In six weeks the strategic positions were placed ina state of defence, and an army of sixty thousand men, with agreater than common proportion of cavalry and artillery, stoodready to clear Missouri of the invader and to open the valley ofthe Mississippi. At this time the sudden appearance of Price in theWest, and the fall of Lexington, compelled the General to take thefield.

We will now confine ourselves to the narrative of the incidentsof the march to Springfield, as it is given in the journal whichhas been placed in our hands.

FROM ST. LOUIS TO WARSAW.

St. Louis, September 27th, 1861. For four days thehead-quarters have been ready to take the field at an hour’snotice. The baggage has been packed, the wagons loaded, horses havestood saddled all through the day, and the officers have beensitting at their desks, booted and spurred, awaiting the order fortheir departure. It is not unlikely that the suspense in which theyare held and the constant condition of readiness which is requiredof them are a sort of preliminary discipline to which the Generalis subjecting them. Yesterday the body-guard left by the river, andthe staff-horses went upon the same steamer, so that we cannot bedetained much longer.

Jefferson City, September 28th. Yesterday, at eleveno’clock, we were informed that the General would leave forJefferson City at noon; and that those members of the staff whowere not ready would be left behind, and their places filled in thefield. At the appointed hour we were all gathered at the depot. TheGeneral drove down entirely unattended. Most of the train wasoccupied by a battalion of sharp-shooters, but in the rear car theGeneral and his staff found seats. The day was cloudy and damp;there was no one to say farewell; and as the train passed throughthe cold hills, a feeling of gloom seemed to pervade the company.Nature was in harmony with the clouded fortunes of our General, andthe laboring locomotive dragged us at a snail’s pace, as ifit were unwilling to assist us in our adventure.

Those who were strangers in the West looked out eagerly for theMissouri, hoping to find the valley of the river rich in scenerywhich would relieve the tedium of the journey. But when we came outupon the river-bank and looked at the dull shores, and the sandybed, which the scant stream does not cover, but through which itcreeps, treacherous and slimy, in half a dozen channels, there wasno pleasure to the eye, no relief for the spirit. Late in theafternoon we approached a little village, and were greeted withmusic and hearty cheers,—the first sign of hospitality theday had furnished. It was the German settlement of Hermann, famousfor good cheer and good wines. The Home-Guard was drawn up at thestation, files of soldiers kept the passage clear to thedining-room, and through an avenue of muskets, and amidst theshouts of an enthusiastic little crowd, the General passed into aroom decorated with flowers, through the centre of which wasstretched a table groaning under the weight of delicious fruits andsmoking viands. With little ceremony the hungry company seatedthemselves, and vigorously assailed the tempting array, quiteunconscious of the curious glances of a motley assemblage of men,women, and children who assisted at the entertainment. The day hadbeen dark, the journey dull, and the people we had seen silent andsullen; but here was a welcome, the hearty, generous welcome ofsympathizing friends, who saw in their guests the defenders oftheir homes. They were Germans, and our language came broken fromtheir lips. But they are Germans who fill the ranks of ourregiments. Look where you will, and the sturdy Teuton meets youreye. If Missouri shall be preserved for the Union and civilization,it will be by the valor of men who learned their lessons ofAmerican liberty and glory upon the banks of the Rhine and theElbe. We think of this at Hermann, and we pledge our German hostsand our German fellow-soldiers in strong draughts of deliciousCatawba,—not such Catawba as is sent forth from the slovenlymanufactories of Cincinnati, for the careful vintners of Hermannselect the choice grapes, and in the quiet cellars of Hermann theCatawba has time to grow old and to ripen.

We at length extricate ourselves from the maze of corn-cakes andpancakes, waffles and muffins and pies without number, with whichour kind friends of Hermann tempt and tantalize our satiatedpalates, and once more set forth after the wheezing, reluctantlocomotive, over the rough road, through the dreary hills, alongthe bank of the treacherous river.

At ten o’clock, in ten weary hours, we have accomplishedone hundred and twenty miles, and have reached Jefferson City. Thetrain backs and starts ahead, halts and backs and jerks, andfinally, with a long sigh of relief, the locomotive stops, and agentleman in citizen’s dress enters the car, carrying alantern in his hand. It was Brigadier-General Price, commanding atJefferson City. He took possession of the General, and, with usclosely following, left the car. But leaving the train was asomewhat more difficult matter. We went along-side the train, overthe train, under the train, but still those cars seemed to surroundus like a corral. We at length outflanked the train, but stillfailed to extricate ourselves from the labyrinth. Informed, orrather deluded, by the “lantern dimly burning,” wefloundered into ditches and scrambled out of them, we wadedmud-puddles and stumbled over boulders, until finally theever-present train disappeared in the darkness, we rushed up asteep hill, heard the welcome sound as our feet touched a brickwalk, and, after turning two or three corners, found ourselves inthe narrow hall of the “principal hotel.” We were tiredand disgusted, and no one stood upon the order of his going, butwent at once to sleep upon whatever floor, table, or bed offereditself.

This morning we are pleased to hear that the General hasresolved to go into camp. Of course the best houses in the placeare at our disposal, but it is wisely thought that our soldier-lifewill not begin until we are fairly under canvas.

All day we have had an exhibition of a Missouri crowd. Thesidewalk has been fringed with curious gazers waiting to catch aglimpse of the General. Foote, the comedian, said, that, until helanded on the quays at Dublin, he never knew what the Londonbeggars did with their old clothes. One should go to Missouri tosee what the New-York beggars do with their old clothes. But it isnot the dress alone. Such vacant, listless faces, with lazinesswritten in every line, and ignorance seated upon every feature! Isit for these that the descendants of New England and the thriftyGermans are going forth to battle? If Missouri depended upon theMissourians, there would be little chance for her safety, and,indeed, not very much to save.

October 4th. We have been in camp since Sunday, the29th of September. Our tents are pitched upon abroad shelf half-waydown a considerable hill. Behind us the hill rises a hundred feetor more, shutting us in from the south; in front, to the north, thehill inclines to a ravine which separates us from other less loftyhills. Our camp is upon open ground, but there is a fine forest tothe east and west.

In a few days we have all become very learned in camp-life. Wehave found out what we want and what we do not want. Fortunately,St. Louis is near at hand, and we send there to provide for ournecessities, and also to get rid of our superfluities. The troopshave been gathering all the week. There are several regiments infront of us, and batteries of artillery behind us. Go where youwill, spread out upon the plain or shining amidst the trees youwill see the encampments. Head-quarters are busy providing for thetransportation and the maintenance of this great force; and asrapidly as the railway can carry them, regiment after regiment issent west. There is plenty of work for the staff-officers; and yetour life is not without its pleasures. The horses and their ridersneed training. This getting used to the saddle is no light matterfor the civilian spoiled by years of ease and comfort. But theGeneral gives all his officers plenty of horseback discipline. Thenthere is the broadsword exercise to fill up the idle time. Eveningis the festive hour in camp; though I judge, from what I have seenand heard, that our camp has little of the gayety which is commonlyassociated with the soldier’s life. We are too busy formerrymaking, but in the evening there are pleasant little circlesaround the fires or in the snug tents. There are old campaignersamong us, men who have served in Mexico and Utah, and others whoselives have been passed upon the Plains; they tell us campaignstories, and teach the green hands the slang and the airs of thecamp. But the unfailing amusement is the band. This is the specialpride of the General, and soon after nightfall the musicians appearupon the little plaza around which the tents are grouped.At the first note the audience gather. The guardsmen come up fromtheir camp on the edge of the ravine, the negro-quarter isdeserted, the wagoners flock in from the surrounding forest, theofficers stroll out of their tents,—a picturesque crowdstands around the huge camp-fire. The programme is simple and notoften varied. It uniformly opens with “The Star-SpangledBanner,” and closes with “Home, Sweet Home.” Byway of a grand finale, a procession is organized everynight, led by some score of negro torch-bearers, which makes thecircuit of the camp,—a performance which never fails toproduce something of a stampede among the animals.

Last night we had an alarm. About eleven o’clock, when thecamp was fairly asleep, some one tried to pass a picket half a milewest of us. The guard fired at the intruder, and in an instant theregimental drums sounded the long roll. We started from our beds,with frantic haste buckled on swords, spurs, and pistols, hurriedservants after the horses, and hastened to report for duty to theGeneral. The officer who was first to appear found him standing infront of his tent, himself the first man in camp who was ready forservice. Presently a messenger came with information as to thecause of the alarm, and we were dismissed.

At two o’clock in the morning there was another alarm.Again the body-guard bugles sounded and the drums rolled. Againsoldiers sprang to their arms, and officers rushed to report to theGeneral,—the first man finding him, as before, leaning uponhis sword in front of his tent. But, alas for the reputation of ourmess, not one of its number appeared. In complete unconsciousnessof danger or duty, we slept on. Colonel S. said he heard “themusic, but thought it was a continuation of the evening’sserenade,” and went to sleep again. It was not long before wediscovered that the General knew that four members of his staff didnot report to him when the long roll was sounded.

There are several encampments on the hill-sides north of uswhich are in full view from our quarters, and it is not the leastof our amusements to watch the regiments going through theafternoon drill. In the soft light of these golden days we see thelong blue lines, silver-tipped, wheel and turn, scatter and form,upon the brown hill-sides. Now the slopes are dotted withskirmishers, and puffs of gray smoke rise over the kneelingfigures; again a solid wall of bayonets gleams along the crest ofthe hill, and peals of musketry echo through the woods in theravines.

Colonel Myscall Johnson, a Methodist exhorter and formidableRebel marauder, is said to be forty miles south of us with a smallforce, and some of the Union farmers came into camp to-day askingfor protection. Zagonyi, the commander of the body-guard, isanxious to descend upon Johnson and scatter his thieving crew; butit is not probable he will obtain permission. The Union men ofMissouri are quite willing to have you fight for them, but theirpatriotism does not go farther than this. These people representthat three-fourths of the inhabitants of Miller County are loyal.The General probably thinks, if this be true, they ought to be ableto take care of Johnson’s men. But a suggestion that theyshould defend their own homes and families astonishes our Missourifriends. General Lyon established Home-Guards throughout the State,and armed them with several thousand Springfield muskets taken fromthe arsenal at St. Louis. Most of these muskets are now inPrice’s army, and are the most formidable weapons he has. Insome instances the Rebels enlisted in the Home-Guards and thuscontrolled the organization, carrying whole companies intoPrice’s ranks. In other cases bands of Rebels scoured thecountry, went to the house of every Home-Guard, and took away hismusket. In the German settlements alone the Guards still preservetheir organization and their arms.

A few days ago it fell to the lot of our mess to entertain aRebel officer who had come in with a flag of truce. Strange to say,he was a New-Yorker, and had a younger brother in one of theIndiana regiments. He was a pleasant and courteous gentleman,albeit his faded dress, with its red-flannel trimmings, did notindicate great prosperity in the enemy’s camp. We gave himthe best meal we could command. I apologized because it was nobetter. He replied,—“Make no apology, Sir. It is thebest dinner I have eaten these three months. I have campaigned it agood deal this summer upon three ears of roast corn a day.”He added,—“I never have received a cent of pay. None ofus have. We never expect to receive any.” This captain hasalready seen considerable service. He was at Booneville, Carthage,Wilson’s Creek, and Lexington. His descriptions of theseengagements were animated and interesting, his point of viewpresenting matters in a novel light. He spoke particularly of agunner stationed at the first piece in Totten’s battery,saying that his energy and coolness made him one of the mostconspicuous figures of the day. “Our sharp-shooters did theirbest, but they failed to bring him down. There he was all day long,doing his duty as if on parade.” He also told us there was nohard fighting at Lexington. “We knew,” said he,“the place was short of water, and so we spared our men, andwaited for time to do the work.”

Camp Lovejoy, October 7th. For the last two days thetroops have been leaving Jefferson City, and the densely peopledhills are bare. This morning, at seven o’clock, we began tobreak camp. There was no little trouble and confusion in loweringthe tents and packing the wagons. It took us a long time to-day,but we shall soon get accustomed to it, and become able to movemore quickly. At noon we left Jefferson City, going due west.

Out little column consists of three companies of the body-guard,numbering about two hundred and fifty men, a battalion ofsharp-shooters (infantry) under Major Holman, one hundred andeighty strong, and the staff. The march is in the following order.The first company of the guard act as advance-guard; then comes theGeneral, followed by his staff, riding by twos, according to rank;the other two companies of the guard come next. The sharp-shootersaccompany and protect the train. Our route lay through a broken andheavily wooded region. The roads were very bad, but the day wasbright, and the march was a succession of beautiful pictures, ofwhich the long and brilliant line of horsemen winding through theforest was the chief ornament.

We reached camp at three o’clock. It is a lovely spot,upon a hill-side, with a clear, swift-running brook washing thefoot of the hill. Presently the horses are tied along the fences,riders are lounging under the trees, the kitchen-fires are lighted,guardsmen are scattered along the banks of the stream bathing, thewagons roll heavily over the prairie and are drawn up along theedge of the wood, tents are raised, tent-furniture is hastilyarranged, and the camp looks as if it had been there a month.Before dark a regiment of infantry and two batteries of artillerycome up. The men sleep in the open air without tents, andinnumerable fires cover the hill-sides.

We are upon land which is owned by an influential and wealthycitizen, who is an open Secessionist in opinion, though he has hadthe prudence not to take up arms. By way of a slight punishment,the General has annoyed the old man by naming his farm “CampOwen Lovejoy,” a name which the Union neighbors will not failto make perpetual.

California, October 8th. This morning we broke camp atsix o’clock and marched at eight. The road was bad, for whichthe beauty of the scenery did not entirely compensate.To-day’s experience has taught us how completely an army istied to the wheels of the wagons. Tell a general how fast the traincan travel and he will know how long the journey will be. We passedour wagons in a terrible plight: some upset, some with balky mules,some stuck in the mud, and some broken down. The loud-swearingdrivers, and the stubborn, patient, hard-pulling mules did not failto vary and enliven the scene.

A journey of eighteen miles brought us to this place, where weare encamped upon the county fair-ground. California is a mean,thriftless village; there are no trees shading the cottages, noshrubbery in the yards. The place is only two or three years old,but already wears a slovenly air of decay.

I set out with Colonel L. upon a foraging expedition. We passeda small house, in front of which a fat little negro-girl wasdrawing a bucket of water from the well, the girl puffing and thewindlass creaking.

“Will Massa have a drink of water?”

It was the first token of hospitality since Hermann. We stoppedand drank from the bucket, but had not been there a minute beforethe mistress ran out, with suspicion in her face, to protect herproperty. A single question sufficed to show the politics of thathouse.

“Where is your husband?”

“He went off a little while ago.”

This was the Missouri way of informing us that he was in theRebel army.

A little farther on we came to what was evidently the chiefhouse of the place. A bevy of maidens stood at the gate, supportedby a pleasant matron, fair and fat.

“Can you sell us some bread?” was our ratherpractical inquiry.

“We have none baked, but will bake you some bysundown,” was the answer, given in a hearty, generousvoice.

The bargain was soon made. Our portly dame proved to be aVirginian, who still cherished a true Virginian love for theUnion.

Tipton, October 9th. The General was in the saddle veryearly, and left camp before the staff was ready. I was fortunateenough to be on hand, and indulged in some excusable banter whenthe tardy members of our company rode up after we were a mile ortwo on the way. We have marched twelve miles to-day through alovely country. We have left the hills and stony roads behind us,and now we pass over beautiful little prairies, bordered by forestsblazing with the crimson and gold of autumn. The day’s ridehas been delightful, the atmosphere soft and warm, the skycloudless, and the prairie firm and hard under our horses’feet. We passed several regiments on the road, who received theGeneral with unbounded enthusiasm; and when we entered Tipton, wefound the country covered with tents, and alive with men andhorses. Amidst the cheers of the troops, we passed through thecamps, and settled down upon a fine prairie-farm a mile to thesouthwest of Tipton. The divisions of Asboth and Hunter are here,not less than twelve thousand men, and from this point our courseis to be southward.

Camp Asboth, near Tipton, October 11th. For the lasttwenty-four hours it has rained violently, and the prairie uponwhich we are encamped is a sea of black mud. But the tents aretight, and inside we contrive to keep comparatively warm.

The camp is filled with speculations as to our future course.Shall we follow Price, who is crossing the Osage now, or are we togarrison the important positions upon this line and return to St.Louis and prepare for the expedition down the river? The General issilent, his reserve is never broken, and no one knows what hisplans are, except those whose business it is to know. I will hererecord the plan of the campaign.

Our campaign has been in some measure decided by the movementsof the Rebels. The sudden appearance of Price in the West,gathering to his standard many thousands of the disaffected, hasmade it necessary for the General to check his bold and successfulprogress. Carthage, Wilson’s Creek, and Lexington have givento Price a prestige which it is essential to destroy. The gun-boatscannot be finished for two months or more, and we cannot go downthe Mississippi until the flotilla is ready; and from the characterof the country upon each side of the river it will be difficult tooperate there with a large body of men. In Southwestern Missouri weare sure of fine weather till the last of November, the prairiesare high and dry, and there are no natural obstacles except such asit will excite the enthusiasm of the troops to overcome. Thereforethe General has determined to pursue Price until he catches him. Hecan march faster than we can now, but we shall soon be able to movefaster than it is possible for him to do. The Rebels have no baseof operations from which to draw supplies; they depend entirelyupon foraging; and for this reason Price has to make long haltswherever he finds mills, and grind the flour. He is so deficient inequipage, also, that it will be impossible for him to carry histroops over great distances. But we can safely calculate that Priceand Rains will not leave the State; their followers are enlistedfor six months, and are already becoming discontented at theircontinued retreat, and will not go with them beyond the borders.This is the uniform testimony of deserters and scouts. Pricedisposed of, either by a defeat or by the dispersal of his army, weare to proceed to Bird’s Point, or into Arkansas, accordingto circumstances. A blow at Little Rock seems now the wisest, as itis the boldest plan. We can reach that place by the middle ofNovember; and if we obtain possession of it, the position of theenemy upon the Mississippi will be completely turned. Thecommunications of Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson, who draw theirsupplies through Arkansas, will be cut off, they will be compelledto retreat, and our flotilla and the reinforcements can descend theriver to assist in the operations against Memphis and the attackupon New Orleans.

This campaign may be difficult, the army will have to encounterhardships and perils, but, unless defeated in the field, theenterprise will be successful. No hardships or perils can daunt thespirit of the General, or arrest the march of the enthusiastic armyhis genius has created.

Our column is composed of five divisions, under Generals Hunter,Pope, Sigel, McKinstry, and Asboth, and numbers about thirtythousand men, including over five thousand cavalry and eighty-sixpieces of artillery, a large proportion of which are rifled. Theinfantry is generally well, though not uniformly armed. But thecavalry is very badly armed. Colonel Carr’s regiment has nosabres, except for the commissioned and non-commissioned officers.The men carry Hall’s carbines and revolvers. MajorWaring’s fine corps, the Fremont Hussars, is also deficientin sabres, and some of the companies are provided withlances,—formidable weapons in skilful bands, but only anembarrassment to our raw troops.

Lane and Sturgis are to come from Kansas and join us on theOsage, and Wyman is to bring his command from Rolla and meet ussouth of that river.

Paducah, Cairo, Bird’s Point, Cape Girardeau, and Irontonare well protected against attack, and the commanders at thoseposts are ordered to engage the enemy as soon as we catch Price;and if the Rebels retreat, they are to pursue them. Thus ourexpedition is part of a combined and extended movement, and,instead of having no purpose except the defeat of Price, we are onthe road to New Orleans.

Next Monday we are to start. Asboth will go from here, Hunter byway of Versailles, McKinstry from Syracuse, Pope from his presentposition in the direction of Booneville, and Sigel from Sedalia. Weare to cross the Osage at Warsaw; and as Sigel has the shortestdistance to march, he is expected to reach that town first.

Precious time has already been lost because of a lack oftransportation and supplies. Foraging parties have been scouringthe country, and large numbers of wagons, horses, and mules havebeen brought in. This property is all appraised, and when takenfrom Union men it is paid for. In doubtful cases a certificate isgiven to the owner, which recites that he is to be paid in case heshall continue to be loyal to the Government. We thus obtain a holdupon these people which an oath of allegiance every day would notgive us.

Camp Asboth, October 13th. Mr. Cameron, SenatorChandler of Michigan, and Adjutant-General Thomas arrived at anearly hour this morning; and at eight o’clock, the General,attended by his staff and body-guard, repaired to theSecretary’s quarters. After a short stay there, the wholeparty, except General Thomas, set out for Syracuse to review thedivision of General McKinstry. The day was fine, and we proceededat a hand gallop until we reached a prairie some three or fourmiles wide. Here the Secretary set spurs to his horse, and we toreacross the plain as fast as our animals could be driven. Passingfrom the open plain into a forest, the whole cortege dashed over avery rough road with but little slackening of our pace; nor did wedraw rein until we reached Syracuse. A few moments were passed inthe interchange of the usual civilities, and we then went a milefarther on, to a large prairie upon which the division was drawnup. McKinstry has the flower of the army. He has in his ranks someregular infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and among his subordinateofficers are Totten, Steele, Kelton, and Stanley, all distinguishedin the regular service. There was no time for the observance of theusual forms of a review. The Secretary passed in front and behindthe lines, made a short address, and left immediately by rail forSt. Louis, stopping at Tipton to review Asboth’s division.The staff and guard rode slowly back to camp, both men and animalshaving had quite enough of the day’s work. It is said, thatAdjutant-General Thomas has expressed the opinion that we shall notbe able to move from here, because we have no transportation. As weare ordered to march to-morrow, the prediction will soon betested.

Camp Zagonyi, October 14th. We were in the saddle thismorning at nine o’clock, A short march of eleven miles, in asouth-westerly direction, and through a prairie country, brought usto our camp. As we came upon the summit of a hill which lies to thewest of our present position, our attention was directed to a groupstanding in front of a house about a mile distant. We had hardlycaught sight of them when half a dozen men and three women mountedtheir horses and started at full speed towards the northeast, eachman leading a horse. The General ordered some of the body-guard topursue and try to stop the fugitives. We eagerly watched the chase.A narrow valley separated us from the elevation upon which thefarm-house stood, and a small stream with low banks ran through thebottom of the valley. The pursuit was active, the guardsmen rantheir horses down the slope, leaped the pool, and rushed up theopposite hill; but the runaways were on fresh horses, and had norough ground to pass, and so they escaped. One of them lost thehorse he was leading, and it was caught by a guardsman. This wasthe first exhibition we have seen of a desire on the part of theinhabitants to avoid us.

The General established head-quarters along-side the house wherewe first discovered the Rebel party. Our position is the mostbeautiful one we have yet found. To the west stretches anundulating prairie, separated from us by a valley, into which ourcamping-ground subsides with a mild declivity; to the north is arange of low hills, their round sides unbroken by shrub or tree;while to the south stretches an extensive tract of low land,densely covered with timber, and resplendent with the colors ofautumn.

Before dark the whole of Asboth’s division came up andencamped on the slopes to the west and north: not less than seventhousand men are here. This evening the scene is beautiful. I sitin the door of my lodge, and as far as the eye can reach theprairie is dotted with tents, the dark forms of men and horses, thehuge white-topped wagons,—and a thousand fires gleam throughthe faint moonlight. Our band is playing near the General’squarters, its strains are echoed by a score of regimental bands,and their music is mingled with the numberless noises of camp, thehum of voices, the laughter from the groups around the fires, theclatter of hoofs as some rider hurries to the General, the distantchallenges of the sentries, the neighing of horses, the hoarsebellowing of the mules, and the clinking of the cavalry anvils.This, at last, is the romance of war. How soon will our ears besaluted by sterner music?

Camp Hudson, October 15th. We moved at seveno’clock this morning. For the first four miles the road ranthrough woods intersected by small streams. The ground was as roughas it could well be, and the teams which had started before us werestruggling through the mire and over the rocks. We dashed past themat a fast trot, and in half an hour came upon a high prairie. Theprairies of Southern Missouri are not large and flat, like themonotonous levels of Central Illinois, but they are rolling,usually small, and broken by frequent narrow belts of timber. Inthe woods there are hills, rocky soil, and always one, often twostreams, clear and rapid as a mountain-brook in New England.

The scenery to-day was particularly attractive, a constantsuccession of prairies surrounded by wooded hills. As we go south,the color of the forest becomes richer, and the atmosphere moremellow and hazy.

During the first two hours we passed several regiments of foot.The men were nearly all Germans, and I scanned the ranks carefully,longing to see an American countenance. I found none, but caughtsight of one arch-devil-may-care Irish face. I doubt whether thereis a company in the army without an Irishman in it, though theproportion of Irishmen in our ranks is not so great as at theEast.

Early in the afternoon we rode up to a farm-house, at the gateof which a middle-aged woman was standing, crying bitterly. TheGeneral stopped, and the woman at once assailed him vehemently. Shetold him the soldiers had that day taken her husband and his teamaway with them. She said that there was no one left to take care ofher old blind mother,—at which allusion, the blind mothertottered down the walk and took a position in the rear of theattacking party,—that they had two orphan girls, the childrenof a deceased sister, and the orphans had lost their second father.The assailants were here reinforced by the two orphan girls. Sheprotested that her husband was loyal,—“Truly, Sir, hewas a Union man and voted for the Union, and always told hisneighbors Disunion would do nothing except bring trouble uponinnocent people, as indeed it has,” said she, with a freshflood of tears. The General was moved by her distress, and orderedColonel E. to have the man, whose name is Rutherford, sent back atonce.

A few rods farther on we came to another house, in front ofwhich was another weeping woman afflicted in the same way. Severallittle flaxen-haired children surrounded her, and a white-beardedman, trembling with age, stood behind, leaning upon a staff. Herearnestness far surpassed that of Mrs. Rutherford. She wrung herhands, and could hardly speak for her tears. She seized theGeneral’s hand and entreated him to return her husband, withan expression of distress which the hardest heart could not resist.The General comforted the poor woman with a few kind words, andpromised to grant what she asked.

It is very difficult to refuse such requests, and yet, in pointof fact, no great hardship or sacrifice is required of these men.They profess to be Union men, but they are not in arms for theUnion, and a Federal general now asks of them that they shall helpthe army for a day with their teams. To those who come here fromall parts of the nation to defend these homes this does not appearto be a harsh demand.

We arrived at camp about five o’clock. Our day’smarch was twenty-two miles, and the wagons were far behind. Aneighboring farm-house afforded the General and a few of hisofficers a dinner, but it was late in the evening before the tentswere pitched.

Warsaw, October 17th. Yesterday we made our longestmarch, making twenty-five miles, and encamped three miles north ofthis place.

It is a problem, why riding in a column should be so much morewearisome than riding alone, but so it undeniably is. Men who wouldthink little of a sixty-mile ride were quite broken down byto-day’s march.

As soon as we reached camp, the General asked for volunteersfrom the staff to ride over to Warsaw: of course the whole staffvolunteered. On the way we met General Sigel. This very able andenterprising officer is a pleasant, scholarly-looking gentleman,his studious air being increased by the spectacles he always wears.His figure is light, active, and graceful, and he is an excellenthorseman. The country has few better heads than his. Always on thealert, he is full of resources, and no difficulties daunt him.Planter, Pope, and McKinstry are behind, waiting for tea andcoffee, beans and flour, and army-wagons. Sigel gathered theox-team and the farmers’ wagons and brought his divisionforward with no food for his men but fresh beef. His advance-guardis already across the Osage, and in a day or two his whole divisionwill be over.

Guided by General Sigel, we rode down to the ford across theOsage. The river here is broad and rapid, and its banks are immensebare cliffs rising one hundred feet perpendicularly from thewater’s edge. The ford is crooked, uncertain, and neverpracticable except for horsemen. The ferry is an old flat-boatdrawn across by a rope, and the ascent up the farther bank is steepand rocky. It will not answer to leave in our rear this river,liable to be changed by a night’s rain into a fierce torrent,with no other means of crossing it than the rickety ferry. A bridgemust at once be built, strong and firm, a safe road for the army incase of disaster. So decides the General. And as we look upon theswift-running river and its rocky shores, cold and gloomy in thetwilight, every one agrees that the General is right. His decisionhas since been strongly supported, for to-day two soldiers of theFremont Hussars were drowned in trying to cross the ford, and thewater is now rising rapidly.

This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time thestaff is billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but theGeneral clings to his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house ofthe county judge, who says his sympathies are with the South. Butthe poor man is so frightened, that we pity and protect him.

Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is nosaw-mill here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down andfashioned into a bridge, as well as the tools and the skill atcommand will permit. Details are already told off from thesharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the body-guard, and the banksof the river now resound with the quick blows of their axes.

Warsaw, October 21st. Four days we have been waitingfor the building of the bridge. By night and by day the work goeson, and now the long black shape is striding slowly across thestream. In a few hours it will have gained the opposite bank, andthen, Ho, for Springfield!

Our scouts have come in frequently the last few days. They tellus Price is at Stockton, and is pushing rapidly on towards thesouthwest. He has been grinding corn near Stockton, and has nowfood enough for another journey. His army numbers twenty thousandmen, of whom five thousand have no arms. The rest carry everything,from double-barrelled shot-guns to the Springfield muskets takenfrom the Home-Guards. They load their shot-guns with aMinié-ball and two buck-shot, and those who have hadexperience say that at one hundred yards they are very effectiveweapons. There is little discipline in the Rebel army, and the onlyorganization is by companies. The men are badly clothed, andwithout shoes, and often without food. The deserters say that thosewho remain are waiting only to get the new clothes which McCullochis expected to bring from the South.

McCulloch, the redoubtable Ben, does not seem to be held in highesteem by the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment andself-command. But all speak well of Price. No one can doubt that heis a man of unusual energy and ability. McCulloch will increasePrice’s force to about thirty-five thousand, which number wemust expect to meet.

Hunter and McKinstry have not yet appeared, but Pope reportedhimself last night, and some of his men came in to-day.

Camp White, October 22d. The bridge is built, and thearmy is now crossing the Osage. In five days a firm road has beenthrown across the river, over which our troops may pass in a day.The General and staff crossed by the ferry, and are now encampedtwo miles south of the Pomme-de-Terre.

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ.,TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW.

Letter from the REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A.M.,inclosing the Epistle aforesaid.

Jaalam, 15th Nov., 1861.

It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person withundue prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen uponthe present occasion. Juniores ad labores. But having beena main instrument in rescuing the talent of my young parishionerfrom being buried in the ground, by giving it such warrant with theworld as would be derived from a name already widely known byseveral printed discourses, (all of which I maybe permitted withoutimmodesty to state have been deemed worthy of preservation in theLibrary of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. Sibley,) itseemed becoming that I should not only testify to the genuinenessof the following production, but call attention to it, the more asMr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absoluteoblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authourship(vix ea nostra voco) of the works already published by Mr.Biglow, but merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilledtoward them the office of taster, (experto crede,) who,having first tried, could afterward bear witness,—an officealways arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in the ease ofthose devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition ofpatent medicines (dolus latet in generalibus, there isdeceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfullypreserved long enough to append their signatures to testimonials inthe diurnal and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertlyglancing at the authours of certain manuscripts which have beensubmitted to my literary judgment, (though an epick in twenty-fourbooks on the “Taking of Jericho” might, save for theprudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as Ihad arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of thevarious horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous inlonganimity of Homer’s list of ships, might, I say, haverendered frustrate any hope I could entertain vacare Musisfor the small remainder of my days,) but only further to securemyself against any imputation of unseemly forthputting. I willbarely subjoin, in this connection, that, whereas Job was left todesire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary hadwritten a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite areview thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as tosend Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in hiswallet to be submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were Iin need of other excuse, I might add that I write by the expressdesire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire winter leisure isoccupied, as he assures me, in answering demands for autographs, alabour exacting enough in itself, and egregiously so to him, who,being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as his name withoutstrange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being essential tocomplete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance ofevery muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in theCommission of the Peace by our excellent Governour (O, si sicomnes!) immediately on his accession to office, keeps himcontinually employed. Haud inexpertus loquor, having formany years written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to forspecimens of my chirography, a request to which I have sometimestoo weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing written of setpurpose can properly be called an autograph, but only thoseunpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray thefireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on hispursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of SaintAustin’s prayer, Libera me a meipso, if I wouldarrive at the matter in hand.

Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself.I am informed that the “Atlantic Monthly” is mainlyindebted for its success to the contributions and editorialsupervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent “Annals ofAmerica” occupy an honoured place upon my shelves. Thejournal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it should seemthat the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though parmagis quam similis) would carry a greater weight. I supposethat you have a department for historical lucubrations, and shouldbe glad, if deemed desirable, to forward for publication my“Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam” and my (nowhappily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from fons etorigo, the Wild-Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the activeduties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor,the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, Imight find time for further contributions to general literature onsimilar topicks. I have made large advances toward a completergenealogy of Mrs. Wilbur’s family, the Pilcoxes, not, if Iknow myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire ofrendering myself useful in my day and generation. Nulla diessine lineâ. I inclose a meteorological register, a listof the births, deaths, and marriages, and a fewmemorabilia, of longevity in Jaalam East Parish for thelast half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more thaneighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement ofmy natural vigour, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and anecessity of recurring to younger eyesight for the finer print inCruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision fordeclining years from the emoluments of my literary labours. I hadintended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterredtherefrom by a circular from one of the offices, in which thesudden deaths of so large a proportion of the insured was set forthas an inducement, that it seemed to me little less than a temptingof Providence. Neque in summâ inopiâ levis essesenectus potest, ne sapienti quidem.

Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful(brevis esse laboro) by way of preliminary, after asilence of fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he may in thisessay have fallen below himself, well knowing, that, if exercise bedangerous on a full stomach, no less so is writing on a fullreputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could notrefrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have“got the hang” (as he calls it) of an accomplishmentlong disused. The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time inlast June, and others have followed which will in due season besubmitted to the publick. How largely his statements are to bedepended on, I more than merely dubitate. He was alwaysdistinguished for a tendency to exaggeration,—it might almostbe qualified by a stronger term. Fortiter mentire, aliquidhæret, seemed to be his favourite rule of rhetorick.That he is actually where he says he is the post-mark would seem toconfirm; that he was received with the publick demonstrations hedescribes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits ofthose regions; but further than this I venture not to decide. Ihave sometimes suspected a vein of humour in him which leads him tospeak by contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse ofprivate life, I have never observed in him any striking powers ofinvention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faithin the incidents and the details of life and manners which give tohis narratives some of the interest and entertainment whichcharacterize a Century Sermon.

It may be expected of me that I should say something to justifymyself with the world for a seeming inconsistency with mywell-known principles in allowing my youngest son to raise acompany for the war, a fact known to all through the medium of thepublick prints. I did reason with the young man, but expellasnaturam furcâ, tamenusque recurrit. Having myself been achaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war hadsprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin,the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, Iwith my own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the greatComforter for strength according to my need. For truly the memoryof a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of mydeclining years than a coward, though his days might be long in theland and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthenvessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure thatwas laid up in them. Migravi in animam meam, I have soughtrefuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathencomedian with his Nequam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi benefacit. During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspiredbook of Job, which I believe to contain more food to maintain thefibre of the soul for right living and high thinking than all paganliterature together, though I would by no means vilipend the studyof the classicks. There I read that Job said in his despair, evenas the fool saith in his heart there is no God,—“Thetabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God aresecure.” Job xii. 6. But I sought farther till Ifound this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend whohave striven to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strangegods:—“If I did despise the cause of my man-servant orof my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then shall Ido when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answerhim?” Job xxxi. 13-14. On this text I preached adiscourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with generalacceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodiceans whosaid that I should have waited till the President announced hispolicy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of SaintGregory, Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdamimportunitate vinci.

We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have beenunusually backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred inthis town on the 20th October, in the family of Deacon PelatiahTinkham. On the previous evening, a few moments beforefamily-prayers,

[The editors of the “Atlantic” find itnecessary here to cut short the letter of their valuedcorrespondent, which seemed calculated rather on the rates oflongevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They haveevery encouragement to hope that he will write again.]

With esteem and respect,
Your obedient servant
HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

Yourn,
BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

OLD AGE.

On the last anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society atCambridge, the venerable President Quincy, senior member of theSociety, as well as senior alumnus of the University, was receivedat the dinner with peculiar demonstrations of respect. He repliedto these compliments in a speech, and, gracefully claiming theprivileges of a literary society, entered at some length into anApology for Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in his hand, madea sort of running commentary on Cicero’s chapter “DeSenectute.” The character of the speaker, the transparentgood faith of his praise and blame, and thenaïveté of his eager preference ofCicero’s opinions to King David’s, gave unusualinterest to the College festival. It was a discourse full ofdignity, honoring him who spoke and those who heard.

The speech led me to look over at home—an easytask—Cicero’s famous essay, charming by its uniformrhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical precepts; with a Roman eye tothe claims of the State; happiest, perhaps, in his praise of lifeon the farm; and rising, at the conclusion, to a lofty strain. Buthe does not exhaust the subject; rather invites the attempt to addtraits to the picture from our broader modern life.

Cicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to theelement of time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, inspeaking of military men, said,—“What masks are theseuniforms to hide cowards! When our journal is published, manystatues must come down.” I have often detected the likedeception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spectacles,and padded chair of Age. Nature lends herself to these illusions,and adds dim sight, deafness, cracked voice, snowy hair, shortmemory, and sleep. These also are masks, and all is not Age thatwears them. Whilst we yet call ourselves young, and all our matesare yet youths and boyish, one good fellow in the set prematurelysports a gray or a bald head, which does not impose on us who knowhow innocent of sanctity or of Platonism he is, but does not lessdeceive his juniors and the public, who presently distinguish himwith a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the secret, thatthe venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just suchimpostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head onyoung shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscorewinters.

For if the essence of age is not present, these signs, whetherof Art or Nature, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and the essenceof age is intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old. If welook into the eyes of the youngest person, we sometimes discoverthat here is one who knows already what you would go about withmuch pains to teach him; there is that in him which is the ancestorof all around him: which fact the Indian Vedas express, when theysay, “He that can discriminate is the father of hisfather.” And in our old British legends of Arthur and theRound-Table, his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a babefound exposed in a basket by the river-side, and, though an infantof only a few days, he speaks to those who discover him, tells hisname and history, and presently foretells the fate of theby-standers. Wherever there is power, there is age. Don’t bedeceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe is a thousandyears old.

Time is, indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion. Nothing is soductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, anddwarfs an age to an hour. Saadi found in a mosque at Damascus anold Persian of a hundred and fifty years who was dying, and wassaying to himself, “I said, coming into the world by birth,‘I will enjoy myself for a few moments.’ Alas! at thevariegated table of life I partook of a few mouthfuls, and theFates said, ‘Enough!’” That which doesnot decay is so central and controlling in us, that, as long as oneis alone by himself, he is not sensible of the inroads of time,which always begin at the surface-edges. If, on a winter day, youshould stand within a bell-glass, the face and color of theafternoon clouds would not indicate whether it were June orJanuary; and if we did not find the reflection of ourselves in theeyes of the young people, we could not know that the century-clockhad struck seventy instead of twenty. How many men habituallybelieve that each chance passenger with whom they converse is oftheir own age, and presently find it was his father, and not hisbrother, whom they knew!

But, not to press too hard on these deceits and illusions ofNature, which are inseparable from our condition, and looking atage under an aspect more conformed to the common sense, if thequestion be the felicity of age, I fear the first popular judgmentswill be unfavorable. From the point of sensuous experience, seenfrom the streets and markets and the haunts of pleasure and gain,the estimate of age is low, melancholy, and skeptical. Frankly facethe facts, and see the result. Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish,prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest poison istime. This cup, which Nature puts to our lips, has a wonderfulvirtue, surpassing that of any other draught. It opens the senses,adds power, fills us with exalted dreams, which we call hope, love,ambition, science: especially, it creates a craving for largerdraughts of itself. But they who take the larger draughts are drunkwith it, lose their stature, strength, beauty, and senses, and endin folly and delirium. We postpone our literary work until we havemore ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that ourliterary talent was a youthful effervescence which we have nowlost. We had a judge in Massachusetts who at sixty proposed toresign, alleging that he perceived a certain decay in hisfaculties: he was dissuaded by his friends, on account of thepublic convenience at that time. At seventy it was hinted to himthat it was time to retire; but he now replied, that he thought hisjudgment as robust, and all his faculties as good as ever theywere. But besides the self-deception, the strong and hasty laborersof the street do not work well with the chronic valetudinarian.Youth is everywhere in place. Age, like woman, requires fitsurroundings. Age is comely in coaches, in churches, in chairs ofstate and ceremony, in council-chambers, in courts of justice, andhistorical societies. Age is becoming in the country. But in therush and uproar of Broadway, if you look into the faces of thepassengers, there is dejection or indignation in the seniors, acertain concealed sense of injury, and the lip made up with aheroic determination not to mind it. Few envy the considerationenjoyed by the oldest inhabitant. We do not count a man’syears, until he has nothing else to count. The vast inconvenienceof animal immortality was told in the fable of Tithonus. In short,the creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, butimmensely disadvantageous. Life is well enough, but we shall all beglad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us.

This is odious on the face of it. Universal convictions are notto be shaken by the whimseys of overfed butchers and firemen, or bythe sentimental fears of girls who would keep the infantile bloomon their cheeks. We know the value of experience. Life and art arecumulative; and he who has accomplished something in any departmentalone deserves to be heard on that subject. A man of greatemployments and excellent performance used to assure me that he didnot think a man worth anything until he was sixty; although thissmacks a little of the resolution of a certain “YoungMen’s Republican Club,” that all men should be heldeligible who were under seventy. But in all governments, thecouncils of power were held by the old; and patricians orpatres, senate or senes, seigneurs orseniors, gerousia, the senate of Sparta, the presbytery ofthe Church, and the like, all signify simply old men.

This cynical lampoon is refuted by the universal prayer for longlife, which is the verdict of Nature, and justified by all history.We have, it is true, examples of an accelerated pace, by whichyoung men achieved grand works; as in the Macedonian Alexander, inRaffaelle, Shakspeare, Pascal, Burns, and Byron; but these are rareexceptions. Nature, in the main, vindicates her law. Skill to docomes of doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and workinghands; and there is no knowledge that is not power. And if the lifebe true and noble, we have quite another sort of seniors than thefrowzy, timorous, peevish dotards who are falselyold,—namely, the men who fear no city, but by whom citiesstand; who appearing in any street, the people empty their housesto gaze at and obey them: as at “My Cid, with the fleecybeard,” in Toledo; or Bruce, as Barbour reports him; as blindold Dandolo, elected Doge at eighty-four years, stormingConstantinople at ninety-four, and after the revolt againvictorious, and elected at the age of ninety-six to the throne ofthe Eastern Empire, which he declined, and died Doge atninety-seven. We still feel the force of Socrates, “whomwell-advised the oracle pronounced wisest of men”; ofArchimedes, holding Syracuse against the Romans by his wit, andhimself better than all their nation; of Michel Angelo, wearing thefour crowns of architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry; ofGalileo, of whose blindness Castelli said, “The noblest eyeis darkened that Nature ever made,—an eye that hath seen morethan all that went before him, and hath opened the eyes of all thatshall come after him”; of Newton, who made an importantdiscovery for every one of his eighty-five years; of Bacon, who“took all knowledge to be his province”; of Fontenelle,“that precious porcelain vase laid up in the centre of Franceto be guarded with the utmost care for a hundred years”; ofFranklin, Jefferson, and Adams, the wise and heroic statesmen; ofWashington, the perfect citizen; of Wellington, the perfectsoldier; of Goethe, the all-knowing poet; of Humboldt, theencyclopædia of science.

Under the general assertion of the well-being of age, we caneasily count particular benefits of that condition. It hasweathered the perilous capes and shoals in the sea whereon we sail,and the chief evil of life is taken away in removing the grounds offear. The insurance of a ship expires as she enters the harbor athome. It were strange, if a man should turn his sixtieth yearwithout a feeling of immense relief from the number of dangers hehas escaped. When the old wife says, “Take care of that tumorin your shoulder, perhaps it is cancerous,”—he replies,“What if it is?” The humorous thief who drank a pot ofbeer at the gallows blew off the froth because he had heard it wasunhealthy; but it will not add a pang to the prisoner marched outto be shot, to assure him that the pain in his knee threatensmortification. When the pleuro-pneumonia of the cows raged, thebutchers said, that, though the acute degree was novel, there neverwas a time when this disease did not occur among cattle. All mencarry seeds of all distempers through life latent, and we diewithout developing them: such is the affirmative force of theconstitution. But if you are enfeebled by any cause, the diseasebecomes strong. At every stage we lose a foe. At fifty years,‘t is said, afflicted citizens lose their sick-headaches. Ihope this hegira is not as movable a feast as that one Iannually look for, when the horticulturists assure me that therose-bugs in our gardens disappear on the tenth of July: they staya fortnight later in mine. But be it as it may with thesick-headache,—‘t is certain that graver headaches andheart-aches are lulled, once for all, as we come up with certaingoals of time. The passions have answered their purpose: thatslight, but dread overweight, with which, in each instance, Naturesecures the execution of her aim, drops off. To keep man in theplanet, she impresses the terror of death. To perfect thecommisariat, she implants in each a little rapacity to get thesupply, and a little over-supply, of his wants. To insure theexistence of the race, she reinforces the sexual instinct, at therisk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure strength, she plantscruel hunger and thirst, which so easily overdo their office, andinvite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for theprotection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can bereplaced by nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabbleof passions, quite too tender, quite too hungry and irritable.Later, the interiors of mind and heart open, and supply grandermotives. We learn the fatal compensations that wait on every act.Then,—one mischief at a time,—this riotoustime-destroying crew disappear.

I count it another capital advantage of age, this, that asuccess more or less signifies nothing. Little by little, it hasamassed such a fund of merit, that it can very well afford to go onits credit when it will. When I chanced to meet the poetWordsworth, then sixty-three years old, he told me, “that hehad just had a fall and lost a tooth, and, when his companions weremuch concerned for the mischance, he had replied, that he was gladit had not happened forty years before.” Well, Nature takescare that we shall not lose our organs forty years too soon. Alawyer argued a cause yesterday in the Supreme Court, and I wasstruck with a certain air of levity and defiance which vastlybecame him. Thirty years ago it was a serious concern to himwhether his pleading was good and effective. Now it is ofimportance to his client, but of none to himself. It is longalready fixed what he can do and cannot do, and his reputation doesnot gain or suffer from one or a dozen new performances. If heshould, on a new occasion, rise quite beyond his mark, and dosomewhat extraordinary and great, that, of course, would instantlytell; but he may go below his mark with impunity, and people willsay, “Oh, he had headache,” or, “He lost hissleep for two nights.” What a lust of appearance, what a loadof anxieties that once degraded him, he is thus rid of! Every oneis sensible of this cumulative advantage in living. All the gooddays behind him are sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent,pay for him when he has no money, introduce him where he has noletters, and work for him when he sleeps.

A third felicity of age is, that it has found expression. Youthsuffers not only from ungratified desires, but from powers untried,and from a picture in his mind of a career which has, as yet, nooutward reality. He is tormented with the want of correspondencebetween things and thoughts. Michel Angelo’s head is full ofmasculine and gigantic figures as gods walking, which make himsavage until his furious chisel can render them into marble; and ofarchitectural dreams, until a hundred stone-masons can lay them incourses of travertine. There is the like tempest in every good headin which some great benefit for the world is planted. The throescontinue until the child is born. Every faculty new to each manthus goads him and drives him out into doleful deserts, until itfinds proper vent. All the functions of human duty irritate andlash him forward, bemoaning and chiding, until they are performed.He wants friends, employment, knowledge, power, house and land,wife and children, honor and fame; he has religious wants,aesthetic wants, domestic, civil, humane wants. One by one, dayafter day, he learns to coin his wishes into facts. He has hiscalling, homestead, social connection, and personal power, andthus, at the end of fifty years, his soul is appeased by seeingsome sort of correspondence between his wish and his possession.This makes the value of age, the satisfaction it slowly offers toevery craving. He is serene who does not feel himself pinched andwronged, but whose condition, in particular and in general, allowsthe utterance of his mind. In old persons, when thus fullyexpressed, we often observe a fair, plump, perennial, waxencomplexion, which indicates that all the ferment of earlier dayshas subsided into serenity of thought and behavior.

For a fourth benefit, age sets its house in order, and finishesits works, which to every artist is a supreme pleasure. Youth hasan excess of sensibility, to which every object glitters andattracts. We leave one pursuit for another, and the youngman’s year is a heap of beginnings. At the end of atwelvemonth, he has nothing to show for it, not one completed work.But the time is not lost. Our instincts drove us to hiveinnumerable experiences, that are yet of no visible value, andwhich we may keep for twice seven years before they shall bewanted. The best things are of secular growth. The instinct ofclassifying marks the wise and healthy mind. Linnæus projectshis system, and lays out his twenty-four classes of plants, beforeyet he has found in Nature a single plant to justify certain of hisclasses. His seventh class has not one. In process of time, hefinds with delight the little white Trientalis, the onlyplant with seven petals and sometimes seven stamens, whichconstitutes a seventh class in conformity with his system. Theconchologist builds his cabinet whilst as yet he has few shells. Helabels shelves for classes, cells for species: all but a few areempty. But every year fills some blanks, and with acceleratingspeed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar finds keendelight in verifying all the impressive anecdotes and citations hehas met with in miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the yearsof youth. We carry in memory important anecdotes, and have lost allclue to the author from whom we had them. We have a heroic speechfrom Rome or Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said it. Wehave an admirable line worthy of Horace, ever and anon resoundingin our mind’s ear, but have searched all probable andimprobable books for it in vain. We consult the reading men: but,strangely enough, they who know everything know not this. Butespecially we have a certain insulated thought, which haunts us,but remains insulated and barren. Well, there is nothing for allthis but patience and time. Time, yes, that is the finder, theunweariable explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient atlast. The day comes when the hidden author of our story is found;when the brave speech returns straight to the hero who said it;when the admirable verse finds the poet to whom it belongs; andbest of all, when the lonely thought, which seemed so wise, yethalf-wise, half-thought, because it cast no light abroad, issuddenly matched in our mind by its twin, by its sequence, or nextrelated analogy, which gives it instantly radiating power, andjustifies the superstitious instinct with which we had hoarded it.We remember our old Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancientbachelor, amid his folios, possessed by this hope of completing atask, with nothing to break his leisure after the three hours ofhis daily classes, yet ever restlessly stroking his leg, andassuring himself “he should retire from the University andread the authors.” In Goethe’s Romance, Makaria, thecentral figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself withwithdrawing into solitude to astronomy and epistolarycorrespondence. Goethe himself carried this completion of studiesto the highest point. Many of his works hung on the easel fromyouth to age, and received a stroke in every month or year of hislife. A literary astrologer, he never applied himself to any taskbut at the happy moment when all the stars consented. Bentleythought himself likely to live till fourscore,—long enough toread everything that was worth reading,—”Et tuncmagna mei sub terris ibit imago.” Much wider is spreadthe pleasure which old men take in completing their secularaffairs, the inventor his inventions, the agriculturist hisexperiments, and all old men in finishing their houses, roundingtheir estates, clearing their titles, reducing tangled interests toorder, reconciling enmities, and leaving all in the best posturefor the future. It must be believed that there is a proportionbetween the designs of a man and the length of his life: there is acalendar of his years, so of his performances.

America is the country of young men, and too full of workhitherto for leisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robustcentenarians, and examples of dignity and wisdom. I have latelyfound in an old note-book a record of a visit to Ex-President JohnAdams, in 1825, soon after the election of his son to thePresidency. It is but a sketch, and nothing important passed in theconversation; but it reports a moment in the life of a heroicperson, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect, and worthyof his fame.

——, Feb., 1825. To-day, atQuincy, with my brother, by invitation of Mr. Adams’s family.The old President sat in a large stuffed arm-chair, dressed in ablue coat, black small-clothes, white stockings, and a cotton capcovered his bald head. We made our compliment, told him he must letus join our congratulations to those of the nation on the happinessof his house. He thanked us, and said, “I am rejoiced,because the nation is happy. The time of gratulation andcongratulations is nearly over with me: I am astonished that I havelived to see and know of this event. I have lived now nearly acentury: [he was ninety in the following October:] a long,harassed, and distracted life.”—I said, “Theworld thinks a good deal of joy has been mixed withit.”—“The world does not know,” he replied,“how much toil, anxiety, and sorrow I havesuffered.”—I asked if Mr. Adams’s letter ofacceptance had been read to him.—“Yes,” he said,and added, “My son has more political prudence than any manthat I know who has existed in my time; he never was put off hisguard: and I hope he will continue such; but what effect age maywork in diminishing the power of his mind, I do not know; it hasbeen very much on the stretch, ever since he was born. He hasalways been laborious, child and man, frominfancy.”—When Mr. J.Q. Adams’s age wasmentioned, he said, “He is now fifty-eight, or will be inJuly”; and remarked that “all the Presidents were ofthe same age: General Washington was about fifty-eight, and I wasabout fifty-eight, and Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and Mr.Monroe.”—We inquired, when he expected to see Mr.Adams.—He said, “Never: Mr. Adams will not come toQuincy, but to my funeral. It would be a great satisfaction to meto see him, but I don’t wish him to come on myaccount.”—He spoke of Mr. Lechmere, whom “he wellremembered to have seen come down daily, at a great age, to walk inthe old town-house,”—adding, “And I wish I couldwalk as well as he did. He was Collector of the Customs for manyyears, under the Royal Government”—E. said, “Isuppose, Sir, you would not have taken his place, even to walk aswell as he.”—“No,” he replied, “thatwas not what I wanted.”—He talked of Whitefield, and“remembered, when he was a Freshman in college, to have comein to the Old South, [I think,] to hear him, but could notget into the house;—I, however, saw him,” he said,“through a window, and distinctly heard all. He had a voicesuch as I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that youmight hear it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincymeeting-house,] and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of anactor of plays. His voice and manner helped him more than hissermons. I went with Jonathan Sewall.”—“And youwere pleased with him, Sir?”—“Pleased! I wasdelighted beyond measure.”—We asked, if atWhitefield’s return the same popularitycontinued.—“Not the same fury,” he said,“not the same wild enthusiasm as before, but a greateresteem, as he became more known. He did not terrify, but wasadmired.”

We spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctlyfor so old a man, enters bravely into long sentences, which areinterrupted by want of breath, but carries them invariably to aconclusion, without ever correcting a word.

He spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and “Peep at thePilgrims,” and “Saratoga,” with praise, and namedwith accuracy the characters in them. He likes to have a personalways reading to him, or company talking in his room, and isbetter the next day after having visitors in his chamber frommorning to night.

He received a premature report of his son’s election, onSunday afternoon, without any excitement, and told the reporter hehad been hoaxed, for it was not yet time for any news to arrive.The informer, something damped in his heart, insisted on repairingto the meeting-house, and proclaimed it aloud to the congregation,who were so overjoyed that they rose in their seats and cheeredthrice. The Reverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them immediately.

When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can wellspare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, andworks that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was oldin infancy, is young in fourscore years, and, dropping offobstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.I have heard that whoever loves is in no condition old. I haveheard, that, whenever the name of man is spoken, the doctrine ofimmortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution. The modeof it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the otherside. But the inference from the working of intellect, hivingknowledge, hiving skill,—at the end of life just ready to beborn,—affirms the inspirations of affection and of the moralsentiment.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Lectures on theScience of Languages, delivered at the Royal Institutionof Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX MÜLLER,M.A., Fellow of All-Souls College, Oxford; Corresponding Member ofthe Imperial Institute of France. London: Longman, Green, Longman,& Roberts. 1861. 8vo. pp. xii., 399.

The name of Mr. Max Müller is familiar to American studentsas that of a man who, learned in the high German fashion, has thepleasant faculty, unhappily too rare among Germans, ofcommunicating his erudition in a way not only comprehensible, butagreeable to the laity. The Teutonic Gelehrte, gallantlydevoting a half-century to his pipe and his locative case, fencingthe result of his labors with a bristling hedge of abbreviations,cross-references, and untranslated citations that take panglottismfor granted as an ordinary incident of human culture, too hastilyassumes a tenacity of life on the part of his reader as great ashis own. All but those with whom the study of language is aspecialty pass him by as Dante does Nimrod, gladly concluding

The brothers Grimm are known to what is called the readingpublic chiefly as contributors to the literature of the nursery;and as for Bopp, Pott, Zeuss, Lassen, Diefenbach, and the rest, menwho look upon the curse of Babel as the luckiest event in humanannals, their names and works are terrors to the uninitiated. Theyare the giants of these latter days, of whom all we know is thatthey now and then snatch up some unhappy friend of ours andimprison him in their terrible castle of Nongtongpaw, whence, if heever escape, he comes back to us emaciated, unintelligible, andwith a passion for roots that would make him an ornament of societyamong the Digger Indians.

Yet though in metaphor giants of learning, their office seemspractically rather that of the dwarfs, as gatherers and guardiansof treasure useless to themselves, but with which someluck’s-child may enrich himself and his neighbors. Otheranalogies between them and the dwarfs, such as their accomplishingsuperhuman things and being prematurely subject to the dryness ofold ago, (“Der Zwerg ist schon im siebenten Jahr einGreis,” says Grimm,) will at once suggestthemselves.

Mr. Müller is one of the agreeable luck’s-childrenwho lay these swarthy miners under contribution for us, understandtheir mystic sign-language, and save us the trouble of climbing themountain and scratching through the thickets for ourselves. Happythe man who can make knowledge entertaining! Thrice happy hisreaders! The author of these Lectures is already well known as notonly, perhaps, the best living scholar of Sanscrit literature, (andby scholar we mean one who regards study as a means, not an end,and who is capable of drawing original conclusions,) but asavant who can teach without tiring, and can administerlearning as if it were something else than medicine. Whoever readsthis volume will regret that Mr. Müller’s eminentqualifications for the Boden Professorship at Oxford should havefailed to turn the scale against the assumed superior orthodoxy ofhis competitor. Was it in Sanscrit that he was heterodox? or inHindoo mythology?

The Lectures are nine in number. The titles of them will showthe range and nature of Mr. Müller’s dissertations. Theyare, (1.) On the science of language as one of the physicalsciences; (2.) On the growth of language in contradistinction tothe history of language; (3.) On the empirical stage in the scienceof language; (4.) On the classificatory stage in the same; (5.) Onthe genealogical classification of languages; (6.) On comparativegrammar; (7.) On the constituent elements of language; (8.) On themorphological classification of languages; (9.) On the theoreticalstage in the science of languages and the origin of language. AnAppendix contains a genealogical table of languages; and an ampleIndex (why have authors forgotten, what was once so well known,that an index is all that saves the contents of a book from beingmere birds in the bush?) makes the volume as useful on the shelf asit is interesting and instructive in the hand. Of the catholicspirit in which Mr. Müller treats his various topics ofdiscussion and illustration, his own theory of the true method ofinvestigation is the best proof.

“There are two ways,” he says, indiscussing the origin of language, “of judging of formerphilosophers. One is, to put aside their opinions as simplyerroneous, where they differ from our own. This is the leastsatisfactory way of studying ancient philosophy. Another way is, totry to enter into the opinions of those from whom we differ, tomake them, our a time at least, our own, till at least we discoverthe point of view from which each philosopher looked at the factsbefore him and catch the light in which he regarded them. We shallthen find that there is much less of downright error in the historyof philosophy than is commonly supposed; nay, we shall findnothing so conducive to a right appreciation of truth as a rightappreciation of the error by which it is surrounded.”(p. 360. The Italics are ours.)

A mere philologist might complain that the book containednothing new. And this is in the main true, though by no meansaltogether so, especially as regards the nomenclature ofclassification, and the illustration of special points by pertinentexamples. In this last respect Mr. Müller is particularlyhappy, as, for instance, in what he says of “Yes ’r andYes ’m.” (pp. 210 ff.) And as regards originality inthe treatment of a purely scientific subject, a good deal dependson the meaning we attach to the term. If we understand by itstriking conclusions drawn from theoretic premises, (as inKnox’s “Races of Man,”) clever generalizationsfrom fortuitous analogies and coincidences insufficiently weighed,(as in Pococke’s “India in Greece,”) or, to takea philologic example, speculations suggestive of thought, it maybe, but too insecurely based on positive data, (as in Rapp’s“Physiologie der Sprache,”) we shall vainly seek forsuch originality in Mr. Müller’s Lectures. But if wetake it to mean, as we certainly prefer to do, safety of conclusionfounded on thorough knowledge and comparison, clear statementguarded on all sides by long intimacy with the subject, and theorythe result of legitimate deduction and judicial weighing ofevidence, we shall find enough in the book to content us. Mr.Müller does not now enter the lists for the first time to winhis spurs as an original writer. The plan of the work before usnecessarily excluded any great display of recondite learning or ofprofound speculation. Delivered at first as popularly scientificlectures, and now published for the general reader, it seems to usadmirably conceived and executed. Easily comprehensible, and yetalways pointing out the sources of fuller investigation, it isample both to satisfy the desire of those who wish to get thelatest results of philology and to stimulate the curiosity ofwhoever wishes to go farther and deeper. It is by far the best andclearest summing-up of the present condition of the Science ofLanguage that we have ever seen, while the liveliness of the styleand the variety and freshness of illustration make it exceedinglyentertaining.

We hope that a book of such slight assumption and such solidmerit, a model of clear arrangement and popular treatment, may bewidely read in this country, where the ignorance, carelessness, ordishonest good-nature even of journals professedly literary is aptto turn over the unlearned reader to such blind guides asSwinton’s “Rambles among Words,” compounds ofplagiarism and pretension. Philology as a science is but justbeginning to assert its claims in America, though we may alreadypoint with satisfaction to several distinguished workers in thefield. The names of Professor Sophocles, at Cambridge, andProfessor Whitney, at New Haven, rank with those of Europeanscholars; and we have already borne the warmest testimony in thesepages to the value of Mr. Marsh’s contributions to the studyof English, a judgment which we are glad to see confirmed by theweighty authority of Mr, Müller.

1. OnTranslating Homer. Three Lectures given at Oxford byMATTHEW ARNOLD, M.A., Professor of Poetry in the University ofOxford, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College. London: Longmans.1861. pp. 104.
2. Homeric Translation in Theoryand Practice. A Reply to Matthew Arnold, Esq., Professorof Poetry at Oxford. By FRANCIS W. NEWMAN, a Translator of theIliad. London: Williams & Norgate. 1801. pp. 104.

MR. F.W. NEWMAN, Professor of Latin in the University of London,probably without much hope of satisfying himself, and certain todissatisfy every one who could read, or pretend to read, theoriginal, did nevertheless complete and publish a translation ofthe “Iliad.” And now, unmindful of Bentley’sdictum, that no man was ever written down but by himself,he has published an answer to Mr. Arnold’s criticism of hiswork. Thackeray has said that it is of no use pretending not tocare if your book is cut up by the “Times”; and it isnot surprising that Mr. Newman should be uneasy at being first heldup as an awful example to the youth of Oxford in academicallectures, and then to the public of England in a printed monograph,by a man of so much reputation for scholarship and taste as thepresent incumbent of Thomas Warton’s chair.

Mr. Arnold’s little book is, we need scarcely say, full ofdelicate criticism and suggestion. He treats his subject with greatcleverness, and on many points carries the reader along with him.Especially good is all that he says about the “grandstyle,” so far as his general propositions are concerned. Butwhen he comes to apply his criticisms, he instinctively feels thewant of an absolute standard of judgment in aesthetic matters, andaccordingly appeals to the verdict of“scholars,”—a somewhat vague term, to be sure,but by which he evidently understands men not merely of learning,but of taste. Of course, his reasoning is all aposteriori, and from the narrowest premises,—namely,from an unpleasant effect on his own nerves, to an efficient causein the badness of Mr. Newman’s translation.

No quarrels, perhaps, are so bitter as those about matters oftaste: hardly even is the odium theologicum, so profoundas the odium æstheticum. A man, perhaps, will moreeasily forgive another for disbelieving his own total depravitythan for believing that Guido is a great painter or Tupper aninspiring poet. The present dispute, therefore, tenderly personalas it is on the part of one of the pleaders, is especiallyinteresting as showing a very decided and gratifying advance in thecivilization of literary men to-day as compared with that of acentury or indeed half a century ago. If we go back still farther,matters were still worse, and we find Luther and even Milton rakingthe kennel for dirt dirty enough to fling at an antagonist. Buteven within the memory of man, the style of the“Dunciad” was hardly obsolete in“Blackwood” and the “Quarterly.” It is verypleasant, in the present case, to see both attack and defenceconducted with so gentlemanlike a reserve,—and the latter,which is even more surprising, with an approach to amenity.

In Mr. Newman the Professor of Poetry finds an able and waryantagonist, and one who, in point of learning, carries heaviermetal than himself. The dispute turns partly on the character ofHomer’s poetry, partly on the true method of translation,(especially Homeric translation,) and partly on the particularmerits of Mr. Newman’s attempt as compared with those ofothers. Of course, many side-topics are incidentally touched upon,among others, the English hexameter, Mr. Newman’s objectionsto which are particularly worthy of attention.

Mr. Newman instantly sees and strikes at the weak point of hisadversary’s argument. “You appeal to scholars,”he says in substance; “you admit that I am one; now youdon’t like my choice of words or metre; Ido; who, then, shall decide? Why, the public, of course,which is the court of last appeal in such cases.” It appearsto us, that, on most of the points at issue, the truth liessomewhere between the two disputants. We do not think that Mr.Newman has made out his case that Homer was antiquated, quaint, andeven grotesque to the Greeks themselves because his cast of thoughtand his language were archaic, or strange to them because he wrotein a dialect almost as different from Attic as Scotch from English.The Bible is as far from us in language and in the Orientalism ofits thought and expression as Homer was from them; yet we are sofamiliar with it that it produces on us no impression of beingantiquated or quaint, seldom of being grotesque, and what is stillmore to the purpose, produces that impression as little onilliterate persons to whom many of the words are incomprehensible.So, too, it seems to us, no part of Burns is alien to a man whosemother-tongue is English, in the same sense that some parts ofBéranger are; because Burns, though a North Briton, wasstill a Briton, as Homer, though an Ionian, was still a Greek. Wethink he does prove that neither Mr. Arnold nor any other scholarcan form any adequate conception of the impression which the poemsof Homer produced either on the ear or the mind of a Greek; but indoing this he proves too much for his own case, where it turns uponthe class of words proper to be used in translating him. Mr. Newmansays he sometimes used low words; and since his theory of the dutyof a translator is, that he should reproduce the moral effect ofhis author,—be noble where he is noble, barbarous, if he bebarbarous, and quaint, if quaint,—so he should render lowwords by words as low. But here his own dilemma meets him: how doeshe know that Homer’s words did seem low to a Greek?We agree with him in refusing to be conventional; so would Mr.Arnold; only one would call conventional what the other would callelegant, the question again resolving itself into one of personaltaste. We agree with him also in his preference for words that haveit certain strangeness and antique dignity about them, but think heshould stop short of anything that needs a glossary. He might learnfrom Chapman’s version, however, that it is not the widestchoice of archaic words, but intensity of conception and phrase,that gives a poem life, and keeps it living, in spite of gravedefects. Where Chapman, in a famous passage,(“Odyssey,” v. 612,) tells us, that, when Ulyssescrawled ashore after his shipwreck, “the sea had soakedhis heart through,” it is not the mere simplicity of thelanguage, but the vivid conception which went before and compelledthe simplicity, that is impressive. We believe Mr. Newman is rightin refusing to sacrifice a good word because it may be pronouncedmean by individual caprice, wrong in attempting the fatalimpossibility of rescuing a word which to all minds alike conveys alow or ludicrous meaning, as, for example, pate, anddopper, for which he does battle doughtily. Mr. Newman isguilty of a fallacy when he brings up brick, sell, andcut as instances in support of his position, for in thesecases Mr. Arnold would only object to his use of them in theirslang sense. He himself would hardly venture to say thatHector was a brick, that Achilles cut Agamemnon,or that Ulysses sold Polyphemus. It is precisely becauseHobbes used language in this way that his translation of Homer isso ludicrous. Wordsworth broke down in his theory, that thelanguage of poetry should be the every-day speech of men and women,though he nearly succeeded in finally extirpating “poeticdiction.” We think the proper antithesis is not betweenprosaic and poetic words, nor between the speech of actual life anda conventionalized diction, but between the language ofreal life (which is something different from the actual,or matter-of-fact) and that of artificial life, orsociety,—that is, between phrases fit to express the highestpassion, feeling, aspiration, and those adapted to the intercourseof polite life, whence all violent emotion, or, at least, theexpression of it, is excluded. This latter highly artificial andpolished dialect is accordingly as suitable to the Mock-Heroic(like “The Rape of the Lock”) as it is inefficient andeven distasteful when employed for the higher and more seriouspurposes of poetry. It was most fortunate for English poetry thatour translation of the Bible and Shakspeare arrested our language,and, as it were, crystallized it, precisely at its freshest andmost vigorous period, giving us an inexhaustible mine of wordsfamiliar to the heart and mind, yet unvulgarized to the ear bytrivial associations.

The whole question of Homeric translation in its entire range,between Chapman on the one hand and Pope and Cowper on the other,is opened afresh by this controversy. The difficulty of theundertaking, and still more of dogmatizing on the proper mode ofexecuting it, is manifest from the fact that Mr. Newman is quite assuccessful in turning some specimens of Mr. Arnold’s intoridicule as the latter had been with his. Meanwhile we commend thetwo little books to our readers as containing an able andentertaining discussion on a question of general and permanentinterest, and as showing that the “Quarrels of Authors”may be conducted in a dignified and scholarly way.

OBITUARY.

The last English steamer brings us the sad news of the death ofArthur Hugh Clough. Mr. Clough had so many personal friends, aswell as warm admirers, in America, that his death will be felt bynumbers of our readers both as a private grief and a public loss.The earth will not soon close over a man of more lovely characteror more true and delicate genius. This is not the place or theoccasion to do justice to the many eminent qualities of his heartand mind, and we only allude to his death at all because in him the“Atlantic” has lost one of its most valuedcontributors.

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